Carrot & Oat Cookies - UK recipe

I had an urge last week, to make carrot & oat cookies. I quite often get an urge to bake, but will usually be in my pyjamas and very unwilling to leave the house (even though we have a few supermarkets within a minute walk of the house!!) and so will do a sweep of the cupboards and fridge to see what I have, and then try to find and tailor a recipe to what I have in the house.

Last week, I had a huge bag of carrots in the fridge, and an unopened bag of oats in the cupboard, and not much else in the way of interesting baking ingredients, and so I thought that carrot oat cookies would be a tasty, healthy (?) baking treat!

Unfortunately, all the recipes that I could find were American, and I just don't get all this 'cup' measuring.

In the end, I gave up with trying to search for an English recipe, picked an American on, and got busy translating.

So here is my recipe (also slightly adapted to what I had in the cupboards!!)

170g of butter or baking spread (I used Stork)
50g of dark brown muscavado sugar
125g of castor sugar
*note that the recipe called for 175g of brown sugar, but I used what I had in the cupboard, and though they were fabulous!
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
250g plain flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
300g porridge oats
150g grated carrot
milk, to add until it makes a slightly sticky dough


1. Preheat the oven to 190 degrees (180 for a fan oven, and lightly grease a couple of baking trays.

2. Beat the butter and sugars together until smooth and creamy. Add the beaten egg, and vanilla extract and beat well.

3. In another bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, bicarbonate of soda, and nutmeg. Stir into the butter and sugar mixture until well mixed.

4. Fold in the oats and carrots and add the milk until it forms a sticky dough.

5. Drop mounds of dough, around 8cm in diameter onto the baking tray, and flatten with the back of a spoon, until they are about 2cm high.

6. Bake for 10-12 minutes until the edges are lightly browned.

7. Eat!!! Mmmmmm!

Felt Name Banners

I've had the idea for a while to make felt name banners, using some of the felt animals from my baby mobiles, but with a hand stitched felt name in the middle, so they are very personalised.

I started with the elephants, as these are the ones I make most for my mobiles, and then went on to try some of my other favourite mobile shapes.....

I obviously had to make an Amy one first, so it goes with my stall!

Making A May Fair

I went on a very fun (and very wet and windy) photo shoot to Norfolk, in September, and spent a lot of time making some pretty may fair scenes. I love working with ribbons, and being outside, so this was a perfect shoot for me to be working on.

Here are some pictures...

Drying out the ribbons after they'd got wet and muddy throughout the shoot. I had to wash and then dry them ready for the next day!!

Dressing a lovely tree branch with ribbons and a swing.

One calm moment when the wind dropped...

....it turned into a beautiful, sunny day!

Untangling the ribbons ready to dress the next tree was less fun....

A fun, fair, spring tea party!

Biscuits, flowers & lemonade - a perfect tea time spread!

Must keep the biscuits safe!!

The whole spread

....And finally, I made friends with a very cute little piglet. Shame he's no longer around, but I bet he's made some pretty tasty sausages and bacon. Mmmmm bacon....

Handmade Clothes Week

I was given the challenge, last week, of wearing at least one item of hand made clothing, every day. Now this is not too hard a challenge for me, as I do have quite a lot of clothes that I've made myself, but they are more summery items, and I was setting up for our school play last week, so on some days got pretty hot and covered in dust!

Anyway, I accepted the challenge, and here are some photos...

Monday - Handmade Skirt

I made this skirt a few years ago, from a piece of fabric from a bag that I got from a charity shop. The fabric had a few moth holes, so I had to design an item around where the holes were! It has a wide elastic paper bag style waist, which is really comfy, and is knee length, so good for school!

Tuesday - Handmade T-shirt & Handmade Dungarees

I was quite pleased to be wearing double handmade today! This spotty T-shirt is really old, I made it at uni as a mock up for a real item I made. At the time, this spotty black and white jersey fabric was on sale, and so I think was the cheapest jersey in our local fabric shop! 

I made this dungaree dress last weekend, after feeling that I'd made enough things for others for the moment and have been having urges to make things for me! I based it on another dungaree dress that I have, and this one is made from black needlecord, with big shiny buttons, and also sits on the knee. 

Wednesday - Fun Animals Dress

I made this dress last year, after spotting this fabric in one my local shops, and absolutely having to buy it! It is a beautiful cotton lawn, with lots of animals all over it, and slightly quirky, as some have boots on, and others have suitcases. It has a ruched waist, and fun clock buttons down the front, which I bought a few years ago in a market in France. 

Thursday - Double Handmade again!

Today it was freezing! And as I was wondering around outside quite a lot, I also wore my new knitted hat for a lot of the day. I knitted this in January, after I received some beautiful wool for Christmas. I found this stitch on a knitting blog, and thought it was fabulous (I will post the pattern later!)

I also wore my brand new denim chambray dress. I also made this last weekend, when I'd had the urge to sew for me #selfishsewing. This dress has tie shoulders, and a wide elastic at the waist, so is very comfortable, and is based on a design I've had in my head for a very long time. 

Friday - Chevron Sun Dress

And then it was Friday. This was the last night of our play, so I had to dress up a bit. I wore one of my favourite dresses, that I made a while ago, after discovering a beautiful new fabric shop down the road from my house, and I love it. I have worn it so so much! To make it fancy, I teamed it with a navy sparkly jumper, and I was very pleased with how it looked!

I love wearing clothes I've made myself, as it means that are different to anything else I see anyone else wearing, and also they fit me perfectly! I often find that shop bought dresses are too short, which is not suitable to wear at school, so I love making my own, so that they can be exactly the length I want!