By Tess.

Last time I was here I wrote about being a crafting butterfly and flitting from project to project. Since then I have managed to focus a little more and have narrowed down the projects to just two.  The quilt I am sewing is making progress and is now nearly ready for the binding.

I had the help of one of my working from home office assistants earlier in the week, well apparently he was helping, although I am yet to determine the actual benefit….

Evenings are for knitting and my vine lace scarf is growing. I love how the pattern is so different in the 4ply, the texture is delicate and I can’t wait to see how it looks when it is blocked. The samples that I made were transformed by blocking and I know this will be too.

The lace pattern is perfect for knitting right now, the simple combination of yarn overs and decreases is enough to keep it interesting but not so hard that my easily distracted mind loses track and can’t cope. Although I must confess that one or two rows have been frogged back, but that could be to do with becoming engrossed in a movie and not paying attention at all!

Of course all crafting and working from home must be fuelled by cake and this weeks recipe is from a lovely friend who is an artist, writer and mental health advocate. This week is mental health week and Emma writes eloquently about the benefits of crafts and the natural world and her instagram account is a thing of beauty.

Emma’s Crumble Cake

• Ingredients
• 250g plain flour
• 125g oats
• 100g soft brown sugar
• 200g butter
• fruit – seasonal soft fruits, apples, or pears.

• Method
• melt the butter and mix in the dried ingredients
• press half the mixture firmly into a lined baking tin – mine is cm x cm
• spread the fruit on
• crumble the remaining mixture over the fruit layer
• bake at 200C (180C fan) for 25-30mins
• cool then cut into squares.

This recipe is perfect for using up whatever fruit you have, I used two apples that were a little soft and stewed them up gently first with a little sugar and cinnamon and put this mixture on one end of the tray and used some raspberries that were lurking in the freezer for the other end. I also just used white granulated sugar as due to lockdown shopping I’m making use of what there is instead of making a trip to the shops for speciality items.