KnitCookSew

Growing up fast... and happy Leap Year

2012-02-29T13:39:00.000-08:00

Blogging has stalled. There’s no big reason for that, apart from I think looking after the baby has turned my brain to custard and I can’t put a cohesive post together. Do you really want a daily nappy update? No, didn’t think so! I can’t settle down to cooking or knitting and definitely not sewing because as soon as I start, Chloe wakes up. All the knitting I’ve done since she’s been born has been two baby hats. Sigh. Been spending lots of time on Facebook though…

Speaking of which, I’ve spotted something interesting, and that’s a glint in an eye. I noticed it a while back, the different look that my friends sometimes get once they become mothers, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. Sort of a softening, as mothers are traditionally supposed to be, but stronger at the same time. I see it in myself now too when I look in the mirror. It’s a fierce joy, a huge happiness and love towards your own child, but at the same time a sense of protectiveness towards that child that’s so strong that if anyone tries to mess with the baby, I will hurt them, badly.

Chloe was such a good girl on Monday. We had a middling crisis – the hot water pump in the upstairs airing cupboard exploded and no matter how many valves I closed and whatever we tried, there was a constant water trickle coming out from somewhere. I went through nearly every towel in the house (and I went through a towel buying phase so we have quite a few) was used up soaking up all I could, but still, it was dripping through the ceiling below and when the plumber finally got here and made an on-purpose hole to let it drain out, there was a good bucketful that came out. It wouldn’t have been long before the whole lot would have come down. I’m not averse to sorting out problems in the house as long as I know what to do, but when it comes to plumbing, I have no clue, and it’s scary being clueless! Anyway, Chloe unusually had several daytime naps to let me get on with mopping and fretting, and when she was awake was in a smiley mood to try to cheer me up. Sweetie.

Some friends from work came to visit yesterday and Chloe has started practising having pub lunches already. Check it out!

Out and about

2012-02-04T03:34:00.000-08:00

We've been out and about with Chloe. She's really too little to take the blindest bit of notice but at least the fresh air makes her sleep.

Bedgebury Pinetum was a bit sleepy in the winter sun.

We found these super-big pinecones. Turned out the stuff that looks like frost on the ends wasn't.

It was very sticky resin!

The Man appreciated the new hat.

Some interesting and funky fungus.

Another day out in Dunorlan Park in T Wells. The lake was frozen so the birds stood on it.

The Man with the Pram. Looking cold. Brrr.

Naughty park squirrels, digging for nuts.

And hiding in trees.

Chloe says hi.

FO*: Chloe

2011-12-21T09:36:00.000-08:00

Born Wednesday 14 December, our beautiful baby girl.

This was the first look she gave me two minutes after being born. Poor child, nothing escapes with iphones around, but I'm so pleased to have saved this. She's gorgeous.

* Finished Object

Owlet

2011-12-11T09:04:00.000-08:00

Latest baby knit: Kate Davies' Owlet jumper, adapted to be a cardigan. Rav notes here.

Knit in Debbie Bliss Cashmerino. Love this yarn! Lucky baby. If she'd only come out.... going in to be induced tomorrow. Advice on how to bring on labour: curry, pineapple, sex, castor oil, hippie homeopathic pills, driving in a Land Rover across a ploughed field... None of these things work! I bet she takes about three days to be induced too. The Man has had many stern words with the bump but to no avail, she's very happy in there Thank You Very Much. Clearly inherited her parents' stubborn streaks...

Hope your festive planning is coming on well. All my wrapping is done so I don't have to worry about it later. I feel rather superior. No doubt some faux pas will arise at a later date to bite me on the bum, having wrapped something wrong under the influence of baby brain. Let's hope the results are hilarious rather than mortally offensive!

Hopefully next time I'll have a new small person to show you. Fingers crossed.

Requirements:

2011-12-07T06:22:00.000-08:00

1. Fume Cupboard.

Seriously, I knew lavender could get strong, but not that strong!

Lavender bags for xmas with lavender from the garden. It was almost strong enough to clear the sinuses.

Making Monday

2011-11-30T06:24:00.000-08:00

Pattern here (free). Made from an unwanted linen coat and some stashed Liberty lawn cotton fabric. Self-covered buttons on the front of the last issue of Molly Makes, poppers underneath from stash. Total cost: about 4 hours of my time. Result!

Better late than never...

2011-11-13T04:36:00.000-08:00

Haven’t posted for ages. Bad girl.

I caught the first ten minutes of My Transsexual Summer the other night, and it was fascinating. Seven people who are changing their gender hang out over several weekends one summer, sharing experiences and supporting each other through the process. What struck me was how the girl-to-boy change seemed to be much more natural and believable than the other way around. What is it about becoming feminine that is so hard? The girls ranged from risible, through scary, to whore-ish. Is it genuinely because being naturally feminine is hard, or is it because the perception of what’s feminine by men (even ex-men) is warped? Interesting.

The baby is due in two weeks. I haven’t got anywhere near completing the list of things I wanted to finish well beforehand, so I could have a week lounging around eating chocolate before she arrives. There has been a small amount of knitting done though, two cardigans, which are very cute. More notes on Rav for anyone who wants to see.

