Fridays are lovely aren't they?
The working week winds down and if you're like me there's a bit of loose-end tying up, putting things back in their places, sewing preparations planned for the weekend, a final run through the week's check list in my diary, and if all goes well I give a jolly good satisfied sigh about 5pm.
Mr E doesn't quite know himself these past five weeks being back at school teaching again. After two years of six-day weeks selling used cars he pinches himself on Saturday mornings to check this is real and he can now stay home for the entire weekend!
Of course teaching comes home with him as many hours go into planning classes, writing tests and marking papers, but the point is that he's here at home where he can take a break whenever he needs to and I can brew us a cuppa and serve a slice or two of something delicious. Like this...
I wondered if perhaps you'd like to try some?
Bananas, dates and ginger baked as a loaf style cake has long been one of my favourites to serve with a pot of tea in the afternoon, especially when the children were eager to play outside as I could cut away thick slices for them to 'carry on their way' without them having to worry about a sticky mess on their clothes and hands with nowhere to wash it away.
You can download the recipe HERE or click on the photo below to enlarge it and save to your computer,
This week in our Gentle Domesticity Facebook group we're putting our heads together to share ideas for simple gifts to make through the year for Christmas, birthdays, pay-it-forward, swaps, or other occasions.
The ideas can be free patterns or tutorials we've found on other blogs, Pinterest etc, or perhaps projects we've created ourselves.
The only stipulation is to keep them as simple as possible, the kind you can make in a day.
They could be sewing, papercrafts, knitting, crochet, baking, preserves, jewellery, pot plants...I'm sure we'll hear about things we would not have considered before!
In a week or two I will compile all the ideas and links into a single document which will be stored in our group files for any member to access or download.
Having something like this in one place, in one PDF file, will certainly be a great resource for gift ideas!
Our Gentle Domesticity group has grown to over 1600 members now and if you'd like to join you are most welcome, but perhaps you'd rather share your gift ideas here in the blog comments?
That's great! Please do so, and once the file is ready (and as long as I am able to contact you via email) I'll send you the file when it's done.
To start the ball rolling with a quick gift idea, here's one I designed back in 2013.
It's a gift 'card' which is also a needle-book or tea wallet, and features an invitation to meet up for tea.
Though originally I did this as a Christmas pattern, it can be used any time of the year.
Open it up and you have some pretty felt for needles and pins, and a pocket for tea bags or a pack of needles. It even fits in an envelope ready for posting!
Wouldn't you like to receive this in the mail from a friend?
The pattern is a free gift from me to you and includes detailed instructions for the embroidery and sewing the needle-book.
That's it from the blog this birthday week. I can hear Mr E's Jeep pulling in to the driveway and I still have a newsletter to send off so it might be nice to take twenty minutes for cake and a cuppa with him first...
May your weekend be blessed, happy, creative, and refreshing!
hugs
14 comments:
I have a few bananas thatvlook like they need to be bajed in something, so I will try this rwcipe our this weekend. And thank you for the pattern, I'll make one or two and start my gift box!
Thank you So Much! Too Cute!
Carol O
Thank you for the yummy recipe and free pattern! I hope you have a blessed day....
How about some homemade granola as a gift (it's on my mind because I just made some this morning)? This is not something that you can make ahead and store for long lengths of time, but it takes less than one hour to make. I use the following recipe for Triple Chocolate Crunch Granola, with a few changes:
http://sallysbakingaddiction.com/2012/12/04/triple-chocolate-crunch-granola/
My changes: I bake at 250 degrees F for 25 minutes because I found that 350 degrees was too hot and resulted in the chocolate starting to get that burnt smell and taste. I don't add the chocolate covered raisins or other add-ins. I like chocolate covered raisins, but not in my granola. I use miniature chocolate chips because they seem to blend better than the regular size. (I guess this means that my granola is double, not triple, chocolate.) I've always used honey as the liquid sweetener in mine.
I haven't done the calculations, but I'm pretty sure that this homemade granola is significantly less expensive that any I can buy in the store. It also has the added advantage that I know exactly what is in it. I store my granola in a plastic container (GladWare). It lasts about 7-8 days - not because it goes bad but because I eat it for breakfast everyday. It eat it with frozen berries (thawed in the microwave) and plain Greek yogurt. Yum!
