Craft Chat with SewIKnit2

Magazines and lovely cake - relax

2012-01-20T13:28:00.000Z

Postman flung my subscriber's copies of The Knitter, issue 41 and Simply Knitting, issue 90 at me just as I left to get my INR checked at the Surgery - this is how I plan to spend the last hour before no.2.son arrives home from College ..

cup of tea in my lovely V&A china mug, large slice of fresh cream filled chocolate sponge cake and two magazines - bliss x

quite fancy the cowl pattern from The Knitter by Louisa Harding seen on the right of the pic, there is a version for a collar and capelet included too in various weights of yarn - might have to have a rummage through stash later on .. cute little owl needle thingie from SK this month and next month is an owl row counter, I don't usually care much for the freebies but this one is quite cute. SK this month also has a leaflet for 5 patterns to make "for mums" scarves, cowls and the like for "Mother's Day" which is ages off but the Mag is confusingly dated "March". I know that magazines run at a different time zone to us and they appear in advance of themselves, but really? MARCH? its still January - isn't it? I don't completely understand the dates to my thinking they come out every month once a month so why the jump? must be something to do with the leap year? anyway, as I subscribe to both of these I'm not going to miss/lose out so as it bothers me I just don't look at the date - bah!

Happy Birthday Cake/s!

2012-01-19T18:08:00.001Z

Today is dh's birthday! its also his day he doesn't work so it was nice for him to be home on his birthday which usually only happens occasionally. Traditionally we enjoy a nice "cake" and as he likes to take cakes into work I spent most of the day baking!
Above is my his cake! A chocolate sponge sandwiched with fresh whipped double cream. Unfortunately I'd run out of icing sugar so wasn't able to "dust" the top to look pretty but I doubt it will affect the taste.

Additionally I baked a batch of plain scones and filled them with jam and fresh cream, a batch of choc.filled "fairy" cakes and two large cider cakes. Most of these will be sliced and packed to take into work tomorrow for the office.

I managed to roll the dough and cut nearly all the scones in one go! a first for me! usually I am terrible at rolling.

Tonight we are going out for a curry - we went out last week with our no.1.son before returning him to Uni so we could enjoy a family meal but that was at the local pub, this time we're going to a restaurant that does a nice combination of both Indian and English dishes which will suit us three.
Unfortunately this means that I am unable to make the knit night at the lys but as its a weekly event I will make arrangements to meet my knit-pal-Sally for next week, but after the slightly disappointing welcome at the party it won't be a bad thing to leave it a week.

Looking forward, too to getting my hands on the next issue of Knit! which promises to be a "Killing" special and looks good from the preview.
Also looking forward to the new yarns and book collections from Rowan coming "soon" - just read the news e-newsletter for January which touches briefly on whats to come. If you've not joined its well worth it and there is an option for a free membership and paid one. Previously I have paid and subscribed, but now I tend to buy any books direct from the shops.

Bargain Colourscape Chunky & hair cut

2012-01-19T17:53:00.001Z

What do you think? Had my hair cut and coloured slightly differently. Slightly more "red" in the colour, we've been adding to the mix for several months now ever since I took the decision to permanently dye my hair and think this is just about "me" - what do you think?

I'm not very adventurous with my hair, although its very "good" and has a nice natural kink/wave to it its really neither truly "curly" nor "straight". somewhere inbetween and has to be thinned considerably to keep it under control. I have my lateMother's hair in this respect, unfortunately I also inherited my lateFather's "white" hair too - NOT so good! underneath at the roots is where it shows hence it gets done every 6weeks.

Popped into the town to try and get a wii golf game for dh for his birthday and - cough - somehow - cough - managed to drop into my bag a ball of Patons Trentino dk AND 5 skeins of Rowan Colourscape Chunky in 443/cloud to knit this from The Colourscape Chunky Collection (first book).

I hummed and haa'd about it (for approx 4mins) as although 5 skeins for £30 is a good price, its not the best bargain however I have wanted to knit something from this book other than the scarf I've knitted twice using 1 skein apiece and as they only had a couple of packs left and it was, afterall, PINK, decided to grab it. The other ball was reduced £4 and I thought nice "manly" colours that would come in handy should I have a sudden need t knit something "manly" for a man next year .. they did have alternative pink/girly colours but I felt better, slightly, for buying something not obviously for "me".

Waiting for Easter ..

2012-01-16T08:21:00.001Z

Well at least waiting for the Easter holiday! Because thats the next time we get to bring our son home again from Uni!
Yesterday we took him back which was sad because we're going to miss him, but I think he was about ready to get away from me! at least! and I do feel much better that he seems to want to be away from me I mean at the Uni! He's taken to his studies very well, clearly enjoys the work and is well suited to the course and is even thinking of learning a language. Russian. for some reason. Vague hints about possibly wanting to go and visit and work/live in Russia .. I managed to dodge those - far too far away for me to even think about! I'm just about managing to cope with him being 4hrs drive away in this country!!
Annoyingly I forgot to get out two of the main bags of provisions from the cupboard and was SO cross and upset at myself for this! Insisted that dh and I took him to his local supermarket to buy some stuff for him to set him up! It was important to me to feel that we'd given him a good start with the basics and in particular the heavy stuff that he would find difficult to carry, eg milk, water, pop and tinned stuff and potato etc. I wasn't very popular with either of them in this respect! and its cost us a fortune in grocery bill having him home not least because I spent £60 on clothes for him on his last day .. still you only have them once don't you?
Slight annoyance on way back a diversion cost us an additional hour to the journey plus a lot of heavy traffic added to the stress, we got back and I switched the chip pan on (I'd already roasted a gammon joint in anticipation of a quick dinner late in the evening and "chips" is generally popular with dh and no.2.son) only to find the electrics "went"! Now. As we'd had a power cut twice in one day last week, I assumed it was the same and ordered dh to IGNORE it and LEAVE it (stop FIDDLING with the fuse box!) and WAIT .. only problem was WE were the only house in the street in darkness .. dh ignored me and fiddled with the fuse box and power was restored ..
Mad dash about the locality to find a chip shop that was open late on Sunday - dh insisted that he WANTED chips and INSISTED we found a chippie .. we did. and they were horrid. which is generally our experience hence having a chip pan of our own .. anyway at that late hour it was food at least .. but the gammon was really nice!

On Friday we went for a meal at the local pub to celebrate the early birthday for Les while our son was still home, give our son a nice meal out before his return and it coincided with the 10th anniversary of my late Dad who died on 13th January 10yrs ago so all in all Fri 13th was an emotional day for various reasons!

On Saturday my friend, Sally, and I attended a party to celebrate the relocation of a lys and took along a gift bottle of sparkling wine which I embroidered a bottle jacket for - ours was a posh bottle of wine!! probably not vintage but it was at least welll dressed!

Finally finished, on Sunday night the back of Joshua and here you can see silly-Lilly helping me measure it and checking for me that it is finally "right" .. I don't know what it is about cats and knitting/sewing but they do feel they have to be involved! unfortunately their idea of involvement usually means CLAWS! Anyway, the back is now the required length, and whether I have enough yarn or not I'll have to wait and see ..

A proper real life LYS, knit nights and a party!

2012-01-13T10:36:00.002Z

At last! we've got a proper real life WOOL SHOP! and I can say that with confidence since they specialise and feature yarns with at least 70% natural fibre and many from lovely independant producers too - a must for the discerning knitter!
Last night my knit pal, Sally, and I went along to their evening knit night and met with some other ladies that have come over from the original premises and as I know there are lots of "local" knitters here, I'm hoping it won't be too long before a few familiar faces join in too.
We reviewed yarns this time for a knitting magazine and on Saturday there is the lovely launch party to look forward to!
I expect I shall spend a lot of time and money here! and this is just one of my recent purchases:

A skein of hand dyed dk yarn, 80% superfine alpaca and 20% silk from The Knitting Goddess in semi solid "biscuit" purchased at recent trunk show at Fibre Flurry - lovely and soft!

New Year Knitting

2012-01-13T10:18:00.000Z

OTN's is the lovely Joshua by Sarah Hatton from The Knitter issue 39.
I will update my Ravelry project page with details of the yarn which was purchased at HofF in a 20% promotion. Its knit in the lovely Rowan Tweed and while I've had a few "problems" getting the pattern established, mostly its been of my own doing!

I've ripped back several times - annoyingly after completely most of the back/cable section before FINALLY getting the "pattern" only to find that a chance ponder over "length" made me realise that this falls some 5cm short compared to no.2.son's RTW jumpers! Knowing that he is somewhat "reluctant" to wear "mum's knitted jumper" if he barely manages to tug it down past hip bones he won't wear it! so - once more - ripped right back and reknit to add the length .. which means is a good chance I'll be short of yarn, but can't be sure as I purchased "extra" just in case .. if I were more mathematical (or just did/understood the point of a tension square!) I'd be able to work out IF I had sufficient yarn - as it I'm mathematically challenged so will just knit on and see how I get on!

Now that I've "got" the pattern, I do like it! the cable section which you can't see from here, is nice and I will update as I reach that point ..

FINISHED is Banshee by Kim Hargreaves from the lovely Scarlet and its a lovely warm jumper knit in the cosy Rowan Kid Classic, this was a bargin lot of 10 balls in yarn clearance marked down some year or so ago.

At the same clearance, I also bought 10 balls of Rowan pure silk and was pleased to find in local JL a half price Rowan book featuring this yarn!

Best bargain! though! was 12 balls of the lovely Rowan Lima at half price - I've spent the last week or so fondling various yarns and very nearly didn't buy anything, but as I have had my eye on a few patterns using this I thought that 12 at half price in such a nice neutral colour has got to be taken home!! Shade 889 Lot 2F9289

Happy New (crafty) Year!

2012-01-13T09:58:00.000Z

A belated but sincere Happy New Year! x
FINALLY I uploaded squillions of photo's from my camera to the pc and find myself overwhelmed with so much and so many things to SAY and share that I've decided to fling, instead, a selection of photo's and start afresh with some KNITTING completed and newly OTN's!

The cats enjoyed searching for "mousie" in amongst the gift wrap .. poor Lilly got "shouted" at by dh and had a sulk in response and had to be "persuaded" to join in .. she's such a GIRL!

we had a quiet night in on New Year's Eve with a drink, just the family - and enjoyed a nice meal on New Years Day.

It was nice to have no.1.son home from Uni for the holiday, and nice to have both our "children" together albeit they kept as far apart as politely possible!! it seems to be some sort of law that you don't like your brother but without any specific REASON - a teen phase (we hope!)

