What happened?

Did I fall from the face of the Earth? Euh, non... Still here, been actually tweeting and pinning quite a lot recently - what you are not following me yet @NoasLibellule?? What are you waiting for! I just took a break from sharing on the blog. And to be honest I missed it. I always knew I would be back when I was ready. And I am ... to tell you I am leaving again. What?  Yes, I am leaving soon to a brand new space. This blog is going to see its ending, and a brand new spanking one will take its place, with a new mood board. 

You may have seen the MiH board appeared on my pinterest a couple of weeks ago. I am working with a blog designer on the new blog, and I was looking for inspiration for her, so that she could put my vision into a beautiful new blog. SO exciting! 


It will be a sad moment to leave this blog. But it is time to move to something new. The launch is due in May, and from now to then I will share progress with the new blog, review my best and worst projects, what has become of them (do I actually use those things that I made?)... and bid my virtual alter-ego Noas'Libellule farewell. But it will be fun, with more great and exciting projects coming up.  

Last week was quite surreal. All good, just a lot to take in. So when it comes to reviewing what has been done, well not a lot. I am still DESPERATELY trying to finish Winnowing - well actually the border, which is so clever. It is taking me forever, and it is literally eating yarn. I am now rewarding myself if I do one repeat of charts B & C every night. Yes, it has come to this - does nayone do it like this for project they are struggling with?  I am thinking that I need to re-order some Rowan Kidsilk Aura, nooooo. Everyone who has seen the project in real is impressed, I am on the other hand fed up. 

Winnowing in progress on Saturday night

So I was glad to receive I receive this picture in my inbox today... 

Note, it is a German friend who sent it... 

Hope you all had a good Monday! 

How much verification do we need?

Did you notice that blogger now asks you to prove you are not a robot by typing two 'words' (they are not actual word, are they?). I had the same problem, until Lucy 'kindly' told me to turn it off. As it annoys me as well when I want to comment, I did a bit of research and turned it off. I have the embedded comment setting for my comments. 

yes the fuzzy font and its size do not help either 

So please, if you are also annoyed to have to give two words to justify you are not a robot - stop your own verification system... It is simple, and here is how you do it.. 

If you are still on the old Dashboard Interface, just skip to Step 2.  Otherwise, start below at Step 1.

1.  Go to your OVERVIEW page, click on the ‘wrench’ icon (far top right corner of your overview page) and select Old Blogger Interface

2. You are back to your old Dashboard, select SETTINGS

3. In the SETTINGS tab you have a few sub-tabs, select COMMENTS

4. Scroll down, you will find word verification yes or no >>>>>> NO

5. SAVE SETTINGS

6. Go back to your DASHBOARD, just above the dashboard box, above the language box, you have 'try the updated Blogger interface'. You are back!! 

7. Lucy as prepared a little widget for your blog to show that you turned off your word verification.. Add it to your blog!  

  

I turned it off last weekend, and I have not had any spam (and you may say it is because I don't have as many visitors as other blogs) but I'd rather have to deal with spams and comments, rather than no comment because people are annoyed with my blog.. 

Place mat tutorial

 The Valentine's Day place mats I mentioned last Wednesday are finally finished! I was not sure about the binding and in the end used the colour of the writing. The pink fabric is from Summersville available at Etsy. 

Finished! 

 So how did I write the quote on the linen fabric and followed the Wit and Whistle tutorial. Here is what you need: 

• Linen fabric
• Fabric Marker Pen (Sharpie pen)
• Letter stencil

I would advise you to put pages underneath...

Here we are.. Simple really. Let me know if you are making one!


It is Wednesday... Just... SO I am linking up to WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced. Placemats are finished, yeah! I can move on to the next quilt - involving shirts and upcycling, more on this next week...

Britain in our Kitchen Unplugged {Pancake Day Special}

Project_Goddess mentioned on her blog of a food bloggers challenge which is going on at the moment, called Food Bloggers Unplugged. The aim is to learn a little more about the foodies we follow on Twitter or read about on their blogs. My blog, and especially this blog, is not a 'food blog', but this is such a big part of my life now because of our Britain in our Kitchen challenge that I thought it would be good to enter - on pancake day . As I am finding it increasingly hard to cope with two blogs this is where my entry is!

Picture from the Good Housewife's Encyclopedia, 1963 

What, or who inspired you to start a blog?

It is actually a film - but I suppose blogging related - Julie and Julia with Meryl Streep and Amy Adams. Thinking about it now, it is quite funny that it is a food related film. 

Who is your foodie inspiration?

Mamy (yes the one and only, my Grandma for those who missed the Christmas knitting adventure) - for the full fat contents, the fact that the concept of being vegetarian escaped her totally ('but surely rabbit is OK') and the fact that she would wake up at 5am just to to cook, I mean hello that is serious commitment to cooking. I find it hard to relate to chefs if I am honest, I love eating their food but for the home... not really. My other Grandma made some amazing cakes, pancakes and the best ever ever macaroni cheese. She was a good cook, but less interested in the enjoyment of food I suppose. 

Your greasiest, batter-splattered food/drink book is?

