New kits and banana bread!

The March edition of the Bustle & Sew Magazine was published last week and all subscribers should now have received their copies.  There’s a real feeling of spring between the pages, inspired by the countryside around our village where the snowdrops, first flowers of the new season, are still blooming, now accompanied by daffodils, hellebores, crocuses and even the first primroses.  The hazel catkins are giving way to fuzzy pussy willow and early almond trees and of course the blackthorn are all in blossom too.  I even saw the faintest dusting of green along a sheltered hawthorn hedge last week, and though it’s likely we’ll still have more cold weather this month, the days are significantly longer now and  spring has definitely sprung – at least here in Somerset!

There’s been a lot of busy bustling here at Bustle and Sew HQ over the last couple of weeks too as we’ve been super-busy putting together our new embroidery kits.  We now have a good supply of kits available over in our Etsy store..  All our kits use only the nicest ingredients – pure cotton fabric and genuine DMC embroidery floss – the exact same that I like to use myself.  The kits currently available are shown below….

just CLICK HERE to see full details.  (and postage within the UK is free too!).

In spite of all this busy-ness I’ve found time to enjoy some baking lately and I thought I’d share my current favourite recipe with you – my mum’s Banana Loaf……

• Pre-heat your oven to 180C, 350F or Gas Mark 6.
• Place 100g butter, softened, 175g golden caster sugar, 2 large eggs, 2 ripe bananas, mashed, 225g self-raising flour, 1 teaspoon baking powder and 2 tablespoons of milk into a mixing bowl and beat together until well-blended.
• Spoon into greased and lined loaf tin and bake in the centre of the oven for about 1 hour until well-risen and golden brown.  A knife or skewer inserted into the centre of the cake should come out clean.
• Cool in the tin for a few minutes, then turn out and leave on a wire rack until completely cool.  Try not to eat all at once!