Anyway, we had a good time enjoying our family at home and this weekend we take our son back to Uni. No.2.son is today taking the first of his first year A Level exams and dh remarked that it won't be too long before we're looking at Uni's for him! and then another year and they'll BOTH be off our hands and on their own! A rather daunting prospect! no "children" at home!
Next month we find out if work will extend dh's post-retirement contract - fingers crossed they will for both financial and personal reasons and not just to suit me!!

Happy Christmas!

2011-12-24T15:00:00.001Z

The Tree! all lit up and looking lovely!

Bertie peeping out from under the tree!

Well I really just wanted to say HAPPY CHRISTMAS! and had planned to fling some shots of our tree and stuff up to get into the spirit of things but blogger is not behaving nicely this afternoon!
this year has gone by so FAST I can hardly believe its the end of the year! I hope that all my crafty-pals have a terrific holiday and look forward to sharing more yarny yumminess NEXT YEAR!
Happy Christmas!

Lilly "helping" us put up the Christmas tree!

some quilty little baby gifts

2011-12-24T14:40:00.000Z

Last week we visited SIL to deliver baby-xmas gifts to the newest in the family, here is baby-Maisie at rising-1yr she's already starting to find her "feet" and developing fast into a proper little character. On the day we visited, her Mum, Claire, was getting ready to go skiing along with Maisie and for anyone interested, next year promises to be exciting with news that she is to commence "robot" training early in the year ahead of her challenge to "walk" the London Marathon! The race is on now to see who walks "first", mum or daughter!

I made little sets of fleece hats and scarves embroidered with a snowman - built in design - for each of the two babies. Nice quick make these were overlocked and done in an evening. The fleece is the last remnants of that used for my own sons when they were small and I just managed to squeeze a pair using practically every last scrap of fabric!

I embroidered some pretty little designs on soap, too, and wrapped them in fabric - this design is a built in from my Bernina emb. machine.

Using a printed panel from the lovely Cotton Patch, I made a pair of christmas stockings for the children and colour themed one red and one green and quilted them using the lovely quilt threads from my former job working for Janome.

SEW much choice!! I love threads ..

Its been a long time since I've done any proper sewing and one thing I've resolved for NEXT YEAR is to do more! sewing!

I'm afraid I'm having a bit of a battle with blogger this afternoon and it won't co-operate with uploading my pics! sorry! for the disjointed way they are being flung up! and for any duplications!
Essentially I cut the panels, used steam-a-seam to bond the applique "label" with holly/leaves to the plain red "back" of each and embroidered the child's name to personalise. It took me a few mins and a trial "go" with a mini sample to get into my head HOW to make up a quilted sandwich "top" and a fully lined "inner" but in the end it was nice and easy-peasy!

I'm glad I made the effort, they were well received and I hope the children will enjoy them each year for many years to come. We filled the stockings with chocolates and mini selection boxes and the fleece stuff.

I did a mix of quilting using my walking foot and some free motion "whizz" up and around in general chaos of random this-way-and-that-way! and managed to NOT get myself backed into a corner! by the end I was fair breathless and that was nothing to do with the Afib!! tense, too, from GRIPPING the fabric layers I finally finished quilting around 11pm and promptly sank a VERY large G+T by way of relief!! I thoroughly enjoyed making these.

Finally we wrapped some toys from ELC and that was THAT! its nice to have babies to gift for at Christmas time!

Some knits I've completed

2011-12-24T14:10:00.001Z

The lovely Flamenca!

and the lovely Union Jack scarf!

OTN's at present is Banshee - the back and front are knit and sleeve.1 is about 1/2way now.
"Joshua" from last month's edition of The Knitter is also knitting up slowly, I mean nicely for no.2.son - more on that and pics next year! next YEAR! get that! next year, how QUICK has this year gone? its the end already!

I'd rather be KNITTING

2011-12-12T18:19:00.003Z

Actually I've been knitting quite a lot and have some lovely yarns too waiting to be knit up!
Here is the latest skein of hand dyed DK semi solid yarn by The Knitting Goddess bought from this weekend's trunk show at the lovely Fibre flurry yarn shop.
I went to the trunk show with knit-pal-Sally and enjoyed browsing the yarns and seeing all the lovely patterns made up, I had my eye on the super Rosaleen shawl knit in this yarn and plan to purchase the pattern and CO very soon! There are some lovely mittens with a fingerless glove version too if you buy the pattern "set" and seeing them knit up they really are a lovely mitten and I'm quite tempted!!
It was nice to chat with and meet Rachel and Joy (and two other ladies whose names I'm not sure of!!).
The terrific news for ME however, is that Mikayla is going to be relocating her shop to just up the road FROM me over Christmas and is having a lovely party mid-Jan to celebrate her new premises which promises to be bigger and better! and offer opportunities for workshops! We enquired, and it seems likely that there will also be two regular opportunities to go along for "knit and chat" sessions in both the day and evening which will suit both myself and my pal with whom I would go along with! hurrah! for having a LYS on our doorstep at last!! Naturally this is good news, but I just hope that our bank balances can stand such excitement?

things I've bought

2011-12-12T18:08:00.002Z

things I've bought recently and

books I've borrowed from the library ..

Our library is excellent for getting in good books and I'm enjoying these two and still using the previous Hairy Biker's cook book from where the ginger sponge in the next post came from.

A couple of weekends ago a vintage fair was being held and I dragged the family along for a mornings worth of sheer misery! I need to accept that they DON'T enjoy the same things as me! they did their best and dutifully rushed through the entire hall and rooms albeit in rather a frantic mad "where's the EXIT" type of way before dh declared himself coming over all headachey and no.2.son went all pale and announced he was feeling FAINT.
I left them to wander about the high street and I bought these:

Handmade Christmas cards from Sutton Coldfield vintage fair.

A lot of baking!

2011-12-12T18:01:00.002Z

not JUST baking, in fact there has been a lot of KNITTING and a lot of SEWING and a bit of EMBROIDERY too!
I've been a bit hectic and not had chance to blog in sequence so have decided to just fling a load of pics and add a bit of something to explain it in separate posts.
FIRST the BAKING!
Above are the lovely chocolate muffins baked with a large chunk of chocolate in the middle that slowly part melts as they cooks and offers a nice chocolately surprise when bitten into! seriously yum and very quick to bake and only takes one egg ..
I bought some of these silicon muffin cases last week and find they are much better at holding the cake mixture than the paper cases so far I'm pleased with them!

Next is the seriously scrummy Ginger Sponge which is baked like a cake but is more of a "pudding" sponge - we are this yesterday hot with a dollop of vanilla icecream - very gingery I added some chopped stem ginger and the remaining syrup from the jar. the top is nice and "crusty" too.

dried fruits soak in sherry before baking

the cake mixture in the tin

soaking the fruit cake in sherry while it "rests"

ahead of plastering it with marzipan

The Christmas cake is nearly done! all bar the icing!
I confess to using premade marzipan and icing this year but its SO much easier!
The cake is good old Delia Smith's classic rich fruit cake that she uses for Christmas and I carried on the family tradition of frightening the mixture with half a bottle of sherry for added "flavour" ! hic ..

walnut and rye bread

DELICIOUS with home made soup, I went to a knitting shop at the weekend with my knit-pal-Sally and we browsed the Farmer's Market outside and I bought this lovely bread.
I'd like to say I feel inspired to bake my own, but I don't! really! I'd quite like to buy a bread making machine but at £400 or so can think of other yarny stuff I'd rather buy at half the price!
I do like a nice bread and this was seriously tasty!

At the same time I bought a nice purple broccoli! looked HUGE until I cut off all the leafy bits surrounding and was left with THIS ..

but to be fair, it was nice! and luckily due to 2xlightbulbs having "gone" I was able to sneak it onto no.2.son's plate with his sunday roast without him noticing!! ha! sneaky? yes, but you have to be sneaky, I often "hide" bits of veg in food a bit like you press tablets into dog meat to fool a dog into taking his medicine, the same doesn't work, however, with CATS! they are far too sensible to be fooled in this way and I find the best thing is to ask the VET to do it! which happily for us our vet is happy TO do - the cats are due for their annual check and worming etc as if we need more expense? this year we have decided thats its too stressful for US to fit the pair of cats into one carrier so we need to buy another one .. its such an expensive time of year isn't it?
We're looking forward to fetching no.1.son home from Uni for the Christmas break! and he tells me that he may well be wanting to enjoy a can or three of his DAD'S BEER! hmm not sure how that will go down? ..

The Killing - funny clip and the jumper!

2011-11-25T17:26:00.001Z

I missed the original first series, but caught the US version which I watched with no.1.son - but thanks to the ravelry thread about The Killing 2 jumper, I've been alerted to the series just started and found it on catchup tv. Tried to persuade dh to watch it but he struggled a bit and don't think he's too keen, no.1.son isn't watching it, either, apparently due to the subtitles.
I loved this clip that someone posted - the REAL reason people are watching The Killing!
Anyway the pattern can be got here.
Or you could buy one from here!

end of an era! no.2.son's certificate evening

2011-11-25T17:13:00.001Z

Well its the end of an era! the last time we shall be going to a "school" event!

No.2.son had his Certificate presentation evening for their GSCE exams and it was a nice evening hosted with enthusiasm as the Head Master was proud to announce a super set of records for high achievements for the 2nd year running meaning a good result all round for "school" and students.
Hard to get our heads around the fact that our "children" are no longer "school children" particularly as no.1.son has both worked in a job and is now at Uni studying and away from home - how fast they grow up? and yet it only seems like yesterday that they were moving up from primary to secondary school! time plays tricks on you! and its played a terrible trick on me this month! its very nearly DECEMBER! already? how did THAT happen? what happened to November? where did it go? I'm starting to panic! and flung half a bottle of sherry at 800g of mixed fruit and plan to bake it into a Christmas and hope to finish it before Christmas!! phew! xx

Knitting this weekend, dems, mags and books!

2011-11-25T16:57:00.001Z

On Tuesday the local HofFraser hosted a knitting demonstration on the shop floor with Erica Pask who was kind enough to share practically all she knows about knitting with tips and techniques and it was lovely way to spend a couple of hours - some of the ladies from the JL knitting club were there too - shhh! not a word now, but I also bought some BOOKS too!
Talking of books, Erica hinted heavily at a very nice book coming out soon for crochet which sounds like one to buy from Jane Crowfoot.
For ages now I've wanted Scarlet and when I saw the selection of Rowan books reduced down to just £2 I had to pick those up too!
Already I've CO for Banshee from Scarlet

As well as books, I've gone mad on magazines too and after reading the chatter about the new mag Knit Now I decided to buy a copy when I saw the last one in local Sainsburys! Its accessories only, no garments or children's stuff etc but I was attracted by the gloves! (of course!) and also by the set of cable needles which include a teeny one which will be perfect for my current Knotty gloves!!

