Learning to Crochet....and Preserving Lemons

Apparently the number of craft activities I can become obsessed about is ever-increasing. The latest is learning to crochet. I have wanted to know how to crochet for ages....I have a lovely blanket that my Nanna crocheted probably even before I was born, and it's my favourite blanket that I pull out each winter. I'd love to make one myself. So with some (very patient) help from J's mum combined with some useful instructions I found in a lovely craft book: "Meet me at Mike's" by Pip Lincolne, I have finally managed to complete my first crochet 'granny square'! This will be the first square of my blanket. I have chosen a random assortment of wool to make the blanket so that I dont need to worry if I run out and have to buy different wool. The only restrictions I'm putting on it is that it has to be some shade of blue, and it needs to be 8ply wool (real wool not synthetic crap). Not sure how long it will take to make a whole blanket, it took me a fair while to make the first granny square but hopefully should get quicker as I get more experience...

Also we were recently given a massive bag of lemons from someone at J's work whose lemon tree had a glut of fruit. So I have made a couple of lemon tarts in the last week or so (but that only used 2-3 lemons per tart), so today I decided to use up a lot more of the lemons before they spoil by trying to make some Preserved Lemons for use in Moroccan recipes. I followed instructions in one of my cookbooks: "Cooking Moroccan" (ISBN 1-74045-448-0). Now I just need to wait about 4 weeks to see if it worked! :-)