My MIL brought me round some sloes to make sloe gin. She always presents things so beautifully – this time in a basket with a sloe twig garnish. I was expecting them in the bottom of a Tesco bag! Also, heavily pregnant women get funny looks buying lots of gin in supermarkets. Just so you know.

I had a baby shower yesterday, it was lovely to get the girls together, and the mums swapped notes while the unmarrieds looked horrified. I made some cupcakes.

It was all gooood.

A year already?

2011-10-02T14:18:00.000-07:00

A couple of weekends ago it was our first wedding anniversary. One year! Already!

I gave Dotty a treat and put my dress on her. Excuse the early morning light in these pics. It was lovely to get the dress out again and enjoy the sparkles and lace. And to think how thin I was once, compared to lumpy seven months pregnant me now...

Sigh.

Wool Week

2011-09-18T12:46:00.000-07:00

I was invited to a BWMB do for Wool Week, which included a view of Wool Modern. Stuff by Julien MacDonald, JSL, Thierry Mugler, Alexander McQueen, and lots of other people I'm not cool enough to have heard of. :)

The view was followed by a small seminar with all sorts of people from the wool industry - knitwear designers, someone from Rowan, small spinning mills, mattress manufacturers, lecturers, magazine people. Very interesting conversation about the future direction of the Campaign for Wool and the wool industry in general.

In other less high-falutin' news, I recovered some dining chairs.

I did this very very slap-dashed-ly (staple-guns were involved, do not tell my mother) because these are supposed to be just stop-gap chairs, but how much better does changing the seat fabric make it? The Man is also quite pleased with the result. Perhaps they'll stay a bit longer!

And a handful of tomatoes from the garden. I think it's a boy tomato.

Hope you all had a good weekend!

2011-09-04T01:30:00.000-07:00

What is it about ‘To Do’ lists and real life that means never the twain shall meet? Every time I see a weekend on the horizon that looks like nothing is planned for, I do a little ‘Yay!’ and think about all those craft projects and baking and gardening I can finally start, and then I blink and it’s Sunday night and I’m clearing up the supper mess and thinking about bed. Sigh. I have a little time off work before the baby comes so perhaps something will get done then (although I suspect not).

There was a spasm of activity prompted by the stash flash for my knitting group, which meant I actually took a look at what I’ve got and matched up some with some baby knits I want to do. Unforts there have been a couple of fails in yarn substituting, like trying to use the yarn I bought in Gothenburg to stand in for some Lopi. Even double stranded it’s not working and just looks like some weird science experiment. I think some proper chunky stuff is required for this, like the misti alpaca I used for my shalom, although that runs the risk of severely cooking the baby, it’s so cosy!

One project that did get done were these socks, which are a simplification on Inlay from Knitty. I started doing the pattern and it looks good, kinda like woven fabric, but it was taking for-ev-ah and I was losing the will to live, plus the fabric wasn’t very stretchy and I didn’t fancy its chances over my pregnant feet. I like this take on it, plus it’s quite unisex like this with the plain panels so it’s a potential for xmas gifting. Although perhaps not in pink.

I finally met Baby Alfred at the weekend, who received the wonky letter A jumper when he was born. His mum reports it was really well used and rammed onto the poor child until it was almost a tank top. (He is a very big baby.) It’s so nice to hear when your gifted knits are well loved; the Helena I knitted for a friend at work’s baby was also worn until it wouldn’t fit any more. I started the Duck Duck Goose cardi, but I failed at yarn matching for that too so have bought some Debbie Bliss cashmerino aran. Love the colour (deep red) and the handle of this stuff, and it washes well too. Hopefully it will become a well loved wardrobe staple, but we will see. I think I could do with a few more small jumpers and cardis to go in the baby wardrobe!

The Honey cardi is so almost there it’s painful (it is painful actually, doing icord edging all around it at the moment, argh), and I am undecided on buttons. Red ones that look like the twisted ends of sweeties, or yellow ones? I think maybe the red ones are a better size for it, although they are 5 times the price. (How exactly do they come up with these pricings for plastic buttons??) I think it’s going to come up quite large in the end, didn’t need to put those extra stitches under the arms at all. Oh well. When did I ever do anything as sensible as measure before making these decisions? So as there is some extra capacity I might do buttons the whole way down the front rather than just three at the top, which will make this almost a jacket. I suspect it will be very warm too, great for winter pram pushing.

Find of the week was an Alice Starmore book Children's Knitting From Many Lands in our local Oxfam for £3.50, and it’s going for minimum £20 anywhere on the web. Published in the early 80s, there are of course some horrendous fuglies in there, but also some rather cute stuff which I’m tempted to try even though the body shapes are a bit dated. No doubt this book will eventually be reworked for this generation and sell well, like the Aran Knitting book as done. Meanwhile, I will be taking offers on this one if anyone wants it – it’s a great source book!

Some gardening pics too.

Chillis - black, yellow and the long green ones will turn red eventually. Maybe.

Black Russian cherry tomatoes.