A bit like buses! they all come at once! this morning my subscription copies of The Knitter and Simply Knitting both arrived - JUST as I was leaving for my appt at the anti-coagulation clinic and I was SO keen to come home I practically robbed the Pharmacist of all his warfarin and snatched it and RAN!! home!! to put my feet up for a quiet read before the FAMILY come home!

While out, I popped into the local Heart Foundation charity shop and saw they had a collection of cones of machine yarn - its acrylic but the colours were nice! I picked one up for doing goodness knows what with! but a bargain for just a £1 for 360m's of 4ply!?

Flamenca shawl is finished!

2011-11-21T14:25:00.001Z

Flamenca is finished! You can see it here.
I'm slightly disappointed at the obvious difference in the colour but I suppose thats the downside to using hand-dyed yarns in fact its not as obvious in "real life" but I'm glad the photo has shown it up so I can say it really IS different and not just me being fussy.
If anyone has any tips to minimise this for future projects please do share! I'm thinking if I were knitting a cardigan I'd be really narked if my fronts were so obviously different, but for this type of accessory it won't be as noticeable.
Now all I need to do is buy a shawl pin!

My knotty gloves are coming along nicely, I've CO and am set to knit the 2nd - or I should say "3rd" since I reknit the first which definitely IS a case of over-fussing - bah! and I'm going to tackle the union jack scarf that I've been trying to avoid - cough - for some weeks .. sigh ..

Tomorrow the local House of Fraser is hosting a knitting demonstration and I have plans to go along and see whats going on and will blog with pics if I take any!

A proper SERIOUS chocolate cake : Mud Pie

2011-11-21T14:12:00.001Z


Mud Pie

This is a serious cake for self confessed and confirmed chocoholics with a VERY sweet tooth only! (or, alternatively, greedy people like me who don't as it happens crave chocolate as such but do enjoy CAKE and PUDDINGS!).
Too much I think for no.2.son who IS a chocoholic and addicted to cake, but I think the richness of all the cream and marshmallows not to MENTION .. shhh! .. the secret ingredient of a large dash or three of Jack Daniels - hic - means I need to get some vanilla icecream to calm it all down.
DH who doesn't normally enthuse was very keen on this! I think he meant it as a compliment when he muttered that THAT was quite easily as good as chocolate pudding you'd get after a pub meal! .. hmm slightly BETTER I thought! considering the amount of fresh cream and the JD ..

The recipe came from the current crop of library books I've been enjoying - The Hairy Bikers best loved cook book. There are several recipes in here that I've made and plan to look to buy this book when I see it on "offer" some time; in the meantime its a loan from the library for me!

Also on loan from the library, another knitty book which although a bit basic has some nice gloves and scarves in it and I do like to read books and find that loaning from the library offers a chance to decide if a book is one you WANT to own/buy and saves costly mistakes particularly if you buy without seeing them first online.

I've got several titles mostly knitting that I'm waiting to come in and will share as I get them.

I'll leave you with a last picture of chocolate cake to DIE for ..

Finally we got to see our son !

2011-11-15T16:33:00.001Z

On Saturday we drove all the way down to Colchester to see no.1.son for the first time since we left him there at the beginning of Oct. I'm sure if any of you have done or are doing the same as us - seeing our children "off" into grownup-land you'll know what a mix of emotions it is?
On the one hand we're glad to see the back of them! joke!! but equally we want them to stay home with us for ever and ever .. anyway we were pleased and reassured to find our son had NOT faded away into a malnourished skeleton! was managing to keep up and understand his studies! and best of all - sadly for me?! I am proud to announce he can operate the launderette facilities AND sort his washing out all by himself!! ok, I admit hugging him and planting big kiss on his cheek and announcing "GOOD BOY! WELL DONE!" is a bit on the mumsy side, but well, thats what MUMS do best? afterall? embarrass their children with over fussing on domestic matters.

Anyway its about a 4hr drive for us and I took along my knitting! you can see too that I'm wearing my recently completed "Tender" so I was all set for a lovely journey down ..

We'd taken a pile of food and useful stuff and ate our lunch with our son before heading off to nearby Colchester to have a look around .. now! I promise! I had NO IDEA that we'd drive straight into a carpark on the first street right round the corner from a branch of FRANKLINS .. but! I'm not sure who spotted it first all I remember is a mix of shriek - excitment! (me) groaning (no.2 son) sigh of defeat and despair (dh) and a brave attempt by no.1.son to give mum 5mins! and he must have missed us as he duly complied with taking far more photo's of ME outside the shop than I took of HIM and, it has to be said, at least his shots were mostly in focus whereas mine appear to have come out severely jaundiced ..
Anyway I had to pop in and look around, this shop has two floors and the yarn was upstairs and I could have spent loads more time and money but luckily for the family I was quite restrained and came out soon with a bag of two balls of wool ..

After all that excitement we took our family for meal. Not at the pub we'd looked up and planned - they had a private party that evening, but luckily we'd gone past somewhere that looked nice and we ate around 6pm dropped our son back at his Uni and set off for home around 8pm ..

half way home dh announced he was in need of a break so we stopped off for coffee and petrol and I don't know if it was the excitment and relief of seeing our son and/or the caffiene/petrol but we completely got the giggles over some tale I was regaling our no.2.son with who unfortunately mistimed swallowing a mouthful of his drink with choking down a laugh and forgot - apparently - HOW to breath! and found he couldn't breath OR swallow and turned quite pale before looking somewhat blue! We think he had a strange form of panic attack because his hands went all tingly and his face numb and he was still laughing but couldn't "do" anything with it to stop it! In the end I ordered dh to take him to the loo. this is another of my usual "mums" advice if its all going wrong, just go to the toilet! lol!! anyway after several mins of him clutching at his head and insisting he COULDN'T breath or swallow and dh was looking nervous at the prospect of the staff dialing for an ambulance we finally managed to walk him out into the fresh air after dh took him once more to the loos to splash cold water on his face!
I think we were all a bit over excited!

We are looking forward now to bringing our son home in December for Christmas - won't be long now ..

My baking (pastry!) is improving

2011-11-15T16:24:00.001Z

One of my other interests is baking and cooking generally so its nice that it seems to be quite fashionable at the moment to be talking about cake! and eating it too! When we visited our no.1.son at his Uni last weekend, I was interested that one of his flatmates was keen to bake "cupcakes" and was happy to talk about this and fling some of the rather fiercely over-red iced and sugared cakes I'd baked for our visit! Its nice I think to read that young people are cooking and one of the things that dh and I found reassuring was that ALL of our son's flatmates were cooking "proper meals" ie from scratch and not the ready-meals/takeaways ..
It does take a little effort to cook and you have to learn and with experience and practice you do improve which is certainly the case with my PASTRY. no.2.son remarked recently that my pastry was the best yet when I flung slices of "pie" at them for dinner! this quiche was actually BETTER than it photographed - I promise!!

Delia Smith's classic quiche lorraine recipe

What I like best of all is that when cooking for yourself you can be flexible with what you make to suit what you can pick up cheaply and last weekend a bag of perfectly nice rhubarb was reduced to 50p and became this! rhubarb crumble! yumm...

Knitting Progress

2011-11-15T16:11:00.001Z


Flamenca

First of all the lovely Flamenca! what a lovely and super quick easy to knit pattern this is! As you can see I've nearly reached a point of almost finishing and as the stitches are reduced it makes each row that bit quicker to knit and I can't wait to finish not least because I have two more shawls waiting to go OTN's!!
I'm enjoying both the knitting and the yarn which is slightly sparkly and think the colour is lovely - what do you think?

Next my lovely Knotty gloves! or I should say glovE. well, I'ive got TWO but as I'm reknitting it I've actually got two right hand gloves! I'm glad I decided to reknit it; I was desperate I admit to use my "new" 9" sock circ.needle but really needed the 2.5mm for this and reknitting it has given me an improved fit as well as the chance to reduce by 2stitches to ease in the slight "fold" across back of hand that results - we think - from the stitch pattern change from rib/cable to st.st. I didn't do as was suggested in the end, and what I did do isn't quite "right" but a blind man would be happy to see the flaw in my theory (as my LateMum who was herself half-blind often used to say. mostly when I was fussing over 1/8" seam .. bah!)

anyway, I'm loving knitting this pattern and having knit it twice already, feel sure that my left hand/second glove will be perfection!!

finished right hand glove, 2nd attempt

The pattern is Knotty and the thread in which the "fold" is discussed can be read here.

here are some more pics showing the glove being knitted in various stages, I used the 9" 2.75mm circ for the first attempt, switched down to 2.5mm's and for the fingers/thumb I used DPN's.

Knit and Natter - local club

2011-11-15T15:52:00.001Z


Some of the ladies at knit'n'chat

Well it seems strange to end with where I started .. I mean this is the first chance today to catch up with events over the last week or so and of course it appears on the blog in reverse! (geographically challenged! you remember. ignore me. I ramble.)

After all the excitement of the lovely Fibre Flurry event, the following Saturday my knit-pal-Sally and I decided to meet up for one of the twice monthly "knit'n'chat" groups held at local JL coffee shop and run by the local Rowan DC, Helen, who had brought along one or two of the newer knitted samples to show off .. my pal demonstrates one of them here, (sorry, I can't recall the pattern name, the yarn OR which book it comes from!)

demonstrating a sample knit for Rowan

We both admired the lovely beaded scarf worn by one of the regulars and looked with interest at some of the new whirly scarfs being knit (or crocheted) and Sally brought along her new and SIGNED copy of this LOVELY book!
Having actually seen - albeit briefly - this book I can say with confidence that its a book I really fancy buying and not just for the patterns either. Perhaps for Christmas? ..
(another book I fancy is this lovely book by Kim Hargreaves .. and while we're on the subjects of what I wants I wants this kit too! after looking at Mooncalf's fabulous scarf and reading her favourable reviews and comments received about it. somehow I don't think "Santa" is going to be quite sew-generous?)

Sally was wearing once again something new she'd crocheted and I was glad I took my camera along, its nice to see what you look like when wearing stuff isn't it? I think she looks lovely in this!

The excitement ended when we visited nearby House of Fraser and each picked up a bargain bag of yarn, my pal got a bag of 4ply reduced twice over and I was pleased with an assortment of Belle Organicdk Rowan down from £35 to £15. gloves? I think? more gloves!

Picking up projects and starting afresh, new needles/yarns!

