Grub-by quilt

We had a momentous meeting last night: with our best friends' new baby, The Grub! He was born two weeks ago but we went on holiday almost immediately afterwards, and yesterday was the first time we could get down to see them all. He does, of course, have a proper name, but his parents (whom I will call Vet Mum and Vet Dad) called him The Grub while he was gestating, and it seems to have stuck. He's a real cutie little bean and enjoys dancing with his dad already. The Scientist and Vet Dad have been best friends since they were about eight, and The Scientist was Vet Dad's best man, so it was a pretty big deal seeing them becoming parents. In fact, one of the first stories The Scientist told me on our first proper date was how Vet Dad had rung him one morning and woken him up to tell him that he'd proposed. And, in fact again, The Scientist had been with Vet Mum and Dad the evening before our first ever date, and told them all about this new girl he'd met. Awwww.



We went bearing gifts - pizza for dinner, a pretty photo frame for the Grubbery, a bottle of whiskey from the Bushmill's distillery to toast the new arrival, and of course, a patchwork quilt. I wanted to use an animal theme and found the most gorgeous pattern on an American website called From Me to You. They were really helpful and put the pattern in the post before they'd even charged me the money! I try not to have favourites among the quilts I make because I make each one with thoughts of the people they're going to be for - but this one was a bit special, not least because of who it was for. It was probably the most complicated one I've made for one thing, but I just loved the animals, too. The most time-consuming part was all the little 9-blocks in the top section's background, which are individually sewn. Fortunately for me, The Grub was a bit late, which meant that with some furious sewing on our holiday. I could have it done by the time we saw him.

Since we were taking dinner I thought I'd throw in some dessert, too, and whipped up some brownies. I tried a different recipe from usual, from Cookie Madness which caught my eye because it contained golden syrup which The Scientist loves. It also uses unsweetened chocolate which I'm not sure we really get here, but I happened to have a bit left from my trip to America last November. It's unfortunate that I won't be able to recreate them until I can persuade someone to bring me some more back as they were really good - a satisfying amount of goo in the middle squares but without veering on the undercooked, and they were also nice and firm. The instructions said to refrigerate them but they were still warm when we went to bed so I left them in a tin instead and they were fine.


Why is there a rabbit posing with the brownies? Well, he helped me make them, and that will be another story anon.