Another heritage variety which looks like gentleman parts if you ask me.

Hollyhock.

Garden visitor.

David Austin rose which won't stop flowering.

Hydrangea which starts off green, goes white then turns pinky.

Right, I'm off for a day of knitting, gardening and yarn admin, for as long as I have energy for it!

Stash Flash 2011

2011-08-14T11:16:00.000-07:00

My knitting group has challenged each member to own up to their stash, shame or glory. Mine is not as bad as I thought! In addition to this there is a large hamper of Aragon Yarns which is sort of work (ahem) and another hamper of yarny toot which I need to get rid of.

These boxes are all Samla from Ikea which are great because they have lids and stack, you can get clips to keep the lids on when you've overfilled them, they're see-through so you can see what's in them, and they fit just right in my cupboard.

Stuff which is jumper-worths (or almost), the red in the box on the right is intended for a Nat. Some of the blue on the left was for a Lilas but I might like an Anhinga better, if I can get the pattern. The blue on the right is Rowan organic DK which is intended for design experiments. Shyeah. Whenever!

Odds and sods.

Big box of glorious delicious sock yarn and the grab-a-project box of things that are already matched up with patterns. Kinda. Quite often I grab something only to discover the yarn totally doesn't work with the pattern and I must have had a rush of blood to the head during the matching process. Hey ho.

The whole craft cupboard, has other things like fabric stash and boxes of ribbons and stuff for papercrafting and lots of empty boxes saved from our wedding china which are supposed to be for fancy gift wrapping. (Do I ever remember to use them? You can guess.)

So gang, how do I score?!

It might be...

2011-07-24T12:50:00.000-07:00

...a food post! Finally!

These might be cupcakes, or they might be very small Harry Potter house symbols. Mum bought them for The Man's birthday. I am slightly concerned what happens with the sparkly icing after you've eaten it, but I really don't want to look that hard. Cool snakes and dragons though, no?

This might be coleslaw, but it might not. It's grated carrot, kohl rabi and apple and finely sliced pointed cabbage, with a small squirt of salad cream. Surprisingly good.

Because when I'm trying to save that obviously doesn't mean yarn

2011-07-17T13:03:00.000-07:00

Knit Nation is bad for the bank balance but there's nothing you can do about it. I tried, promise!

Where are you mojo?

2011-07-15T09:38:00.000-07:00

This being pregnant lark is really impacting on my knitting mojo. I usually knit on the train to and from work, but it’s all I can do to turn the pages of a book and stay awake at the moment. Plus the knitting I have on the go at the moment is not filling me with thrills and love.

Firstly, we have this baby blanket which looks to be a nice simple pattern, but unforts the best unisex-coloured yarn I could find in C&H turns out to knit up horribly. The pattern gets lost in a load of matted acrylicky hairyness. I think this will be a pram blanket to keep out the winter drizzle. As my friend points out it doesn't matter if such an item falls into muddy puddles or gets caught in the pram wheels. Quite.

Second, it’s the knitting group KAL cardigan of doom, which I only seem to knit there at the moment because it’s too big for the train and too much to compute in the evenings in front of the TV (even though it’s only st st in the round). I have nearly finished one sleeve, which I made wider because sleeves are always tight on me, except this one seems already designed like bellbottoms for biceps. Nice. Cue lots of frantic decreases. Hopefully the cuff will be sensible sized once I get there. Then I have yards of icord edging to look forward to which the same friend at knit group says is like a new form of Japanese water torture. What joy.

However! To look forward to, I have another baby blanket which is very similar to, or at least can be made to resemble, Jared Flood’s Shale Baby Blanket but it’s free. Shhh! Also in some nice cashmerino yarn. I splurged. It was on sale. What can I say?

Also I have some madelinetosh sock all neatly wound waiting for a project. It’s in a mauvey pink overdyed sort of colour. Any ideas? Was going to do a summer shawl, but socks are also possible. I’m needing something lightweight after all these heavy large-acreage items.

Or, as another option, I have managed to purloin from my generous mother enough Manos Serena to do the Layering Shrug. It’s soooo soft! Yum. I can see the shrug coming in handy as a bed jacket in a few months. I’m sure that will horrify some people. What? Bed jackets are so practical! You can sit up in bed and read without getting freezing arms! How many of your nighties and jimjams have long sleeves? (OK Miss Havisham at the back with your ankle-length white cotton number, stop being a smartypants.)

Tomorrow I'm off to KnitNation and would be very excited if I didn't already realise how tired it's going to make me. Officially this is a business research trip but it's totally going to become a shopping trip. :) Wish my bank cards luck!

Garden

2011-07-12T13:13:00.000-07:00

Jammin'

2011-07-10T13:09:00.000-07:00

Today I did my first solo jam session. I've helped mum before but when I came to do it today I realised that in fact all the helping I'd done was of the 'stir this while I answer the phone' variety. So there was a small amount of phone support involved. :)

So anyway, we start with all the kit. Brandy new jam pan and funnel (wedding present) - shiny! Raspberries and sugar (equal weights).

