A teacher from Cheshire has set herself the sweet challenge of baking a Victoria sponge cake every single day for a whole year.

Cath Webb plans to put her culinary skills to the test by cooking up a storm over the 12 months and giving each cake away to someone needy- simply to put a smile on their face.

The 46-year-old was reportedly inspired to start the baking adventure after she made a cake for a friend who had been diagnosed with cancer, and saw the overwhelming reaction.

Ever since, she has put the power of doing good deeds to force and made an array of Victoria cakes with a variety of jam fillings for a plethora of local people including her own family, hospital staff and the homeless.

Despite the time-consuming challenge of washing up, cooking and cooling, the mother-of-three has recorded a diary of every single entry. But the domestic goddess admits that her husband was sceptical at first, and was moaning how much it would cost in ingredients.

She is due to complete the challenge on her birthday on 6^th April in which she would have baked 366 cakes. 

And the total amount of recipes used included;

- 1098 eggs

- 160lb of flour

- 292 packs of butter

- 160lb of sugar

- 183 pots of jam

- 74 bottles of vanilla essence

- 12 pints of milk

- Two packets of icing/ vanilla bean sugar

Let’s hope the woman protected her clothing from all that baking with Ulster weavers.com delightful ranges of aprons!

We have a cute homeware range called Victoria which is one of Ulster Weavers designs and it would be perfect to cook Victoria sponge cakes in. The collection includes matching co-ordinates of oven glove, apron, pot mitt, gauntlet, cake tins, tea and kitchen cosies and more.

And after all that hard work, we think Mrs Webb definitely deserves her hubby to put the kettle on and give her a nice cup of tea in one of our gorgeous Ulster weavers china mugs!

A tea company in Portsmouth in the UK has broken the world record for producing the largest tea bag.

‘All About Tea’ has set a new Guinness world record for a 120 kilogram tea bag that is 8ft tall, weighs 19 stone and can make more than 50,000 cups of tea.

According to the World Records Academy, to date the largest tea bag has weighed 68.49 kilograms and was unveiled in Los Angeles, in California, in America. However, that record has now been smashed by the English tea firm.

The world’s biggest tea bag has been proudly hoisted for public display on the deck of the HMS Warrior; an iron-hulled, armour-plated warship built for the Royal Navy based in Portsmouth. Apparently, tea first came into Britain through Portsmouth.

The company’s owner Andrew Gadsden, who is a former Royal Navy officer,  spent four days stuffing the needle-stitched bag with a blend of Indian Assam and Kenyan tea he’s named Portsmouth Tea. 

The 35-year-old said: “The previous record was held by the Americans but I thought the record for the largest tea bag ought to be a British record because Britain is well-known as the biggest tea drinking nation in the world.”

Similarly, the world record for the largest tea cosy knitted by members of the public is also hosted by Bupa care home residents in the UK.

Check out Ulster Weavers today for gorgeous tea and kitchen cosies!

This weekend is the special holiday of Choral Day!

It is a dedicated day that people from all over the world can get together with their friends and enjoy the power of song. Choral Day promotes choirs and choral singing in all forms and it aims to promote unity, harmony and kindness through choral singing.

And you can get involved too and celebrate with Ulster Weavers Birdsong ranges.

Founded in 1990 by Alberto Grau, the international event is part of the International Federation for Choral Music. The official website states: “It is time to show, with more power and strength, that our choral family contributes, through music to break down the artificial barriers product of politics, different ideologies, religious differences, and racial hatred that separate human beings.

“We must be able to show that music, the divine art, is more than the mere search of formal perfection and interpretative beauty, music should serve to extol the values of solidarity, peace, and understanding. We cannot work isolated, we have to make all possible efforts to have our voices heard and to let music work its own paths of communication.”

Our birdsong ranges comprise of tea and kitchen cosies, gauntlets, oven gloves, aprons and bags. The bags available in the design vary to suit your needs including small/medium canvas, shoulder, packable and PVC.

As well as the birdsong range, we also have a Celtic Blessing Linen Tea Towel and our super cute Musical Cat range which is a Rosina Wachtmeister design. The collection similarly comprises of tea cosy, linen tea towels, cotton apron, double oven glove, pot mitt and bags.

So join in World Choral Day on Sunday 11th December by having a sing-along, visiting your local choral seminar, or going to a festival and check out the gorgeous homeware today.

Birdsong Double Oven Glove

Celtic Blessing Linen Tea Towel

Musical Cat Linen Tea Towel

Tomorrow is Celebrate Your Unique Talent Day!

It is a dedicated day in the UK for people to take the opportunity and share their special gifts with friends and family.

Everybody has at least one ability they truly excel at, so what is your one-off talent? Can you do lots of kick-ups with a football in a certain amount of time? Can you lick your own elbow? Do you have a really good singing voice? Here at Ulster Weavers we’d like to think our one of a kind gift is to create gorgeous homeware and textiles.