2011-11-04T12:51:00.001Z

Well if I had lost any enthusiasm for knitting (which I probably hadn't!) I've certainly got it back after attending Fibre Flurry last weekend I found myself totally MAD on knitting SHAWLS!
I can feel another of my obssessive compulsive enthusiasms coming on ..

anyway, OTN's and knitting up very nicely is the lovely Flamenca.
I've really got established with this pattern and finding it a pleasure to just sit and pick it up and knit a set of rows to relax while watching tv or waiting for something to bake in the oven!
The yarn is nice, and I do like the sparkle but I'm glad that I didn't use sparkle yarn for SOCKS, I wonder if it would irritate? the sparkley thread? hmm


Flamenca Shawl

As well as the pattern and yarn I'm also enjoying the NEEDLES. I'm knitting with 4mm knitpros and do find these a nice needle and I'm developing a small collection now of sizes. Open always! to alternatives! I nearly bought a pair of square knitpros and in one way I wish I had just to say I've got a pair and to try them! But I'm pleased that I was tempted in to buying a pair of hiya-hiya 9" sock needles from Brownberry yarns last weekend. they are slightly tricky to get used to as the tips are small to handle/knit with but the actual process of the knitting in the round is much easier! I suppose it would be? I know you could stop at any point with DPN's or ML, but somehow you really CAN stop anywhere with these!
I wanted to CO for Marlene a sock pattern I've had planned for ages, but in the end I didn't have the right yarn for it and when a few of my craft-pals expressed some interest in knitting gloves decided instead to CO for these! a pair of gloves! in this! yum!! I think what I'll do is get some jitterbug for Marlene - in pink!

Knotty Glove

The colour is actually not showing correctly, its actually a defnite "green" this looks more blue, but it might be the light/shot, I'll try and take another one and update the photo but you can see that I've knit most of the 6.5cm cuff already. I bought it from the fibre flurry "shop" - Natural Dye Studio.

Elsewhere back OTN's is the hem border for Cloud! which was temporarily abandoned for some reason I can't recall and I dug it out and decided to pick up where I'd left off - after ages trying to worth out WHERE in the 36rep row pattern sequence I had left off and HOW to resume the border in the end I pulled it OFF and started again. Tiresome, as I had done about 1/3 of it but thats what you get for leaving projects without adequate notes detailing exactly WHERE you left it at the time!?

I started this before I had my little "head" problem, but since last Sept I have had difficulties with some aspects of my memory and now I find that this is a pattern I need to sit and concentrate on, again I ought perhaps to have knit this in one go at the time when I could knit it! never mind, I wasn't expecting to go all woolly in the head now was I?

Anyway, this is a photo I took after 1 complete set of the pattern and as you can see its GREEN! hmm. I seem to be definitely attracted to green at the moment. Already I have planned another project from this book - this time in a nice shade of brown/calmer. but we'll see. I have further plans for another project from Rowan 50 using this.

Pattern repeat for Cloud border

FINALLY to round the week another batch of baking! yum this time some easy-peasy Rock Cakes from the Hairy Bikers mums know best book I've still got from the library. really nice and spicy I got 9 generous sized cakes from the mixture which is handy given there are 3 of us in our household at the moment ..

Rock Cakes

Tomorrow I'm looking forward to meeting up with knit-pal-Sally and we're going to go to the knit and chat am session - with our knitting!!

me wearing Arielle

2011-11-01T17:00:00.001Z


"Arielle"

this was about the best photo even though it does have the lamp thing appearing to be plugged into back of my head - and I've got rather scary-hair too!! more of a summer knit and looks much better on the model in the book but I'm pleased with all the same! see? I'm wearing my badge too! eat/knit/sleep!

Fibre Flurry!

2011-10-31T17:19:00.004Z

On Saturday my knit-pal-Sally and I went to Fibre Flurry for their annual Event and had really good day out with lots to see and lots to talk about! It was nice to go along with a friend and we arrived in plenty of time for a prompt 10am start and stayed until around 2.30pm.
We both bought plenty of stuff and quite honestly could have bought more but what FOR!
I resolved to purchase yarns that I would use for patterns and was lucky to get patterns for two purchases which I think is a safer option for me. To be honest, I'd like to offer all yarn a good home in my sewing room but I can't afford to take in any more stray or random purchases and much as I was tempted by some of the lovely sock yarns I managed to remain sensible and resist all temptation - although I came close to breaking my resolve when Sally purchased a sock pattern and we were shown a selection of samples using two colours .. must must MUST resist .. (its not easy!?)

In the end this is what I bought:

snapshot of what I bought

Labels from the shop, the badges from The Knitting Goddess and the lovely little earrings from Atomic Knitting.

A ball of Lang Jawoll Magic yarn and a pair of tiny sock circs from Brownberry Yarns who were good enough to let us have a try at knitting with these tiny needles just long enough to knit a pair of socks - OR as she was doing - MITTENS! I plan to CO for socks this week and can't wait to try them out (you know me and new things). I'm planning to knit Holden shawlette as per their sample knit on display.

Next I bought a pattern for a shawl and a skein of Super Biffle - swamp thing from Easy Knits

but FIRST I bought this! how fab is this colour! I know! its not PINK but though I like pink, blues and greeny blues suit me so I couldn't resist buying the yarn and pattern for a lovely shawl from Anniken Allis/yarn addict - lovely Twinkletoes Sock 2xskeins. I had it wound into a ball on Saturday evening and CO for this project in no time!

I bought a pair of 4mm knitpros and am just loving this simple easy knit and can't wait to see it grow.

I've gone shawl-mad! I confess to another slightly obsessive compulsive enthusiasm - shawl knitting and circular needles - you have been warned!

To finish the weekend I picked up the last current edition of Knit magazine and found that both SK and The Knitter had arrived in that morning's post - three new knitty mags and a new project OTG AND a project finished how about THAT for a great weekend?

This week we hope to see our no.1.son at his Uni - we were unable to go last week due to a last minute change of his plans which is unfortunate as our other son was home for half term but has returned today to College but we're keen to see him as soon as possible. In the meantime I was thrilled when he rang to report that he'd managed to successfully operate the microwave, laundry facilities AND steamed his vegetables - ha! I'm more worried that he is managing himself practically and eating enough and shan't be completely happy until I've seen evidence.

Arielle is finished!

2011-10-31T16:45:00.003Z

FINISHED! Arielle from Misty by Kim Hargreaves.
I love this top and am wearing it today - although better suited to spring/summer I would wear a cardi over the top - or a shawl!? - yes? suggestions, please? and though I wasn't sure about the small cap sleeves (suiting my arms) I think for the warmer weather it will be fine and with a cardi atop also fine.

I alternated the lovely little buttons - plain and flowered - and am wearing it as per design half undone! Love it!

buttons finish it off

Lilly checks before I sew up

blocked and waiting to be finished

Chocolate Pudding, Pies & Mittens

2011-10-31T16:36:00.000Z

How about that for a mix up! bit of baking and some knitting! actually I've done a lot of both this last week finishing all in a sudden hurry several things .. hurrah

no.2.son covers with chocolate

steamed choc pudding

Eves pudding!

with a bag of Bramley apples for 0.69p I made an Eve's pudding and apple sauce for the roast pork both recipes came from the previously mentioned Hairy Bikers' library book.

minced beef'n'onion pie

and with my brother coming round for his tea a large beef'n'onion pie! I did pastry top and bottom.

It wasn't all baking! I used my electric hand mixie thingie to make twisted cord! ha! how about that then? for something different? My cyber-sew-pal-Cheryl put me on to this and I must admit I couldn't see how it would work, and it did take a bit of persuasion to CONvince no.2.son to control the mixer while I took pics ..

no.2.son powers up!

this is what I got

after a bit of settling

this is what I ended up with! I used a doubled length of Linton Tweed's yarn and a week on, its still very twisted (and still hanging about upstairs)

more lacey mitts

I finished another pair of lacey mitts, this is a really lovely pattern and so quick to knit and a surprisingly easy pattern to relax with ..

I shall knit this again and again and again .. xxx

The knitting is done! scarf, mitts and jumper

2011-10-21T16:44:00.000+01:00

FINISHED. all in a rush and all in the same week. hurrah and thank goodness for that! just in time for the cold spell that is forecast, my lovely super warm/cosy jumper Tender is FAB! I love it! the photo's are a bit blurry (no.2.son having a funny moment unable to focus!) so I might retake them - ignore the dodgy hair day and no make up !!
I love the colours and think they suit me, the jumper is nice and cosy and if I were to make it again, which I would be tempted! I'd make it a bit longer and knit the smaller size. I love the jumper though! this will be my winter-knit. Comment from no.2.son when I canvassed opinion was "wow! did YOU MAKE THAT!? .. it looks PROFESSIONAL!" ha! thats the sort of comment you want! yes?

Tender from Rowan Mag 50

At the same I finished more sets of mitts - the pic of the grey pair was too blurry but essentially is the same as the pair below just in grey!! and the scarf too.

Lacy scarf and mitts from SK mag

buttoned up at the neck

set of mitts & scarf

patterns from SK magazine

I enjoyed knitting the little mitts and eventually got the hang of the scarf pattern which is nice because its designed to be buttoned at the neck so you get the warmth at the neck without all the scarfy bits down the front and you use the lace pattern holes for buttoning it up to suit your preference, I've gone for a tight fit! I like my scarves to be practical and wear to keep out the cold!!

hole in bay window

Still waiting for my curtains to go up at the window in our dining room, dh was persuaded to tackle it ahead of plans to redecorate this room (next year at the earliest due to financial restraints!) and decided in his own wisdom to knock out the ceiling. which we have put up with some few months; this week he ripped out yet more and then set about filling it with planks of wood and a piece of plasterboard before announcing - covered in brick dust - that he'd had enough! bah.
Possibly it was a mistake to inspect progress and announce "errrmm.. not done very much? thats not much for a whole day! ? WHEN ARE YOU FINISHING??" but apparently it will get finished - soon - ish .. zzzz

Looking forward with some excitement now to going to Fibre Flurry next week with knit-pal-Sally! must remember to take camera! and MONEY - list of people going to be there looks exciting might need to do some serious restraining myself in the financial department!

Next week we're all off to visit no.1.son at Uni! contact has been limited and sporadic and mostly consists of short emails or texts mainly to do with "how long does it take to defrost a chicken?" follow up phone call confirms FORGOT to take it out of freezer ahead of time and seems to think can defrost in 20mins. hmm. well a microwave comes in handy - 3 phone calls later and we get a text confirming has not collapsed with food poisoning .. thank goodness!
It will be December before he's able to come "home" and we're all looking forward very much to seeing him again properly and I've already made plans to feed him up on lots of proper food!!

Last night no.2.son and I watched the last programme of Great British Bakeoff which revisited series 1 which we'd not watched and we're already looking forward to it returning again next year! Might look out and buy the cookery book that accompanies this series I hear that Tesco are doing it for £10.
This weekend sees the last ever - wah! - episode of Spooks! and I'm looking forward to it, but sad that it IS the last ever! having watched it faithfully from the beginning I can't quite believe this is the end - not sure what I want/expect to happen to "Harry" but I hope they don't kill him off.