And jam jars. Because I am rubbish I bought some from Lakeland Plastics but if you are organised you can save the jars from the recycling. Lakeland also sell separate lids so if you'd rather have plain ones (or red gingham prints ones) than ones that say Sharwoods, you know where to go.

Here the clean jars are sterilising in the oven at something over 100 degrees C.

Jam pan of raspberries:

Equal weight of sugar (roughly 1.5kg of each but that's only because that's how much fruit mum brought me from the farm):

Quickly breaks down to sweet raspberry juice.

Boil briskly. Unsightly scum may form.

However Mum has a cunning plan for that. You can skim it off, but she says a large knob of butter will clear it. I'm all for minimum fuss.

Look, no scum! So, after a while things start getting less watery and more jammy so you can start testing for readyness. Drop a small splodge onto a saucer and put it in the freezer for a minute or so. Then poke it with your finger. If it wrinkles and stays blobby it's ready. Lick excess off your finger.

You can see the progress around the plate from juice to jam. Yum!

Use a jug and your jam funnel to carefully fill the jars. Things will be hot. Put the lids on now so as the jars cool the seal will form tightly.

Done! Four and a half jars. During cooking the jam went from about six pints in the pan (according to the gauge) to three pints.

The jam has set well (phew) and The Man has already sampled from the half pot. It's quite sweet and quite tart at the same time, so I reckon it might need a little while to mellow. Now I need to pretty up the pots. There are a gazillion downloadable labels out there so I'll just have to get surfing!

Finally I am classy

2011-07-03T13:41:00.000-07:00

Look what The Man finally got me for my birthday! (Over two months late but worth the wait I think.)

She's from here and we're still thinking of a name for her. The Man suggested Betty but my ipod is called that. Any ideas? She's going to model knitting projects (currently wearing the Stockholm Scarf), help me with sewing projects, and once in a while will model my wedding dress. She's on a dark wood tripod base so quite pleasing on the eye even when she's nekkid.

Still working on the hairy baby blanket. I did a couple of rows today and when you knit train knitting at home you realise how much it smells. Peeyoo. Glad blocking involves washing. Still working on the same (first) sleeve for the blue cardigan, but am so bored with both projects I cast on some new socks in some pinky variagated madelinetosh sock I've had in the stash for a while, just begging to get on the needles. I've had enough of fat yarn and just needed something skinny on teeny tiny needles. Knitting is such a great procrastination activity.

Potential Trouble

2011-06-19T09:23:00.000-07:00

Here is the latest recruit to the farm. She's very shy at the moment but you can just tell that will last all of about three days and then she will be Trouble with a big T.

One of our other dogs is looking after her and showing her the ropes.

She's going to be called Bess, after another sheepdog we had with a white nose a long time ago. Her daddy is a sheepdog trial champion.

Mischief written all over this one.

Actual food

2011-05-29T13:29:00.000-07:00

Despite this blog being called KnitCookSew, there seems to have been very little food actually featured. I really need to start keeping the camera in the kitchen because lots of cooking does actually happen. Tonight's supper was the most delicious lamb chops from the farm, roasted butternut squash, new potatoes, mange tout and baby corn. Earlier there was cake and sandwicheswiththecrustscutoff and lots of other yummy treats for the knitting group's third birthday tea. But hey, you'll just have to trust me on that.

Also, I am what polite society used to call 'with child', and let me tell you, a pregnant appetite waits for no man (or photo shoot). When you need feeding you need feeding now.

However, today I shall try to redress the balance of lack of food content with some reportage shots of last weekend's Food Festival on the Pantiles in T Wells. I am trying to work on my photography and improve the compositions. Comments welcome!

The pork pies were amazing.....

Back

2011-05-11T11:35:00.000-07:00

We went on holiday and I got out of the blogging groove. Sometimes I get old and crotchety and think we make too many complications for ourselves in life with all this technology – blogging, facebook, ebay, general timewasting transient things that vanish into nothing. Then I go back to work and you can't escape.

Anyway, we were down in Cornwall and it was glorious Blighty cream tea whizzo summer weather, even though it was the end of April. I learnt how to crab, despite being at least 20 years older than most of the other avid crabbers, and ate ice cream and fish and chips and walked for miles along the cliffs. We went to Heligan and despite it being my fourth visit there are still new things to discover. I always love investigating the vegetable garden, and this year we could see all the spring planting. The carefully measured bean rows, the neatly written labels, the variety names (broad beans Masterpiece Grean Longpod and Bunyard's Exhibition, salsify Sandwich Island and parsnip Tender and True) are all magical. They had about ten varieties of mint in little slate corrals under the potting shed window, and a victorious pineapple in fruit. The Victorians were so ingenious and there was such commonsense in the detail. The glass covers of the pineapple pit are made of overlapping panes of glass, which are scalloped to make the rainwater run down the middle, which helps prevent the wooden frames from rotting. These days we’d have special ultra-chemical paint, or make it out of plastic, and fight tooth and nail with Mother Nature.

Vines in the famous greenhouses.

Handkerchief tree which was buzzing with bees.

Magnolia wilsonii

Rhodedendrons.