If your talent is baking and cooking, and you consider yourself a bit of a whiz in the kitchen, use the devoted day to practice your culinary skills. Don one of our beautiful PVC aprons and start brewing up a storm with lots of scrumptious cupcakes and desserts. Cooking takes time and effort so spend the day locked in the kitchen making hearty stews and homely bread.

And the children can get involved too if you want with our cute kids aprons ranges. It is an appropriate time to pass on your expert tips and advice and hand over any family secret recipes to the next generation to enjoy.

Share your knowledge of kneading, mixing, grilling and sautéing and spread the wisdom to the little ones for something they will always remember they gained from you. But take note that the day is mainly about you and expressing your talents, so go back to basics and rekindle your enthusiasm for cooking with the help of Ulster Weavers excellent homeware ranges.

British Cats PVC Apron

Cakes Child's PVC Apron

Twitter Cotton Apron

This weekend is the Great British Cheese Festival in Wales!

OK we don’t expect you to travel all the way there, if for example you live in Ireland like us, but it is a fantastic excuse to celebrate all that is great about cheese with Ulster Weavers cheese homeware.

There are hundreds of kinds of cheese that are produced throughout the world in a vast array of shapes, colours, textures and smells.

In general, cheese supplies a great deal of calcium, protein, phosphorus and fat as part of a healthy diet and is a vital source of nutrition. Some studies suggest that the right amount of intake even help prevent tooth decay.

But worldwide it is an agricultural product as it essentially comes from cow’s milk; and according to the Food and Agricultural Organisation in America, over 18 million metric tons of cheese were produced worldwide in 2004 alone. So imagine how much that figure would have increased by now!

The biggest exporter of cheese is France and the biggest importer is Germany, in comparison to East Asia in which cheese and other dairy products is rarely found in dishes. 

There are too many types of cheese to list but hot favourites include;

- Brussels

- Blue

- Edam

- Goats

- Feta

- Swiss

- Stilton

- Brie

- Lancashire

- Cottage

- Mozzarella

- Parmesan

-Cheddar

- Halloumi

So whether you like to eat hard, soft or flavoured cheese; make sure you install some cheesy kitchen essentials into the home with the help of Ulster Weavers.

Check out our fantastic range of cheese aprons, gauntlets, cotton tea towels and double oven gloves. And even better, some of the items are on sale!

Cheeses Double Oven Glove

Cheese Label Cotton Tea Towel

Cheese Label Cotton Apron

Shiver me timbers, it is Talk Like A Pirate Day!

The recognised holiday encourages all Brits to inject some pirate-themed words and noises into everything you say and do today.

OK it may be taking it a little bit too far to go into work dressed like a pirate with an eye patch, hat and toy parrot; but you can decorate the home in swashbuckler textiles with Ulster Weavers Treasure Island ranges.

The kids can spend the day making each other ‘walk the plank’ and roaring ‘yarrrr’ whilst they dress up and play games. Go wild with creativity and create a treasure hunt for the children to do with the goal of some buried treasure. They can get excited searching around the house and garden solving clues, like a real-life adventurer!

After the kids have worn themselves out running all over the place, have fun baking pirate cakes and cupcakes in the kitchen with Ulster Weavers Treasure Island Child’s PVC Aprons.

All our childrens aprons are super cute to ensure the little monsters don’t dirty their clothes when cooking but our Treasure Island range is perfect for the special day. And our cotton apron in the range is great for any cheeky monkeys!

Finish off the whole pirate chef look with Ulster’s Treasure Island Child’s Chef Hat, so they really feel like the top buccaneer. So gather your hearties round to the house and have fun this Talk Like A Pirate Day with our fabulous homeware!

Treasure Island Child's PVC Apron

Treasure Island Child's Chef Hat

Treasure Island Child's Cotton Apron

As years go by, new trends in society flourish whether it is a new fashion trend, homeware trend or more.

At the start of 2011, the trend of ‘planking’ started to arise that involved a person mimicking a wooden plank and lying face down in an unusual or odd location.

Millions of people took part in the game and posted pictures of themselves on the internet and on social networking sites, as players competed to find the strangest location in which to play.

Participants ‘planked’ on top of roofs, in vehicles, on tables and even on top of poles! But when the craze went viral, with it came many variations which included ‘tea potting’ and ‘owling’. Tea potting consisted of simply bending the arms in the shape of a teapot; and owling involved a person squatting and crouching in a perched position and looking off into the distance, like an owl.

So jump on board the trend with the help of Ulster Weavers and our fantastic owl and tea cosies homeware!

We have some super cute owl shaped tea and egg cosies which are great for when you are finished ‘owling’ and wish to replenish your thirst with a nice hot pot of tea. Ulster Weavers has some fun owl linen tea towels and packable bags so you can install some animal craziness into the home or into your wardrobe!

And if you are a fan of social networking site Twitter, like millions of people across the world are, then you may want to buy one of our brilliant owl Twitter ranges which consists of an apron, double oven glove, gauntlet, bone china mug in a tin, pot mitt and more.