BACK on the go is the lovely Arielle project which I picked up after finishing Tender and I am resolved to finishing this project and am now well underway knitting the "front" and enjoying the teeny tiny no.12 needles after the bigger ones for Tender! I'm sure there will be more gloves, too, but apart from that I've no other new projects to report AT THE MOMENT although this could change after the weekend. Need to go and update my Ravelry projects page!

Day out to visit the babies!

2011-10-17T17:44:00.002+01:00

Not such babies anymore! they are really growing up into characters now and we enjoyed visiting with sil whom I'd knitted the fingerless mitts for to see how the babies were doing and catch up generally on life and progress in their family run fishery alongside their farm and with two grandchildren born this year it looks like a fun and lively time ahead. Baby-Maisie entertained us scooting about (pics above) while baby-Arthur slept - we didn't want to risk waking him and disturbing his Mum so didn't take photo's this time. Both eating well now established on solid foods, Maisie showed us how clever she is at nearly feeding herself!!

You might be interested to read of dh's Niece Claire's inspiring story and enjoy the recent interviews here part 1 and here part 2. You can order her Riders Revealed calendar here, and her new jewellery venture can be seen here.

Not all about baking .. but ! (this post is!)

2011-10-17T17:25:00.001+01:00

I know it seems like all I do is eat cake. come to think of it there has been rather a lot of eating of cake! BUT to be fair I have also been doing some knitting too and will post tomorrow on the finished lacy scarf and another pair of lacy mitts to match from the remaining Rowan Felted Tweed yarn. AND progress is being made on my stripe jumper - Tender - just rather slowly, but hope to finish 2nd sleeve shortly and tackle the finishing/neck! I've worn the lovely little lace handwarmer/mitts and love them - just right!

Back to the kitchen.
From the library book I got out, The Hairy Bikers' Best-Loved Recipes I cooked their Roast Pork Belly with apples and sage and Braised Steaks with Gravy - both went down well with dh and no.2.son. Still adjusting to cooking for 3, its not as easy as you'd imagine but I've managed to freeze some portions.

Last week no.2.son and I enjoyed the last of the Masterclasses from the Great British Bakeoff competition, and this weekend we set about making the seriously chocolately Sachertorte! yummmm! is all I'm saying. I confess that my waistband is starting to pinch and I fear that weight is piling on so after this we may hold off further baking of cakes especially as Christmas is now not that far enough way to not do serious damage to weight ahead of the Christmas cake and goodies am planning to frighten the family with! (friends will be thinking "mince pies" + paving slabs! ha-ha!!)

Ok, here we go, a set of photographs from our weekend spent in the kitchen!

onion, apple & sage ahead of the pork

delicious roast pork in cider/gravy

good enough to eat!

but we melted it instead!

apricot jam to seal cake before covering with chocolate

ready for the topping

scummily chocolatey!

no.2.son did the icing! what a great job?

not a slice, more a SLAB of cake - bliss xx

another pair of lacy mitts

2011-10-09T12:17:00.001+01:00

OTN's last night: another pair of lacy mitts - ver.3 from the same pattern this time in grey Rowan Scotttish Tweed 4 ply (now discontinued but I've got LOADS! hurrah! loads of mitts!!)
Very very quick and easy this is a satisfying "watch with tv" portable project to have on the go and I've knit as you can see almost to the point of CO and then just the thumb to pick up off waste yarn and complete.
Quite why Kirsty knit the thumbs flat and then seamed, I don't know. I've got my stitches on waste yarn and will knit in the round ..

We're looking forward to tonight's XFactor to see who the judges eliminate from their final contestants ahead of the public vote from next week - we've got a few early favourites we're watching keenly.
We like AmeliaLilly best, Janet Devlin, Craig Cotton, Sami Brookes, The Risk and Rythmix too. but not decided yet who will vote for!
Enjoyed the Jonathon Ross show, we've never really enjoyed his shows before but this series is pretty good and it made yesterday quite a long night starting with Harry Hill at 7pm - glad he's back! we love this programme!

Still waiting to get a full update and report on life-at-Uni from no.1.son we finally got a short email yesterday advising he'd joined a couple of political societies and the freezer is broken and how to convert gas.5 to electric settings, please? ..
we've sent him texts and emails to advise us on favourable times for us to ring him .. apparently there ARE no favourable times .. in the end I rang him! and managed to drag SOME info from him that they were going on a "tour" to the local town and he'd bought 5 books and spent LOADS of money!! eek ..

I'm going to ring him again today .. I know. I said I wasn't. but, welll .. thats what mums do best? ring and pester their children for their own good!?

The Great British Bake off Battenburg Cake

2011-10-09T12:02:00.001+01:00

We we enjoyed watching this series of The Great British Bake off competition and we thought Jo deserved to win although we were fearing Holly might run off with it! Poor MaryAnne didn't do herself justice on the final and would have been our 2nd to win if we'd been able to vote.
No.2.son and I have enjoyed watching this competition with interest more for the technical/bake side than the personalities although we did have our "favourites" and a few we disliked/found irritating it was the technical challenges we loved the most.
Last week we watched the first of the Masterclasses and decided to bake a classic Battenburg Cake! (I fancied the coffee/walnut but no.2.son was less keen and as we were jointly making - and EATING it we set about finding a recipe)
Luckily one of the library books I've got at the moment, the Hairy Bikers' Best-Loved Recipes, featured it and its also available here.

The cake was quite easy to bake and assemble and we enjoyed making it although I seemed to end up with the less attractive tasks such as washing/tidying up and rolling out the marzipan! between us we had a couple of hours of fun and the final cake was declare a success! and delicious.
Next week is the Sachertorte masterclass and I have a recipe for this in one of my books also so we plan to give this one a go!


separate the two cake mixtures to bake

the two baked sponges

checking the baking is done

slicing the fingers - sponge!

applying the apricot jam and assembling sponges

the finished Battenburg!

sliced and enjoyed with cup of tea!

Elsewhere on the hob was my popular corned beef stew bubbling away to give us some comfort food for this turn of weather we're now having - this is a favourite of dh and no.1.son (who isn't here, at Uni presently) and no.2.son is not keen so I took advantage of this and prepared a batch which I ate half and froze other half while cooking "chips" for no.2.son which he was pleased/relieved with!!

A quick and easy and filling warm "stew" this is one that I remember from my childhood that my LateMother used to make and we call it "corned beef stew" the only addition I make is to add chilli! I love chilli! and since dh favours it too, now its just the two of us I added twice as much! hot-hot-hotter! but yumm!

bubbling away

to become a thickened stew

That followed by a slice of cake with cup of tea and a large G+T later on while watching tv marathon of Harry Hill, XFactor and Jonathon Ross it was a great way to spend a Saturday!

2011-10-07T21:06:00.000+01:00

my "kate" shawl

NOT a very flattering photograph - this is about the best I could bring myself to share!!
No.1.son was too tired it seems to stand up and most of the other shots were of me either blinking! or grimmacing! or shouting to him!
Anyway, here is a photo of me wearing my "kate" shawl which has had two outings already.

Domestic Adjustments

2011-10-07T20:53:00.001+01:00

minced beef'n'onion pie

The difficulty with preparing meals and shopping for me is that now our no1.son has gone to Uni (read further on for post on that/pics etc) its left ME with the problem of adjusting to catering for 3!
Really no.2.son.16yrs doesn't eat a "full" portion (particularly where vegetables are concerned!) but where dh is confident we'll see a reduction in costs for grocery shopping I'm not convinced it will be that much!
Most recipes tend to serve "4" so I think I'll have to do some portion control and use the freezer a bit more!! so far dh has gained a few lbs as HE has ended up with extra large portions this week!!
The problem will be for things like the pie above. it is sized and worked out for "4" where the portions are already in my opinion quite generous but it will be difficult to adjust it down to 3.
If anyone has any helpful tips or suggestions please comment!!

Free knitting pattern to celebrate new-look Simply Knitting!

2011-10-07T20:30:00.000+01:00

Free knitting pattern to celebrate new-look Simply Knitting!

This lovely pattern is available for free from the current issue of SK and I've knit one pair of ver.1 and plan a pair of ver.3 in grey for myself. A really quick and easy pattern to knit this was done in a few hours (mind! there are no fingers! nor thumbs!! ha-ha!)

I've knit this pair for my sil who expressed some interest in fingerless gloves as she often has to work outside on her farming/fishing business and finds it a nuisance to remove gloves to handle cash and tickets - this is the 2nd pair I've knit for her, the other a pair of fingerless gloves

OTN's today was a lacy scarf pattern from the same issue of SK also by Kirsty McLeod - only I've hit a problem and feel there are errors in the pattern. I will update if there are corrections but for now am keeping it OTN's but not knitting any further until I have confirmation.

.

My 2nd sleeve on jumper is very nearly complete and as the weather has now "turned" autumnal I shall resume knitting!

A busy week and no.1.son has gone to Uni!

2011-10-07T20:26:00.004+01:00

Well I say its been a busy week.
I've tried to keep myself busy.
To avoid the fact that Ive spent most of the week glued to my pc pressing the reload button wondering WHY it wasn't delivering me an email! and switching my mob.phone on and off and getting EVERYONE to send me a text to prove that it IS working its just that HE is not COMMUNICATING!

Right. I said. with confidence! RIGHT. we WON'T I said, we WON'T be pestering you! we KNOW you've got a lot to sort out and settle in and get used to so we WON'T pester you for information, updates and calls/emails etc .. we'll leave it to YOU to set the pace and we'll respond to YOU .. ok?

right.
up to the point where I've sent him 8 emails, 2 texts and 1 failed call and had 3 arguments with dh over WHO is going to NOT PESTER no.1.son again ..
I practically launched myself out of the moving car under a passing bus in temper after another petty "row" over whether we turned "left" or "straight on" and dh insisted it was the latter and I - LEFT! grr! Not sure who had the biggest shock US or HIM!
Anyone who has taken their first "child" off to Uni some distance away, and left them there all alone and driven home will know exactly what we are going through ..
So. won't bore you with the details ..

well this is nice!

dh trying to look composed and happy!

hmm .. bit .. boring!

dh trying not to look bored

can we go now?

SIT! we're not GOING YET!

oh well might as well check the football score!

dh resigns himself to SITTING STILL and awaiting instructions!

I really am rubbish at taking photo's I've got about 10 of dh sat on the bed and several of the bathroom/shower and NONE of the lovely building and surroundings of the campus! bah!

the shower!

see? I'm not joking!

no.1.son connecting his laptop

checking the football score?