On the way home we stopped at Lanhydrock. I’d visited once before many years ago after A-Levels, and can remember exploring the gardens and grounds, but don’t remember the house. I’m not sure we even went in before. It’s stuffed with family treasures from the turn of the last century, including beautiful silver pheasant menu holders, breeches stretchers, a book in the nursery called ‘Golliwogs Go Hunting’ (watch the PC gang turn puce!) and piles of leather trunks with double-barrelled initials on them. In the servants’ quarters are red and white tea towels with ‘KITCHEN’ and ‘HOUSEMAID’ woven through them, an enormous wheel knife polisher, a monstrous bread oven, and even huger and scarier spit, and rooms and rooms for all sorts of food preparation. I love seeing behind the scenes in big houses. Somehow meals these days seem rather lacking when you just grab what you need from the supermarket and throw it together. I want to spend all day making bread and pies and jellies, and skinning rabbits and shouting at the kitchen maids! Well OK, maybe just one day. I’m sure the novelty wears off quite quickly. (Maybe not off the shouting.)

The catch-up cardi struggles on, thrown on the sitting room floor looking a little cross and a little embarrassed. The first sleeve is about a third done. I’ve decided I don’t like sleeves in the round at the moment – dpns are annoying and magic loop is annoying. But equally I don’t like seaming or purling. So basically I shouldn’t knit anything with sleeves. Or at least only very short ones.

Also OTN is a winter loop-de-loop scarf. This warm weather has caught my knitting on the hop. I need to dig out the bamboo yarn for something! Not sure what’s next, although I have found patterns for an amazing dalek coffee-pot cosy, and some baby cowboy boots. How cute?! There are plenty of babies about that must have a pair immediately.

The garden is growing crazily but now the tulips have finished it also looks quite tatty. But you’re supposed to leave them for a bit to recharge. How long is a bit? I think they must be fine by now, and I need the pots for tomotoes. Do you save your bulbs in paper bags? Does it work OK? I’ve made my own mini (and wonky) version of Heligan’s bean row for some dwarf french beans, and there are also peas and broad beans, squashes, sweet peas, chillis and radishes. Some of the tomatoes are a heritage variety called Black Russian, so we shall see if they make it and what they’re like! All my irises are coming out and looking glorious. I love irises. There was a pic in a gardening magazine of a whole field of blowsy pale lilac ones in the Tuscan morning mist. Sigh.

Photos

2011-04-14T13:07:00.000-07:00

I went on a photography course a while back and I’ve been meaning to share some of the things I learnt with you guys. I recently bought myself a DSLR and I wanted to know how to use it not on Auto. Sometimes Auto just doesn’t do what you want it to do, does it? This half-day course was quite useful in explaining the basic theory behind photography.

Assume you leave autofocus on.

When you take a picture, think about these things in this order:

1. ISO

This is about light conditions. Forget about digital, let’s think film. If you are in a shadowy place or it’s overcast or dark, you need a film that will react more sensitively and faster to the light that hits it when the shutter opens. A higher number shows faster speed. (ISO stands for International Standards Organisation from when Mr Kodak and Mr Fuji were trying to make sure people knew which film they were buying in the chemist's. Which was nice.)

2. Aperture

This is all about f/stops and focal length and diaphragms. If you look into an SLR lens and mess about with the aperture, you’ll see a ring inside the camera grow and shrink like an iris on an eye. In bright light, the pupil is small, in gloom the pupil gets bigger to allow more light in. Same with a camera. However this also affects the focal length, ie the depth of image which is in focus. With a narrow aperture, there is a deep depth of field, so you’d use that for things like landscapes which you want all to be in focus. A wide aperture means that only a bit of the image will be in focus, and stuff in front and behind will be blurred. This tends to be used for close-ups. Macro lenses give extra wide aperture. Aperture can range from 1.4 (widest) to 32 (narrowest). Film cameras will range from 3.5 to 22.

3. Shutter speed

This is about how long the shutter is open and therefore exposure. If it’s open longer it means there is more time for the light to get to the film (or sensor). So in lower light, a slower shutter speed means more light gets in. In which case the camera needs to be still or the scene will move relative to the camera and the image will blur. In bright lights the shutter speed can be very fast and the camera can be moving and still get a clear shot.

Shutter speed can go from 'bulb' (open until you close it again) to 8000 (ultra fast only avail on digital cameras). 1 = 1 second, 2 = 1/2 second, 4 = 1/4 second etc down to 1/8000 second. Speedy.

The other good tip was about white balance. This is a way to get the camera to recognise when light conditions (cloud, sunset, artificial light) affect the colours of things. Definitely a problem I have when taking pictures of my knitting! The solution is to tell the camera what white (or grey) looks like in the conditions you’ve got, and then it can extrapolate from that what the other colours it’s seeing actually should be, and make allowances for the colour of the light. You take a picture of a white or grey piece of paper in the position of your subject (totally filling the frame) with all the settings above set as you want them, then tell the camera to use that as it’s white balance source. (You may have to read the manual about how to do that.) Then it should sort itself out! Cunning! Many photography places recommend using a mid-grey target rather than white. You can buy special targets to use or use mid-grey card.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Lastolite-Ezybalance-Grey-White-Card/dp/B0009QZDL6/ref=pd_bxgy_ce_img_b

(you can find it cheaper I’m sure)

Hope that's helped someone - I certainly had no clue of the basics!

