Knitting, Travelling and DIY: The Urban Cottage in 2014.

I've spotted lots of people doing a year in review on their blogs, going through their blog stats to see what has been most popular each month. Never one to miss an opportunity to look at the numbers I decided to join in, so here I give you 2014 at The Urban Cottage; a year of knitting, travelling and DIY. January. The year got off to a rocky start as we confessed that our house had sprung a...

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Photo Friday

and that's all folks! We're off for our traditional Christmas break (is two years traditional?), where we can relax and enjoy time with family and friends without the pressures of writing blog posts. We'll be back in January, but until then Merry Christm...

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Homespun Hat

When we got home a couple of weeks ago I had nothing on my needles and was on the hunt for a project. I had two criteria for a new knit - it had to be the compete antidote to thin and lacy, and it had to be simple enough to do while tired from travel. Actually tired doesn't really cover it - for some reason this final leg has really knocked me for six. Essentially this project had to cope with me...

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Photo Friday

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Vernal Equinox Shawl

Its time to reveal the results of my Travel Knitting plan. My Vernal Equinox shawl has been finished, for the most part, for about a month now - but only this week did I get a chance to block it and boy does that make a difference! I loved making this shawl - it was always interesting to work on, and just when you think you've memorised one of the pattern blocks a new one would come along to...

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Life's a Game 12: Best of British

This year we're sharing with you our game of the month. These are all favourites from our collection, or ones we play with our friends. December's game is Best of British. Time for the final game in this years collection, and its a good'un. You may have noticed a lack of trivia games in these posts - time now to correct that. Over the years we've had many a fun evening playing Trivial Pursuit,...

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Photo Friday

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December in the Chicken Coop

We might have been away from home for months, but our three girls have been getting on with life very much as before. They seemed a little surprised to see us when we got back, but a few rattles on the crucial corn tin and they came over to check out what was going on as usual. With nothing much growing at the moment they've got free reign on the vegetable patch as well as the rest of the garden,...

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A Postcard from Bangkok

What a week! Bangkok was so different from everywhere we've been so far that for it took a little getting used to. The heat, at night in particular, was almost more than we could cope with. However, cope we did and as a city it was an interesting one to explore. Worth a mention certainly is the range of transport available, from the lovely air conditioned skytrain to the buses that are barely more...

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Photo Friday - Khlong Phadung Krung Kasem

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Creativity for the Uncreative by Chloe

Until recently I shied away from being described as creative. As an author, I suppose it was a reasonable description, but even when my first novel was published I didn't feel as if the title suited me. Creative people wear smocks and multiple piercings, they practise mindfulness at sunrise and stay up half the night discussing philosophy. They don’t wear jeans and spill fruit juice down their t-shirts...

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A Postcard from Sydney

Much of this week has been spent travelling, or preparing to travel. We packed up all we could from our two months in New Zealand and on Tuesday we headed for Auckland and our homewards flights. The first of our two stops on this final leg was three nights in Sydney; not enough to do justice to this interesting city but we gave it a go with a whistlestop tour of the highlights. We stopped by...

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Photo Friday - Lake Waikeramoana

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Kitchen Gadget 11. Non-stick Sheets

A long time ago, back when this Kitchen Gadgets series was in its infancy, we talked about pizza. We mentioned in passing that we use non-stick sheets to stop our pizza sticking to its baking tray. It might have been a fleeting reference but the truth is that we have a growing collection of these sheets and we love them. We use them nigh on constantly. You might then ask why it has taken us so long...

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Wineries and (more) Waterfalls

So, it finally comes to an end. This has been our last week in New Zealand and I both can't believe that two months has gone so fast and feel like it's been an age since we last saw friends and family in the UK. We started this week with a trip to Lake Waikaremoana; a stunningly large lake set high up in the mountains. We took a long afternoon to climb to the top of one of the peaks surrounding the...

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