Marmiton for the French recipe and BBC Good Food for the British ones. I am also starting to have some vintage cooking books (I really want the Julia Childs one of course)... And I think the one I bought over the weekend, the Good HouseKeeping's Cookery Compedium first published 1952. For the Britain in our Kitchen challenge it is brilliant because it does everything from scratch with mostly British ingredients - nothing fancy, just very good basics. 

The latest book on my selves

Also our friends prepared as a surprise wedding present a cooking book with their favourite recipes. The first one being secret pancake recipe. 

Tell us all about the best thing you have ever eaten in another country, where was it, what was it?

I think it would have to be either in Thailand during our honeymoon - grilled squid or a Green curry from a small bar/restaurant on the beach - or in Morocco - we were invited (not sure how we manage to gate crash that event) to an event in a riad and they had some wonderful canapes influenced by French and Morrocan cuisine. Oh, also when I worked in Vietman, I was invited to one of my colleagues' home - delicious Vietnamese food.

Another food blogger’s table you’d like to eat at is?

I would love to eat with someone at the smitten kitchen. 

What is the one kitchen gadget you would ask Santa for this year (money no object of course)?

I am not sure that the problem is really money - but space, I would love a combi oven. Oh and I need a pressure cooker as well. 

Who taught you how to cook?

Surprise, surprise my Grandma. She brought me up so that was bound to happen really. I suppose Mum also helped me with the basics - then you sort of learn along the way. 

I’m coming to you for dinner. What’s your signature dish?

I do a mean fish pie, but at the moment it is probably the pearl barley leek and bacon risotto - because it is usually unexpected. I suppose if it was tonight, it would be pancakes though (Grandma no2 secret pancake recipe). 

What is your guilty food pleasure?

Cheese - all of them. I am terrible. I am sure I could live on cheese, actually I should have done that challenge - one year eating cheese.

Reveal something about yourself that others would be surprised to learn?

That is quite tough... ok here it is. I have no Jamie Oliver book, not one. I really liked him, but there is so much Jamie Oliver a girl can take. 

If you fancy having a go at answering the questions, do so on your blog and link in the comments below. I'd love to see your answers.

Latest Pins to Inspire

I thought it would be fun to share some of my latest pins - pinterest is really so full of inspiration. This is a bit of a mix, I hope you will enjoy it

1. This cute DIY for putting away my current crochet projects - what do we reckon, 20 minutes max? 

2. I love that outfit. I really need a red polka dot top and green trousers - I should not work, but totally does. And that bag..  This is definitely on my sewing project for March (I am finally taking a course!!)

3. Thinking Easter Eggs au naturel...I think that would be a hit for Britain in our Kitchen. 

4. I am officially in love with Anthology27 on Etsy and any of the earrings. 

Interesting colour coordination - not one of my obsessions? 

 5. And finally I want the squirrels in my garden to be this funny! 

Stop!!! 

So, what has inspired you this week? 

In progress and a real IT achievement (for me)! (Updated!)

It is Wednesday, and therefore it is W.I.P. Wednesday over at Freshly Pieced. 

What to report ... I made some progress with my two placemats for Valentine's Day (yes that would be for yesterday... or 14th Feb 2013 as the case may be now). Actually I saw it coming and I did not over do it on the hearts, so we may be able to use them before next year. 

The left hand side fabric is from Summersville on Etsy,
and right hand side one some linen fabric bought on Amazon

A tutorial to come on how I printed the quote on the linen fabric. Who can guess what it says? 


I can report NO progress on the shirt patchwork ... so there is no point to talk about it. 



I also need to make something out of these fabulous scraps I received from Indianna Dreams. As none of us really had some scraps, we decided to swap some fabric pieces. I was SO excited about it. She chose so well for me - look at all the grey and yellow. Need to put on my thinking cap now... 

Scraps

Winnowing is on its way, I am at that stage when I misjudged how much yarn I needed, and I am waiting, anxiously I may add, for that package. 

Winnowing waiting to be finished

FINALLY! I do have a button you can grab on the right-hand side bar... It took me AGES to get there... for something that is quite easy in the end... But everyone seems to have a different way to do it. (Sorry for those who came on this post before the updated version, it did not work, it should be fixed now and you can actually have your button...)

Anyway here are the steps I followed (a mix of different helpful blogger suggestions):


1. Choose your picture (I used my banner one... made sense right). I edited the picture with Picnik. 


2. I resized it to 125x 150 (should not be bigger than 150 to make sure it fits on other bloggers side bars)


3. Upload the picture to an online photo gallery service. I tried through Picasa, but my picture never appeared in the end (if someone managed to resolve that problem, please let me know). So I used Photobucket in the end - it is free and very fast. You get the HTML of your picture on the right hand-side.


4.Got to layout in blogger, to the design bar, and add an HTML gadget to the place you want your button to show. 


5. You can add a title ('Grab my button')


6. Copy the HTML Code you can find here. 


7. Paste the above HTML Code into the HTML gadget


8. Replace YOUR WEB ADDRESS by your blog address


9. Replace BLOG TITLE by a blog title of your choice (mine says Inspirations for Handmade)


10. Replace the IMAGE HTML ADDRESS by the HTML Code you found on Photobucket


11. Save it, test it and let me know how you got on!