When two stars meet...

Last Tuesday was Amy Butler day at The Fat Quarters. Being a fan of her designs, I thought it would be nice to go along... accompanied by my feathered friend of course...

It was a very exciting day. We met the wonderful Mrs. Locket and her lovely daughter Dot, not to mention Mr.P's brother Lofty (aka Mr.Pigeon 030), who kept us entertained while we waited for the talk to begin. There were plenty of beautiful fabrics, books and patterns on sale- needless to say, Mr. Pigeon was more interested in the buffet.

But we both really enjoyed Amy's talk (especially as we were all given a free pattern booklet!), which was about her recent 'inspiration' trips to Bali and India with several sneak peeks at her new fabric range and new rugs. Afterwards we got to have our purchases signed and Mr.P couldn't resist a photo opportunity...

This isn't a great photo I know, but I thought I should take it as quickly as possible before the police were called and I was escorted from the premises in a straitjacket. Luckily Ms. Butler was very friendly indeed and refrained from hitting the panic button when Mr. Pigeon emerged from his bag and his mad owner insisted on taking a picture.

Mr. Pigeon is so taken with his new celebrity friend that he's taken to sleeping with this on his pillow...

Oh dear.

On the subject of celebrity, do you want to see what happens when you mix a student with too much time on her hands with a small crocheted pigeon and a piece of polyester stuffing?

Santa Claws...

Kenny Rogers...

Professor Dumbleclaw...

Marie Antoinette...

Yum yum yum!

Yesterday I made some of these...

...chocolate macarons filled with chocolate ganache. Mmmmmm :-)

Why?

Because Mr. Pigeon and I were so inspired to bake following our trip (or rather our pilgrimage) to Bettys in Harrogate for afternoon tea.

We got roast chicken sandwiches and a juicy sultana scone with clotted cream and jam on a lovely three tiered thingy. This is what the top tier held...

...mini layered coffee cake, fruit tart and a delicious lemon macaron...

...and very shortly after there was a pigeon perched on the plate too...

Now you can't go to Bettys without visiting the bakery afterwards, so we felt obliged to waddle into the bakery, weighed down with food, to buy a few things to take home for tea (not that we could eat anything else after three layers of sandwich, scone and cake).

Pikelets to toast and smother with butter...

...a "little rascal", the mini version of the famous Bettys "fat rascal"...














...and a lovely fluffy white loaf...

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm...

Talking of yummy things, thank you so much to everybody who voted for Mr.P in the Dorset Cereals little blog awards- he got 30 votes!!!...before the end of the month came and all the scores were cleared! Didn't know that would happen!

Luckily this means that everybody was back to the start and Mr.P made it to the top on Saturday!!!....

Mr. Pigeon and I really do love cereal and would very much like a purple egg cosy, so any more votes would be hugely appreciated. If Mr.P is at the top at the end of the month I promise to have a REALLY GOOD GIVEAWAY!



Have a great week :-)