So whether you take part in the online game by ‘planking’, ‘tea potting’ or ‘owling’, make sure you follow the fad with Ulster Weavers fantastic homeware, giftware and textile ranges.

Twitter Bone China Mug In A Tin

Owls Arrived Linen Tea Towel

Owl Shaped Tea Cosy

This week is National Allotments Week!

From Monday 8^th to Sunday 14^th August 2011 allotment holders in the UK will be rejoicing in how much fun allotments can be and opening them up to the general public to share.

Now is no better time than ever to gain first-hand experience of an allotment plot and to celebrate with Ulster Weavers My Garden range.

Fundamentally, an allotment is a plot of land made available for individual, non-professional gardening for one to enjoy growing vegetables, fruits and herbs.

Use this special holiday to sell the produce to citizens in the local area and show people what the allotment is all about; so they can learn how they can have an affordable supply of fresh fruit and flowers.

Owning an allotment isn’t easy work but is definitely worth the effort- so why not treat yourself to a Gardeners Calendar linen tea towel or a My Garden PVC Aprons so you keep your clothes clean and mud-free when sowing seeds.

Celebrate the unique recreational activity and be inspired to be green; it is the perfect time for all allotment holders to display all the hours of hard work. Demonstrate to the world what gardening is all about and how it can be a brilliant way to de-stress and relax after a stressful day at work!

Ulster Weavers has a vast array of cute garden ranges that consist of gauntlets, pot mitts, PVC bags and more. Become one with Mother Nature this week with the help from our fantastic textiles!

Gardeners Calendar Linen Tea Towel

My Garden PVC Apron

My Garden Gauntlet

Everyone loves the very first cuppa of the day and nothing beats putting the kettle on and brewing a nice hot cup of tea to wake you up on a Monday morning.

But would it make much of a difference to tea-lovers across the nation of using a pill rather than loose tea bags?

A tea pill has been invented by some graduates from Kingston University in London, England. Dubbed Rosy Lee’s Remarkable Remedy, it is a range of soluble tea pills that allow for a quick release in the form of soluble tablets that will dissolve in boiling water to create a relieving brew.

Tea often relieves the stresses and strains of everyday life and the creators Kylie-Ann Homer, Senwelo Foster and Sadie-Marie Dedman say that it illustrates the medicinal qualities of tea. The tea pills come in varying strengths to suit different needs and the coloured dot on the packaging signifies the strength of the tea.

Some might argue a pill for tea isn’t quite the same as a cup of Yorkshire and brew-drinkers associate pills with medical use. Here at Ulster Weavers we say stick to what you know and good old tea bag dunking!

Brew a piping hot pot of tea with the traditional tea bags and keep it nice and toasty with our cute tea cosies. Our cosies come in a galore of shapes, sizes and colours and all come with matching items that are perfect for hosting tea parties or giving as gifts.

And once you have brewed your lovely cuppa, drink it only from the finest quality bone china mugs with Ulster Weavers!

Tea Party Bone China Mug

Tea Pot Shaped Tea Cosy

British Cats Bone China Mug

They say that to have quality you have to spend big bucks but sometimes some people have more money than sense.

The world’s most expensive car is worth around £1.5 million and the world’s most luxurious house is said to be £620 million.

Although these figures are ridiculous, one can argue that at least they are used to the fullest ability to get your money’s worth.

But would you spend £380,000 on a pot or pan? Well that’s what one keen food-lover has done for what is being dubbed as the world’s most expensive cooking pot!

There are many domestic goddesses in different countries but does anyone really love being in the kitchen enough to fork out over a quarter of a million pounds for some kitchen homeware?

A department store in Changchun, the capital and largest city of China’s Jilin Province, has put a cooking pot on sale for the astonishing hefty value. At 3.8 million Yuan it will set you back a fair few pounds and is said to be the ideal gift for a footballer to buy his wife or girlfriend.

But this lavish kitchen accessory comes with some grand features for the dear price tag. It has a pair of handles of pure gold on the pot itself and another on the lid weighing a total of 738g. The details are also embossed with 13 diamonds and best of all- it gets delivered to the mad buyer in a Rolls Royce.

Fissler China, whose German parent company manufactures the extravagant item, say that any buyer of the pot will get top service. He/she would not only be invited to the top Michelin restaurant in Europe with ten of their friends but also the company would deliver the pot to their address with a Rolls-Royce (the car is not included though)

Most of us ordinary folk can’t quite afford to spend so much on some kitchen accessories but fortunately Ulster Weavers has gorgeous ranges of giftware, homeware and textiles that are both lavish and affordable.

So grab one of our aprons and get cooking in your very normal cooking pot at home- minus the gold handles and diamonds!

Domestic Goddess Shaped Cotton Apron

Wine Label Cotton Apron

La Gaffeliere Cotton Apron