Thank you, it is adorable!
Jenny, thank you for the recipe and cute pattern!
Really cute Jenny!
Hola Jenny! te escribo desde Buenos Aires, Argentina. Es un placer recibir cada semana tus mails con todos los consejos y bellos trabajos en bordado. Esta es mi última aficción, la que me está tomando mis tiempos libres. La otra es el tejido, pero lo dejo para los días fríos. Acá, en nuestro país, hace mucho calor como debo creer que hace en Australia en estos momentos!!
Por lo que el bordado me hace olvidar, dentro de lo posible, las altas temperaturas.
Sigo buscando ideas en tu blog!
Un abrazo !!
Claudia Crea
Happy Birthday Week Jenny.
Darn, my phone even went off to remind me to send you birthday greetings, and I STILL spaced it! I hope you find a good day to celebrate since you weren't feeling great. I do like your gift idea, and the loaf sounds delicious. It makes me happy to think of Mr. E puttering around the house, yard, car or whatever he wants on Saturday, instead of going in to that nasty job!
I know just how your Hubby feels! I have spent the past 5 years working six days a week, split shifts, and am now pinching myself because I have two days off together...Sunday/Monday. It feels soooooo good (and a bit odd)!
Thank you for your generosity, encouragement and inspiration, Jenny. I love reading your blog!
I just spent an afternoon making flannel pillowcases for Christmas presents from this pattern...http://www.allpeoplequilt.com/millionpillowcases/images/millionpillowcases/2015/pdfs/Basic-Pillowcase-Pattern-2015.pdf. so simple and a great way to use up some pretty fabric in my stash. I would love the file when it is done!!
Hi Jenny, thank you for another lovely post, your cake looks delicious, I love ginger and have overripe bananas in the freezer dates&ginger in the pantry so set to go and will try adapting to gluten free, a piece of cake so comforting with a cuppa, thank you, oh and love your new cup and saucer. The gift ideas wonderful, a dear friend (who doesn't craft) loves the lavender filled shoe stuffers I made from recycled sandwich tray embroidered doilies (a pair from cutting one in half (already an ideal shape) adding gingham for the back and tops filled with some stuffing and lavender and tied with ribbon) and keeping the crocheted edge, so easy but she initially thought I also stitched the embroidery and crocheted the edge. I love ideas for recycling doilies, oh a table runner from joining crocheted doilies different shapes and sizes and colour also look lovely (guess the addition of embroidered doilies also would work) and be put together quickly, just catching (with a few stitches) edges or overlaps together. Another idea I have gifted covered coat hanger made from a large oval shaped recycled doiley (to size), looks very pretty, maybe hard to imagine but just a snip in the centre to slip over the hook of padded wooden coat hanger stitch both sides together along length below the base of hanger and around the ends and wrap hook with ribbon and stitch in place. Also a coat hanger dust cover can incorporate recycled embroidered or crochet doilies or own embroidery insert, and can also make matching set with covered coat hanger. Oh also another favourite lavender bags from recycled doilies. I recently bought from a community craft group a crocheted edge face washer which was folded to look like a small bag (it has cardboard in the folding to shape) was wrapped in celophane and a bar of fragrant soap also wrapped and placed inside held in with celotape and ribbon added to look like a handle, hard to describe but it does look very effective and great gift idea, the washer also has a machine embroidered design in the corner facing as the bag flap, but hand embroidery also an option A collected list of made in a day or less a wonderful idea Jenny, sometimes hard to think of something different and appropriate at times so will be interesting to see what ideas come up, exciting. Thank you for your lovely stitchery and gift idea, wonderful can slip into an envelope too, can be lovely gift to send off to friend just because. Hope you have a lovely weekend with Mr E and his new job going well, coming into teaching later an advantage to students and Mr E's previous life experiences valuable, probably both ways.Thank you for all you offer Jenny, very inspiring, now thinking of this years gifts.Hope you are well as can be, Judithann :-)x
This recipe is a keeper! Yummy made it this morning for my husband and I. Delicious!! Thank you! And thanks for the pattern. Going to do some simple stitching myself today. Happy birthday week
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