The Victorian way - The fifth door

I don't remember how I first discovered Mrs Crocombe on English Heritage's YouTube channel or which one was the first video I watched, but like many others, judging from all the comments, I became a fan of the good lady immediately. Those videos are made so beautifully.
Avis Crocombe is no fictional character, she was the cook to the Braybrooke family who spent the summers at Audley End House, their country mansion in Essex (I wish I had known about it when we were in Cambridge, so we could have gone there). A visitor to the house recognized the name which had been mentioned in a book handwritten by his aunt. This aunt was Avis Crocombe and it was her recipe book that he then donated to English Heritage. Most of The Victorian Way shows Mrs Crocombe preparing some of those recipes.

This Christmas punch looks like something I could make. I'd just need some ginger wine and some more people to help me drink it unless I find out the perfect measurements to make some only for myself ;-)

Oldies but Goodies - Victorian

The Victorian era from 1837 to 1901 is of course named after Queen Victoria and her reign during that time. I found an article in Collector's Weekly which explains what Victorian jewelry looked like if you are interested.
As you know the Jewelry Artisans Community Oldies but Goodies Challenge is not that strict in its rules. I don't think any of us members made something with specifically having the Victorian era in mind, so our challenge master put it like this "Most anything that is ornate will work".
Here's a little selection from what was shown, as usual you will find all the entries under the link above. We hope you'll have a look!

1 Violetmoon's Corner
2 Jewelry Art by Dawn
3 Cat's Wire
4 MC Stoneworks
5 RioRita
6 Betoj Designs

Mabel is exploring her romantic streak

A few weeks ago I was given a DVD to watch, Victoria & Albert. I guess it woke the romantic in Mabel (before I get asked, no, I did not watch the Royal Wedding).

It started out with a seed bead destash lot I had gotten a while ago. Sometimes it does have something calming to put seed beads on a wire, hundreds, thousands of them. Actually it always takes me back to a certain day in my early teenagehood - when we met at a friend's house to put together a self-made "journal", a project in my German class. Our journal was about animals. It might have been a real market niche then, hadn't we "stolen" the articles from all kinds of other publications. Don't get me wrong, we were not supposed to write the articles ourselves, we probably would have needed a year for that. I still have it, by the way. I got it because I wrote all the articles by hand and because my brother contributed that cool article about the sharks. Anyway, I remember that when we were brainstorming that day, I was putting together a looooong seed bead necklace.

Sorry, I'm back from the land of memories now, now we can get back to nostalgia and romantic muses ;-)

Here are two pieces Mabel made me crochet (the links underneath the pictures lead to the listings). Of course I had seen designs like them before, but somehow I never tried it myself. I still got more of those seed beads you know. I wonder what they'll end up in.

Old blue lace (with blue goldstone)

Old yellow lace (with tiger eye)