NEW YEAR AND NEW PINCUSHION

Welcome to 2009 and also welcome to the latest addition to my pincushion buddies. Ellie Octopus is made in a sunshine yellow yarn, she is a sweet and useful addition to anyone's sewing accessories. Ellie is now available to purchase in my Etsy store.

I have had a couple of bad colds over the Christmas and New Year period which have stopped me from making new items and posting on my blog. I am slowly getting over them and looking forward to getting back into creating and posting.

Luckily I wasn't struck down until after Christmas Day so I was able to enjoy the festivities with my family. On Christmas Eve I managed to make an old fashioned sherry trifle, I hadn't made one of these for years. It turned out really well and it was as delicious as I had remembered. I had 4 egg whites left over from this so I had a go at making meringues. This was the very first time I had attempted them but they were so easy and they were perfect, crispy on the outside and chewy in the middle. The other things I had a go at were Pudini bon bons which were featured on one of Nigella Lawsons' episodes. They were made with a mixture of christmas pudding, dark chocolate, sherry and golden syrup. The mixture was then rolled into small balls and then decorated with melted white chocolate and small pieces of cherries. The idea was to make them look like old fashioned Christmas puddings. They were very nice, but very rich.