Blossom

2011-04-12T13:03:00.000-07:00

Some gratuitous blossom pics taken on Sunday in the park.

Tulip weather

2011-04-10T13:01:00.000-07:00

There’s some mystical force at work in my garden which makes everything grow at half speed. I suspect it might be known as houseshadow. How sickening is it to look at other people’s blogs and see their tulips have been beautifully blooming for over a week, when mine are still green buds? Hurrumph. Still, they are very pretty buds.

We need to get the house in some semblance of order but that involves finishing decorating the last room in the house. This also requires us to change the skirting boards ourselves. How hard can it be? I have some NoMoreNails and some decorators caulk, and there is talk of mitres and coping joints but I don’t yet have a coping saw or a clue. Also the room is full of junk and furniture. And The Man got fed up while he was painting the ceiling in there and the floor is rather polka dotty with drips. Sigh. Scraping takes so much longer than wiping.

On the knitting front, I’ve managed to design something. This is an overdue baby item for one of the guys at work, who had a daughter a couple of months ago. What do you think? Should I work out some other sizes and put it on Rav? I think it’s cute and pretty but then of course I would.

Currently stuck for train knitting projects, because the other one on the go is Honey and it’s got rather voluminous. Perhaps it will be ready for the autumn. The options are socks, scarves or another cardigan. Sigh. Or a golf club cover. Or maybe a slug.

Sugar, stitches and sunshine

2011-03-27T13:59:00.000-07:00

Now this is a very unflattering picture of a very yummy thing. Cinnamon sugar pull-apart bread. There is not much left. If you have a few spare hours of pottering time, because you have to keep leaving it to rise and coming back, then I recommend you try it. You will need to find a website converting US cups to grams and ounces though.

And I've finally finished Percy. More on my Rav page. You can click on these pics to make them bigger and see the stitch patterns better.

I love the edging on this, it's fat and rolly like a loose fancy itube. And although the pattern calls for nupps I chose to do beads. I like the sparkle.

The garden is looking very bright at the moment, all the bulbs coming up, loads of daffodils and narcissi and some grape hyacinths. Wonderful how happy a bit of sunshine can make you.

Chicken, Mushroom and Cranberry Risotto

2011-03-16T14:01:00.000-07:00

Chicken, Mushroom and Cranberry? You sure??

Well let me tell you, gentle reader, that the combo is goooood. The sharp sweetness of the cranberry cuts through all the rich creamy cheesy risotto goodness. I had some cranberries in the freezer left over from Christmas, so in a handful went. Why not?

Ingredients:
Half a red onion, diced
Two chicken boobs, cubed.
Couple of sticks of celery, sliced small (they needed eating up)
Good slug of olive oil
Risotto rice - enough for three portions, ish
Half a red pepper, diced
Good handful of dried mushrooms, soaked. Keep some of the juice, but off the top, because there are gritty bits in the bottom
Veggie stock (I make mine from Marigold bouillon powder)
Some greenery - sugar snap peas here, could use mange tout or peas or whatever you've got
Lots of grated parmesan
Creme fraiche - about a tablespoon. Creme fraiche lives in everything!
Pepper, good scrunch of freshly ground
Handful of cranberries

Fill the kettle and put it on to boil. Sweat off the onions in the oil, throw in the chicken and brown, add the red peppers and celery, throw in the rice and stir around and leave until it starts to go translucent (couple of minutes). Put the mushrooms in a mug and pour on some boiling water to cover. Make up a pint and a half of stock. Start to add the stock gradually, keep stirring. Then tip it nearly all in (keep about half a pint), stir it around, turn the heat down a notch and cover. Grate a load of parmesan (I think I had nearly a double handful). When the stock has reduced down by about half, add the parmesan and season with pepper only (there is lots of salt in the stock). Fish the mushrooms out of the mug and add. You can add some of the mushroom juice too if you like. I know reconstituted dried mushrooms smell like wet dog, but they don't taste like it, promise. Keep stirring, add some more stock if needed. Taste it to see how the rice is cooking. When nearly all the stock has been absorbed, mix in the creme fraiche, then throw in the sugar snap peas and cranberries. Cover and let the peas steam for a couple of minutes only, then serve.

Apols, the pic is of the leftovers. :)

Getting warmer....

2011-03-13T15:05:00.000-07:00

Spring is slowly coming on....

Something is eating the tops of some of the crocuses though. Weird.

Come on spring!

Makeovers

2011-02-21T13:38:00.000-08:00

Cramming oneself into the end of a settee which is shared with a table, a lamp, a laptop and various other detritus, all swathed in dustsheets, to watch a large TV which is only 2 feet away, is not the most restful of situations of an evening, especially when the football is on. We’ve been redecorating the whole house, pretty much, but thank god the weeks of upheaval are nearing an end now though. I thought that replastering the ceilings would be the messiest and most chaotic thing (we had artex everywhere) but it turns out that painting is worse. But that should be done by the end of the week, which leaves only carpets, which also means some serious furniture moving. Plus the gripper rods all need to be relaid because the new skirting boards are wider than the old and ended up flush to the gripper rods, which leaves no space to push the carpets down into. Sigh. These things you learn about.