We took our son to Uni last Sunday and left him after unpacking and sorting him out - its going to be a long time before WE adjust to our son leaving home there is a huge gap already ..

Baked and Made - puddings and sleeve

2011-09-26T09:33:00.002+01:00

Watching dh breathing IN this am to do up his shirt makes me think that maybe a home baked pudding every week is not such a good idea, and TWO puddings? .. oh well .. here goes: apple pie made with a different pastry comprising plain and SR flour together with cornflour AND custard powder .. phew .. it took me fair five mins to sort the ingredients from the cuboard never mind weigh and mix them!
If I'm completely honest, I think that plain regular pastry is just as nice! but it does have a nice added sweetness to complement the apple filling which unfortunately I left to boil to practically apple sauce consistency - had I been cooking roast pork indeed I might have done so! but we had one of those slow roasting shoulder thingies that sits in a pot on a pile of veggies and herbs steaming gently in a pint of stock for 3hrs and crumbles at the end rather than slices but is wonderfully tender and tasty! (and CHEAP!).

The reason for such indulgance? its our no.1.son's last week home before we drive him to Uni at the weekend and as such everything he enjoys WILL be made, baked and cooked and EATEN! even IF it means he feels slightly sick!! Tonight I'm cooking him a sausage/pasta dish that he has requested and tomorrow its fish pie OR mince'n'onion and I'm fully expecting to expand by the end of the week so NEXT week am hoping will feel so miserable and lost without him, that the worry will cause my weight to drop off .. hmm .. FAT chance! nothing I'm afraid puts me off my food. usually. well. apart from that short lived episode of unwellness 4yrs ago which saw me lose 3st most of which in under 3months and was hardly picked up on other than an envious comment from a Nurse after I'd requested a note of my weight loss on my records that I'd "done really well!!!" .. had I ? well, I suppose HAD I been trying I suppose I would have! Perhaps I ought have said I had? been trying? dieting? but dieting doesn't seem to work for me but after this week I think I might have a rethink on what I am eating! In the meantime I'm resolved to not fussing about what I'm eating and just get on with it!

Apple pie was mostly for no.1.son and dh, no.2.son does not enjoy cooked fruit and as chocolate is his favourite pudding of choice I decided to have a go at the intriguing sounding "self saucing chocolate pudding". it is DELICIOUS. I'm not myself a particular fan of chocolate cakes/puddings etc, I do like them, but I can think of others in preference eg a nice lemon tart which NEARLY got made until I came to my senses and worked out that two desserts is pushing it a bit for our waistlines never mind the purse!

Slight panicky moment when reached the point of "now gently add the 500ml of BOILING WATER to the pudding and bake for 40 mins" .. but I can see how it gets its name, the water clearly does something to the mixture to make a "sauce" that is really chocolately despite the fact that apart from 50g of cocoa powder there isn't any chocolate in fact added!!
Rather yummily we ate our puddings with icecream!

mixing by hand

I mixed the pastry by hand for a change just to see if it made a difference, I'm sometimes disappointed at how I roll out the pastry and feel I'm not rewarded with a better finish for my effort but tbh I wasn't any more rewarded but I felt slightly "better" for the mixing!

uncooked ready to bake


mixed and ready to bake

I timed it that I would bake the apple pie ahead and warm it through while eating dinner and as the chocolate pudding required boiling water adding just prior to baking for 40mins, got that ready to the point of adding the water/baking and flung it at the oven while I rested the meat ..

choc pudding ~~burnt~~ cooked

applie pie cooked

Pleased! with both! I know the chocolate pudding looks burnt. (technically it is, having caught a bit but as its the sugar and not the dessert as such I don't think this counts?) It doesn't taste burnt though! it tastes chocolatey! and anyway, once you cut into the pudding it reveals the reason for naming it "self saucing" as its filled with liquid chocolate spooned atop hides any burnt bits! hurrah!!

Choc Pudd & Icecream

Apple Pie & Icecream

No.2.son had the chocolate pudding and no.1.son had the apple pie ..


Tender: sleeve 1

After all that pudding what I needed was a good long walk! instead? another long night in front of the tv! this time a marathon session of Xfactor (again!) followed by Spooks and then Downton Abbey .. all of which meant that the left sleeve for Tender got knitted! I think I went a bit wrong with the final shaping but by 11.30pm I'd had enough and my eyes were going peculiar with all the tv viewing not to mention to get through such listing I'd had three large G+T's .. anyway, am hoping a bit of tugging and timely stitching will ease the sleeve into place .. slightly concerned/nervous about the yardage left for sleeve.2 and neckband - if I run out again I shall HOWL!

Plan to CO for second sleeve tonight. (double Corrie I think! hurrah! - apologies for being such a slave to the tv! when I tell people I'm totally addicted to the tv I don't think half of them believe me! but I'm afraid its true! sigh).

focus next on GLOVES. Have decided to knit a pair of knotty for myself in grey/raspberry and a pair of plain gloves for sil - fingerless and another pair of blackrose to gift ..

Had a bowl of grapefruit - not bled to death yet!

2011-09-25T11:20:00.003+01:00

Well I had a quick look on the internet and couldn't find anything that I could completely ~~trust~~ understand - i'm sure my anti-coag-nurse is quite correct, but the tin just called to me and I fancied something fruity for breakfast and so I ate some. bah.
This is the trouble with having half bits of stuff told to you - I've been eating grapefruit for ages now and if it hadn't been for a chance conversation I'd not have thought to mention it so now am wondering about what ELSE I oughtn't be eating? Anyway, I've picked up a pin cushion and "found" several pins pushed into my fingers and the bleeding looks about "normal" for what one might expect so I've concluded that perhaps a small bowl now and then isn't going to do much harm?

Practically ripped out sleeve one last night down to first stripe, and reknit after I counted the stitches and discovered I'd either misread the instructions or - more likely - FORGOT the increases. Too late I reknitted on 5mm needles before remembering that I was supposed to remain on 4.5mm until AFTER the first stripe .. One of the frustrating aspects I've found is that post-2nd-ablation blood-clot incident I can't REMEMBER quite the way I think I ought to! I can COUNT my stitches - its gone. annoying. recount them, remember the number .. reach for the pattern - its GONE! AGAIN? .. seriously I've even FORGOTTEN by the time I've got my pencil poised to write it down! but not ALL the time. just SOME of the time. Frustratingly when I sit in front of the Dr intent on grilling him about HOW frustrating this IS my memory suddenly sharpens its focus and I find myself remembering EVERYTHING he's ever said in minute detail while his eyebrows widen and open and I can SEE his brain attempting to connect quickly enough before engaging in conversation likely to set me off on one - hmm NOTHING WRONG WITH YOUR MEMORY THEN?? .. no. apparently not. TODAY. anyways. Well I've got another appt coming with the Neuro/Cons next month and I'm trying to decide whether I'm "improved" or whether I'm just getting better at finding ways to minimise the inconvenience of a dodgy memory.
It hasn't taken too long to work out that the FAMILY are taking advantage!
Huge waffley set of instructions to no.2.son yesterday evening - during I admit a football match on tv so perhaps wasn't the best of times TO be setting about with waffling conversation? - anyway got to the end and paused - no.2.son turned to me and said "what was that Mum .. ? .. wasn't listening .." to which I too paused before dh chuckled and muttered "thats my boy!" but MY reply : "I can't REMEMBER!" BAH! so annoying! have just waffled for several mins on deaf ears and even I can't remember - can't have been important? prolly not. but thats not the POINT? anyway. I did remember. later. something to do with HOMEWORK. and THAT continued to fall on deaf ears too.

Brilliant night spent knitting up my sleeve - Doctor Who, X Factor, QIxl and Jonathan Ross - by the end of which marathon I was fair FED UP with knitting! but my sleeve is now at a promising point where I can start to see myself wearing the jumper! hurrah!
Pics to follow, I promise!

NEXT plan up my sleeve is GLOVES. having realised that the Sept KAL that I've now basically missed is nearly over I've got the choice of joining in with the Oct one OR just knit the gloves anyway - thing is I need to knit at least one more pair of fingerless mitts for sil but also fancy a pair of "new" gloves for my "new coat". I am leaning toward Mitt Envy OR Knotty.

Princess Kate Shawl - FINISHED

2011-09-24T14:22:00.003+01:00

FINISHED. At last. My Princess Kate shawl.

from the front

at the back

Sorry for the rather poor photo's - I've draped it over a hanger and flung it at the sofa to "balance" for the picture mostly on account of rather scary hair-day which prevents me from allowing anyone to take a shot of me wearing it!
I get that a lot. It has a life of its own. My hair is very thick and generally quite well behaved but sometimes it becomes a little over-thickened and I find myself aware of masses of bush like fuzz bouncing about my head and judging from some startled expressions from people I've bumped into I know that its not just my imagination.
Take last week. I am pretty sure the GP wanted to flatten me. flatten my HAIR. ok, probably did want to flatten me too .. I could see him training his eyes NOT to stare just the same as you know when you get a spot people are trying NOT to notice?
It drops out in handfuls - when I wash it I have loads come out - and still have to get it thinned when cut by the hairdresser to manage it and thats with the side effect from the Warfarin of thinning-hair!
When my hair settles I shall try and persuade someone to take a shot of me ..


new kitchen gadget

Forgot to add the photo of my new kitchen mixing gadgety thing. We all had a go and the lads both declared it quite "exciting" .. on the menu for this weekend - some sort of pasta/bacon thing with mint and peas and soured cream and an apple pie with a pastry using cornflour and custard powder and NO I've NOT confessed that small detail to the family - yet! (will wait and see if they spot the difference before confessing too!) and a "self-saucing chocolate pudding" which sounds interesting and looks ~~fattening~~ interesting!

Lined up for tonight's knitting - Doctor Who and X Factor. tonight's knitting will be Tender which is comimg along beautifully now and yesterday saw me finish the front and start one of the sleeves, I've done three colour stripes on sleeve 1 and hopeful that I've got sufficient yarn to complete the pair. Slight dodgy moment when I picked up the first colour and panicked over the small amount of yarn before realising I still had a complete unused ball in the bag! phew! I do NOT want another running out episode! I'm keen to finish this now not least because I want to move on to other things! I've resolved to finish this before even thinking of starting something else but I'm conscious that the 2nd of the glove KAL's starts 1st Oct and I'm already "late" for the Sept start on first .. Need to look through my patterns and decide which to knit and might with some regret choose just ONE of the kal's.
Arielle is resting nicely in a plastic zippered bag but I'm keen too to pick up on this as I still feel that it will be wearable in at least some of the warmer months ahead and even if not, I need to finish it soon ready for next spring!
The Union Jack scarf is resting on the table and next week I might pick this up and have another bash at it, else I will unpick and use the yarn for gloves. disappointing. I had fancied the idea of the scarf but not going to force myself just for the sake of it.