My lovely Man has let me have some wallpaper in ~~my craft room~~ the office. I will also need a new shelving solution because the current one was left behind by the old owners and sways like a drunken prostitute if you push it. So I’ve had a quick look on ebay for a new dresser, as in welsh dresser, lots pop up, twee twee dolls house orange pine junk twee, pootling through them until I hit ‘The Male Cross-Dresser Support Group’. Excellent. I love search engines.

Beautiful things today:

A really crisp straight line of paint.
Weleda pomegranate hand cream
A pot of pale yellow crocus buds like tight little fists. Can’t wait until they pop!

(The carpet man says he can come next week! Hurrah!)

Soapbox Subjects

2011-02-17T06:36:00.000-08:00

I must be getting old, but there are some things that have been bugging the hell out of me. I have an urge to EDUCATE. So here is a little info source for general consumption. Please pass it on:

That little stitched cross loosely holding the back flaps of your new overcoat together? It’s like a label. You need to take that out. And now I sound properly old and cranky. :)
Likewise take the labels off the bottom of new shoes.
Umbrellas on crowded pavements. When passing other pedestrians, gentlemen should raise their umbrellas above ladies’ to prevent a clash of spokes. Otherwise the taller (or more polite) person will lift their brolly higher.
Dessert spoon and fork should be put to either side of the place setting, not above.
You should still send written thank you letters.
There is a set wording for replying to wedding invitations. Check here. Don’t wear jeans to weddings.
Save swearwords for when you really need them. If you just scatter them through conversation (…and then he f***ing said to me…) they just become so much white noise and make you look ignorant and uncouth.
Learn the difference between there, their and they’re; where were we're; its it's, when to use apostrophes (not for plurals), and that it should be ‘should have’ not ‘should of’. I am happy to do a longer post on this (possibly with pictures).
Don’t leave your supermarket trolley broadside across the aisle. It’s OK to leave it at the end of the aisle and walk for stuff. No one will steal your trolley! (Although actually that did happen to me one Christmas when some harrassed woman wasn’t concentrating and I had to chase around Tesco’s and reclaim it. Bizarre.)

Knitting FO

2011-02-13T12:42:00.000-08:00

Finally finished the Tea Leaves cardigan after the third attempt at the button bands. Done in Manos Silk Blend, it's lovely and snuggly.

Pics are of the unblocked cardi, because at the moment we have painters in doing over the whole house so there is mess and dust and I am not leaving my precious projects pinned to any floor anywhere!

Buttons from Stoneydale in Cranbrook. Surprisingly perfect, they pick up the greens and pinks from the cardi.

Also, I found these in Jeremy's Home Store. I missed out on the Glam one which was sold out on NOTHS when I finally decided I had to have it. Just HAD to! So I grabbed it quick from Jeremy's. The Man has been trying to rationalise my mug collection and I've resisted buying any more for over a year but there's only so long a girl can go doing what she's told. :)

Valentine baking

2011-02-13T12:24:00.000-08:00

I set to work making some Valentine theme cupcakes using the Faircake method (recipes on their website) which served me so well for my wedding cupcakes.

These days however I have the benefit of items from The Wedding List - Kenwood kMix (love), digital scales (double love)...

...I own many more baking tins than a normal person needs...

...and stacking cooling racks.

Stacking cooling racks are ace for saving on worktop space. Mine came from Amazon.

Unless you have cake already stuck to your screen you will notice that all the cupcakes have a raspberry on them. I like a bit of sharpness in the middle of all the sugar and butter and things that are generally bad for you. I wonder how many cupcakes you would have to eat to get one of your five-a-day? You can put in fresh or frozen raspberries; fresh ones will stay in the middle of the cakey bit, and frozen ones will drop to the bottom during baking.

Making buttercream icing. At this point I am hugely grateful to have a splash-guard. There is enough icing sugar dust flying around from sifting without the K paddle throwing great handfuls out at key stages of its planetary action.

These are not a successful batch I admit. I've been trying to put some cream cheese into the icing to lighten it up a bit. Unforts that also means that the icing gets too sloppy. So I will be going back to the full on butter-fest that is proper vanilla butter icing and be thankful to have perky buttercream roses. :)

And I made some hot and sour noodle soup, with a base of turkey stock from Christmas. Yum.

Spring is sprunging

2011-02-13T11:56:00.000-08:00

The garden is erupting all over with green spears. Remember last autumn we planted over 200 bulbs? The textbooks say they should come up in sequence: crocus, daffodils, tulips. Looks like our weird weather patterns have confused mother nature and they're all coming up together. In a couple of weeks the garden is going to look amazing.

I'm also having fun with my new camera - a Nikon D3100. Finally bit the bullet and upgraded to an SLR for decent resolution and colour reproduction.

My friend Miss Glory Pearl was doing some live modelling in town yesterday for a sparkly boutique called Miss Magpie. She had great fun surprising passers-by and flirting with scared-looking men.

Love the hair. Love the shoes. Love the waistline!

Project bag

2011-01-23T14:09:00.000-08:00

I read somewhere that you can make a knitting project bag, or bits and bobs bag, out of a couple of fat quarters. Being a non-patchwork person, first I had to discover a) what a fat quarter is and b) that a fat square will do equally as well. It might be the same thing, who knows. It's half a yard by half a yard (or metre, if you're metric) so I guess it's a quarter of a square yard so perhaps it's the same thing... Anyway, it's fabric, and it's pretty, and you can make something like this!

Firstly I took a look at a few online tutorials. One of these hides all the seams away nicely so you can choose to do that if you want, but you get a seam along the underside of the bag.

So here's what I started with. Two fat squares / quarters in contrasting fabric, a zip, and 50cm tape (or in this case grosgrain ribbon) (which is plenty). Choose thread which goes well as you will see it.

For this bag I used a 10 inch zip. You can do lots of maths to rationalise the following, but I'll tell you the basic thing: make the strips of fabric as wide as the whole zip, and as long as you like. You'll only get as far as the end of the quarter so it won't go too crazy. I did 10inch x 12 inches for this bag. The other one (see later) is 12inches wide by 16 (ish - or to the end of the quarter). The length of the strip will affect the final dimensions of the bag. If you're aiming for a particular shape, bear in mind the zip goes half way down the sides of the bag, so if you want a long thin one, maybe with 4 inch sides and 10 inches long, you'll need a 14inch zip (half of 4 is 2, times 2 for both ends, plus 10), and therefore the fabric is also 14inches wide, and length is 4 x 4inches = 16inches. Plus a bit for seams. Don't forget that. :)

Lay the fabric out with right sides facing and the zip in between with all the edges aligned. If you want to use some light interfacing then put on top.

Sew down the outside edge side of the zip. I actually changed the foot on the machine and used a piping foot for this bit. I'm rubbish at straight lines so it helped that the zip got channeled along nicely.

Turn the fabrics wrong sides together and press. Topstitch along the zip. You might have to unzip and work around the zip head thing.

Fold both bits of fabric in half right sides together as below and line up the edges.

Sew along the outside of the zip and turn right side out.

Press. Topstitch. Easier if zip open.

You should have a nice neat tube with a zip in it! Yay!

Turn the tube inside out and check the zip runs exactly down the centre. Check the measurements at both ends and the middle to check it's not just right in the middle.

Mark at right angles across the bag at the points the zip stops.

Cut 4 inches of tape or ribbon, fold in half, and tuck between the outside (black) fabric layers with the raw edges outwards.

Sew across the marked lines. Go back and forwards a few times over the zips.

I actually sewed tight zigzag lines parallel to the sewn lines after this, because later when you trim the fabric back it will stop it fraying. Use your preferred method. I read some people trim back then put bias binding on.

Anyway, turned right ways you now have a little tab, which helps with zip pulling later.

Pull the bag out so that the zip runs down the side rather than down the middle and pull the corner into a triangle.

You can play around with the size of this triangle because it affects the final shape of the bag. Pin it, turn it right side out, see if you like the look. Cunningly, it will be a right angle triangle so the height along the seam (as I'm measuring in the pic) will be the same measurement from the seam to the edge of the fabric horizontally. Check to left and right of the seam that they are the same measurement.

Cut another 4 inches of tape / ribbon for the tab at the other end of the bag and set aside. Use the rest (or about 8 to 10 inches) for a handle. Tuck one end into the triangle and pin. Check it's square on to the seams. Without twisting it, tuck the other end into the triangle on the other side.

Mark across the triangles, and sew and zigzag across. When you sew, make sure the horizontal seam faces the same way both times. Not like this. This is bad.

More like this. Do the other end. Don't forget the tab. Cut off all the triangles.

Trim off all the threads, or tie them, whatever you prefer. Turn bag right side out.

Done!

You can tie a bead or something onto the zip pull to make it easier to grab.

Message me if I've been writing gobbledegook which makes no sense.

Am quite happy with these little bags! They're quick and easy and cute. Hope you like them too.

Am also quite pleased by this very flukey and unplanned pattern matching.

New Beginnings

2011-01-19T14:04:00.000-08:00

Welcome if you've come over from League Against Boring Lunches.

KnitCookSew is going to be mainly about just that, and hopefully keep me more focused on achieving things rather than drifting along dabbling here and there. Remains to be seen but the intention is there!

We've started two KALs at knit group and everyone waited until last night's meet to cast on. There was much excitement and anticipation and chatter, then we sat down to knit. There was a silence, needles clicking. Then muttered swearing. And several false starts. It's true, casting on a complicated lace scarf in 2ply in a mood-lit restaurant was not the most sensible way of starting! But we're off. We've also discovered that, as the restaurant delivers hot chocolate in tall glasses, if you ask for a large hot chocolate it will arrive in a pint glass. A pint of hot chocolate. Legendary.