Next week is our son's last week before we take him to Uni - he's stopped work but elected to remain on their books in case he needs to top up his savings in the holidays (and doesn't/isn't able to get a more local job). We plan to take him clothes shopping (at his expense!) and as a family go out for a meal about the middle of the week (at our expense!) and THEN we take him! Can't believe its come around so soon I keep thinking there must be a mistake? surely he's never 18yrs? and surely he's too young to leave home? (and doesn't he WANT to stay home-with-mum??) apparently not. It will be a mixed day of emotions I'm sure for all of us and for once I'm hoping that it will be worse for US than for our son.

Library books and magazines

2011-09-23T12:26:00.000+01:00


library books


this months reading

I always get a mix of books from our local library and often include a cook book, I enjoy the Hairy Bikers tv programmes and am watching their current series - meals on wheels and have already planned two or three recipes from this one.
Yesterday I picked up issue 42, Knit and decided to buy a one off Knitting-issue 94 mainly because of the free gift: labels! decided it was worth it for the labels never mind the content!


free gift labels

Not properly read the magazines yet - but I was surprised to see my "teddy" in fabric bag appear AGAIN in the Readers Gallery in this current edition of Knit as it did have a small pic last time.


my teddy!

Its nice to see something you've made in print - I think teddy looks lovely hanging out of the pocket!

Fabric bag and teddy gifted

2011-09-23T12:18:00.002+01:00

2nd bag and teddy


pair of bags

its just as quick and economical to make TWO. so yesterday I finished off another tiny teddy and gifted the second bag.
I didn't have sufficient yardage on this occasion to "mix" the fabrics so they are identical - but given the recipients are unlike to mix with each other this won't matter.

What I cooked on Monday!

2011-09-23T11:45:00.001+01:00

(or rather what I ATE on Monday!!)
Actually Monday and indeed all week has been very good for "making" both in craft terms and in the kitchen! First off I bought a hand mixer! yay! a gadget! next to craft gadgets I like kitchen gadgets! (still trying to form the right sequence of persuasive argument to put to dh about WHY we NEEDS to buy a bread-making machine!!)
Coming home from a VERY expensive shopping trip yesterday afternoon we chatted in the car about what we'd like to be able to (afford) buy first for our son who leaves for Uni next week - NEXT WEEK! NEXT WEEK!?? SO SOON? - and it got around to what would we buy ourselves if we won the lottery.
A car ahead of us had a super plate that appeared to say "luxury" and dh expressed some interest in a sporty model before adding that perhaps at rising 66yrs was a little too old now for that sort of flashness and would, he said, settle for a more modest but "elegant" car and waffled about millions and squillions of pounds and how you don't see many Rolls Royces these days? In fact I saw one just the other day! We couldn't, we decided park up in a flash car at our house in our street and get away with it we'd have to move! we'd move, we decided to a large kitchen. I've always wanted a large kitchen! hence the bread making machine; IF I said, IF we had a large kitchen I'd want a dish washer, a tumble drier! .. and a bread making machine .. what I asked, would HE want? an au-pair. apparently. what for? I asked? given that our lads are grown up and our kitchen is now stocked with gadgets and appliances? several mins later we approached the right hand turn and dh was either half in mind of the sporty but elegant car he'd mentally bought and/or half in mind of WHAT the purpose of the au-pair would be either way he JUST managed to make the turn to the startled expressions of the oncoming car ..
THAT I said, has decided it. NO au pair OR flash car for him! As we turned into our road we settled for more mundane chat about how long its going to take us to clear the credit card from all the purchases for our son .. a long time! sigh ..

I'm certain we've bought far too much. But as this is our first experience we've really got nothing to go on and chatting with the sales assistant at Bhs we came around to agreeing that what we WANTED was to send our children off to Uni (their first home) with ALL the comforts and conveniences of OUR home - that we've spent a long time in gathering and affording all the appliances and gadgets too! I was trying to think back to what I left home with .. not very much - that you can fit in two suitcases!

In amongst all the practical household stuff I'd flung in nail clippers, plasters and paracetamol - for the hangovers? dh enquired? no. I said! for the headaches from the all night studying!? hmm. Our son applied online for SIX club night tickets for his first week for "something to do". something to DO? in a CLUB? for SIX nights? he'll never manage it! I made him "remove from basket" three tickets and said that THREE nights in a club was quite sufficient to get over missing home/us! not to mention how much three nights at clubs would COST!
I suggested to dh that we get a first aid kit and pondered over the "diseases" that I seem to remember hitting the headlines as sweeping through Uni communities of students - meningitis and something else .. what was it? .. something glandular? .. VD? my dh said helpfully? - luckily we'd pulled up at our home before I could recommend a nice bedsit for him to move out into ..

Oh well, we've treated him to a rather posh and flash laptop! and a nice new duvet! fortunately for HIM he managed to show SOME enthusiasm for the laptop at least .. (I feel that the rather nice zipped cover would suit my craft needs rather well and plan to bring it home and put to good use with some fabrics!! lucky for ME then that its conveniently PINK!?)

ALL this expense and as we hurled the lot at the sales assistant dh flung his staff discount card and as we'd been well informed that "today" is "discount day" we effectively got a good deal! a lot of the stuff was reduced in price, had a 20% discount for the "day" plus our staff discount of additional 20% on top meant that the till roll as it printed off and curled up and over ended up giving us back nearly £100! Slight moment of panic when the assistant enquired as to dh's posiition in the company and upon hearing "distribution site" went off on one about some disaster that morning with a mixed up delivery which fortunately for dh was nothing to do with him! (some slight fear that no.1.son might have had some involvement being as he'd been transferred for his last week in his summer temp. job in their internet picking site TO the packing dept but dh felt reasonably reassured that it wasn't anything to do with "us"! phew!).

rather useful carry case?

very useful laptop contained in case!

With all the excitement of the monies being flung back at us by way of discounts I suggested to dh that I ought buy a winter coat! then? (this was before the au pair vs bread making machine conversation) and with some resigned expression of IF you SAY so .. he duly stood guard over our packages while I proceeded to try on the entire coat collection on the shop floor before deciding upon buying the SAME coat as I'm replacing (but in a slightly different pattern/colour) ..
In the end even HE agreed that nice though the other coats were, this one did indeed suit me ..

LAST years "old coat" (minus the scarf)

THIS years "new coat" (exact same scarf)

NOW having started off on what I ~~ate~~ cooked on MONDAY I ought finish with a round up?


Porridge!

I switch to "winter foods" around now. Same as for craft, I sort of feel that though I prefer the spring summer seasons weather wise I actually find autumn/winter slightly more inspiring and useful! and lets face it you can only "enjoy" so much salad and muesli?
this week I had my appt with the anti-coag nurse to check my INR.
which has dropped - again - and as per normal for me! to 1.6 .. I've tried suggesting that leaving it a whole month inbetween isn't wise but I think they get so excited/relieved when it hints at the desired 2.5 that they rush to hurrah! themselves and leave me to the dose another month ..
anyway. in discussing the drop and likely reasons, I did mention my dietry changes which sees me moving away from muesli or cornflakes or toast to porridge! (yum!) usually with sliced banana but seen here with golden syrup & sultantas OR scrambled egg and grapefruit. GRAPEFRUIT? grapefruit?! no. NO grapefruit! it doesn't, she said, "go" with warfarin. (I'm supposed to KNOW this? its NOT in my yellow book of basic instructions). Apparently grapefruit is not compatiable with warfarin or some heart meds either .. not sure quite what tipped her over the edge about my tendancy for self managing my meds - the addition of the SPINACH and CABBAGE twice each day in homemade soups and accompanying steamed veggies for lunch/dinner OR the discovery that WHISKY actually does a rather better job at quietening my irregular heart rhythm than the Ivabradine I'm supposed to be taking! .. oh well. that aside I left her furiously typing up my notes in a "tell-tale" manner no doubt to be picked up on by the GP at some later point?
After some discussion about how my blood will thin to water and I'll bleed to death with a rocketing INR I pondered this before asking WHY, then? was my INR "down" to 1.6?? shouldn't, I suggested, shouldn't it be HIGHER? then? .. THAT closed the conversation! yes. it ought. but it isn't. so? either the machine is faulty? or the whole system is flawed and proves that testing needs either be done every other day for complete accuracy OR might as well leave it a month! then? anyway, I've got to return in 2/52 and meantime INCREASE my dose of warfarin. are you SURE? I asked? slightly worried now about the delayed effect of having had both grapefruit and spinach for breakfast/lunch that day not showing ON the reading I was quite relieved when I poked my finger with a knitting needle and found it didn't pour out like a tap .. sigh ..

(and I do like grapefruit too!)

soup!

Last week I made my fave: butternut squash soup with chilli! and this week I made a new one: sweet potato and choritzo/spiced sausage also with chilli! I like my soups flavoursome and HOT and generally dh prefers his in a tin. but yesterday on his day off he decided he'd try a bowl. forgot to warn him about the chilli .. cough ..


Bakewell Tart

Strictly speaking the bakewell tart was baked on Sunday. A new recipe this one was made using my new gadget! the hand mixing thingie! which doesn't have an on/off switch and is scarily FAST - both sons had a "go" at it and I think the pastry type case got a bit "over mixed" and was slightly more crunchy than perhaps it ought have been, but nonetheless very tasty and got the thumbs up from no.1.son and dh!


with strawberries & creme fraiche

didn't have raspberry jam, used strawberry instead, but fortunately this complemented the few strawberries I had left! topped with creme fraiche it made a nice sunday "pudding".


Cottage Pie

On Monday no.2.brother called for the baby-gift bag to be delivered to friend and I cooked a large family sized cottage pie which is always a favourite in our family, and a nice way for me to "sneak" in stuff - eg mashed leek with the cheese topped potato. My family are well used to this trait and often inspect their food for evidence of adding swede, butternut squash and other "stuff" into their foods and I find anything that has a "top" like a pastry/pie or this type of meal has more chance of being undiscovered.
The cats are the same. For the last month I've been battling to convince them that there is nothing IN their cat biscuits after I made the mistake of switching brands to one they decided they don't like! I've been adding handfuls and mixing it in to disguise them and thought was getting away with it, I ought have been grateful for the small success and not then added the LOT to the acceptable brand and should have known that even a good shake up wouldn't fool two cats!? there is a lot of mess on the mats now as they painstakingly muzzle their way through their bowl of biscuits picking out and eating the brand they LIKE and spitting out the brand they DON'T like ..


bread pudding!

FINALLY (you are thinking: hurrah!? she's FINISHED!?) FINALLY we finished the day off with a nice bit of bread pudding! Another one that I often make to use up left over bread unfortunately I'm the only one in the house that "likes" it, dh will have some but luckily both my hairdresser and step-dad.no.2 both like it! and as my brother was taking him a dinner I managed to fling 3/4of the pudding in tin foil HIS way! saves me getting FATTER!?

Kate Shawl nearly finished!

2011-09-21T14:29:00.001+01:00

nearly finished!

I took this photo at the beginning of the week and I'm now just a few rows away from finishing this project! I'm very pleased to have nearly completed it and am making it my focus at the moment as I want to get it done and start WEARING it! (cccold!!)
I will have used 4 balls of felted tweed and will try and remember to measure it when I put up a final "finished!" shot.
NEXT to be knit with determination will be Tender my stripey jumper!
On hold at the moment is the Union Jack scarf while I try and decide whether to bother!
After a lengthy discussion with knit-pal-Sally who is knitting this and other of similar themed motifs on a rather flash cardi/jacket and also had some difficulties with carrying the yarn (thus proving is not me being an idiot!) we've come up with a couple of action plans to get it knit - nicely! and I will have a go with some other yarns to test our theory!

Other projects lined up:

Christmas Stocking panel

At the same time as buying the fabric for the nursery bag, I also bought a panel for a Christmas stocking and some plain red fabric, wadding and calico and plan to sew a pair of decorated front/plain backed stockings for the new family babies - sil's grands for Christmas gift.
After taking advice from cyber-sew-pal-Debs who is expert in quilting, I've decided to line and quilt both front and back rather than just the front as suggested in the shop.

Baby Bag and Knit gift complete

2011-09-21T14:19:00.002+01:00

The Lovely Bag filled with baby gifts.

fabrics cut for two bags

I chose my fabrics using the little socks I'd knit for colour inspiration and had to have some help in picking a third fabric (the pink dotty) but I bought enough yardage to complete two bags and cut them out and fused the lining pieces top of the week.

I like to make a bag to house my "gifts" as I think it makes the whole gift a nice presentation but unlike the little simple drawstring bag in last post, this one is actually the main part as its perfect for putting bits and pieces in and I've made it so many times now for family/friends having babies to hold baby toiletries that I now call it my "nursery bag". In fact its one of Jan's designs and hers has appliqued pockets and though its a "mature" pattern I'm certain if anyone wanted to buy it one could approach her via her blog and ask!

I made a slight error in cutting out the pink dotty fabric/lining and unfortunately ran out of yardage to line the pockets on one of the bags - cross at myself I must have misread my rotary ruler as I also discovered I'd made my bag 1/4" shorter too! that aside it sewed up perfectly and I've made a pair of bags in a little over a days worth of sewing time.


matching the colours to the socks

Inside the bag are the cardi and socks

baby wipes and bath products in the pockets

Little Teddie sits in charge!

My brother is calling round after work for his tea and will deliver the gift this evening.

there's a hole in the ceiling!

2011-09-15T15:04:00.001+01:00

there is a hole in the ceiling.
for ages now we've struggled with a curtain rail at our bay window in the dining room.
I told dh that we cannot wait for him to start "doing the room up" now that we're not due to start this until next year, he has to get the curtain rail issue resolved - now!
Our problem is that the fixing is not good and after taking advice from a pal dh decided to screw into the ceiling a length of wood. I left him measuring up and "planning" a "how to" and came back from the shops to find HIM covered in dust and the ceiling with a huge HOLE in it. Apparently - cough - he is going to replace the whole ceiling with plaster board .. hmm .. after several mins of ranting and some choice words have restricted him to knocking ONLY the bay window section ..
so now we have a hole in the celing and still no curtain at the window ..

(what he'd be like if he was home f/t I don't know! for all sorts of reasons and not necessarily financial I'm praying they renew his post-retirement p/t contract in January!)

A simple drawstring bag

2011-09-15T15:00:00.001+01:00

Yesterday I went into the sewing room to make up a small and simple drawstring bag to giftwrap a pair of socks - what I enjoy about mixing up crafts is being able to present something "made" in something I also "made"! the whole thing becomes a gift - hurrah!
It was nice being back in my newly tidied and decluttered sewing room but I found out one or two things : a/ its NICE to have all your scissors and rotary cutters in their own zippered pouches but not very practical! and b/ its all very well slashing your stash by more than half but then are left with not much CHOICE! I found myself wishing I'd not got rid of all those small pieces of quilty cotton for about 5mins and then I stuck in and made myself find something with what I did have!
Part of my "problem" I have to accept is that I have got plenty of fabrics, trims and the like BUT I quite like to just have them! not use them! necessarily. get me? so in keeping my "favourites" filling up my boxes it doesn't leave me with much left to play with - either I've got to be brave about it and USE it or I've got to buy more stuff and as I'm on a strict budget for the foreseeable future, I decided to make use of what I could stretch out to create a useful drawstring styled bag.
In the end I went for a nice green and if I'd been thinking properly instead of jumping straight in, I could have matching drawstring ties too - unfortunately I got so excited at thinking I had enough fabric I forgot that the length needed to be doubled to go back AND forth in order to "draw up" and I couldn't be bothered to unpick and attempt to fashion a bodged job thus I used some nice narrow gosgrain ribbon! which turned out to be complementary to the label I attached!
In the end my little something to gift wrap the actual gift - pair of socks! became more of a gift worth keeping and took ages to make up what with the test embroidering of the label - I had planned to write "hand knit socks" but no.1.son declared this a bit naff. I embroidered "hand knit" but this got a sigh and a tut so did a "hand made" which got the thumbs up ..

The next thing I encountered was FINDING my instruction book for the emb machine and the overlocker - TIDYING up is all well and good if you can remember where you put things. I spent 20mins searching everywhere for my overlocker threads! I distinctly remembered clearing out a good 1/3 and dumping them resolving to keep only the basic black, grey, navy, cream and brown reels and the three woolly nylons but WHERE did I put them?? In the end just as was wishing I'd not started I found them! hurrah! Slight panic as I opened up the horn cabinet and set the overlocker on the table and feared I'd forgotten how to thread up! my overlocker is a nice basic brother 925 model which has never (fingers crossed!) let me down and I achieved a perfectly balanced 3-thread stitch with just a minor adjustment to one tension dial and hurrah the fabric was overlocked in minutes.

Just a simple project but its inspired me to look at making more bags soon.

I enjoyed making the little label too and spent a couple of hours reaquainting myself with my lovely little Brother PE150 embroidery machine and made these:

I do like little bags and while I can and indeed do make them (from time to time!) I often use cosmetic bags to keep knitterly stuff in like sock needles, these are the two latest bags from recent Clinique "promotions" that I have to hand:

FINALLY all that searching through my boxes and cupboards at last I found my pack of felting needles! I thought they were lost! and now all I've got to do is give it a go ..

Union Jack Scarf

2011-09-12T23:28:00.001+01:00

I'll be quite honest I'm struggling a bit with this!
I was keen to CO and perhaps I ought to have started it in the day when I was a bit fresher - and certainly not while the lads were screeching at the football match on tv!
Anyway I wanted to have a go at knitting with this yarn, and something with the Union Jack & thought this scarf would be dead easy! (it probably IS, I'm most probably being a wimp?).
So. Its OTN's for now but all thoughts of knitting one for the entire family for Christmas are out the window and crossed FIRMLY out of my mind ..

start of the motif

the yarn

I had planned to knit the scarf and use one of the browns to make the gloves for the KAL - will have to see how I get on with the motif at the moment I can't even get the border right and thats just 2 stitches! bah!

I went on a "fairisle" knitting workshop and thought I'd remember how to carry the yarn at the back but evidently I've not remembered and I've struggled with the purl rows in particular and had to undo one row FOUR times and only reknit it because it was either that or cry! Tomorrow when its quieter I'll have a look and see if can find some online "help" and have another go, otherwise its GLOVES all round for Christmas, then!?

Sirdar Design E finished

2011-09-12T23:16:00.003+01:00

Sirdar Design E

Finished the little baby cardi I knit for the sister of no.2.brother's former girlfriend - not sure what happened to the collar and button band can only assume was not concentrating as fully as ought have while watching X Factor over the weekend! (ENJOYING the new series! loving the new judges and think is an improvement although did think remark from someone on This Morning about Cheryl Cole selling Big Issue a little unkind) anyway for a baby-cardi I don't think it matters and no one but me will know anyway?
I had bought some white buttons at the same time as the yarn but in the end they didn't suit, instead I used some of my LateGrandma's from her button-jar.

mini-teddie

baby socks

I knit another mini-teddie over the weekend with left over yarn and matched the embroidery to the buttons now all I have to do is buy some fabric to make a bag and the gift is complete.

Making Monday : soup

2011-09-12T23:10:00.001+01:00

I know it doesn't look that appetising, but it is nice! so far as homemade soup is its a pretty easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy recipe too.

Roast 1 butternut squash for approx 30-50mins and about 15mins before the end, peel and cook in oil/little water some onion in a pan. Add 1tspn cinnamon and .5tspn cloves (I like to add some chilli and today I added celery too). Make up and add 1.5pints of veg stock and chop the roasted squash and add that for final cooking before adding fresh parsley and leave to cool before blitzing to consistency of your preference.

I like this soup. This particular one comes from a very old Weight Watchers cookery book. In fact I'm rather boring and tend to stick with one or two that I like and make up a batch on Monday that I keep in the fridge to last me through to about Thurs or Fri for lunches.

butternut squash soup

Reheat in microwave until piping hot and enjoy! yumm.
Something else I "made" today which I've not in ages was a big bowl of "fizzy jelly"! Found a twin pack in the back of cupboard and had a nostalgic moment of when the lads were small - I add (usually) lemonade to mix in place of cold water (another Weight Watchers tip!) but today used some lemon & lime sparkling water. The lads were pleased.

Monday is my day for catching up on housework and with the weather so mixed I wondered whether to hang out my towels but I'm glad I did - it was so windy they dried before my soup was made! I love seeing the washing drying and blowing on the line and it inspired me to buy some net curtain whitener this afternoon so I could wash all the nets which are now nice and fresh.

towels on the line

The landing upstairs is fast piling up with boxes of stuff for no.1.son to take with him to Uni and over the weekend dh decided to get up into the loft to see if we did still have a box of glasses to save buying new. While he pondered over this possibility I urged him to get up there and look! now! 5mins later I came back to find him slicing a length of cable and attaching the lightbulb from our landing light. hurrah! he announced! has fashioned a light to see inside the loft ..
hmm
In the first instance he attempted to position the step ladders around the boxes of "stuff" and I caught him trying to leap into a gap from a funny angle with one foot dangling his flippy-floppy slipper hanging off while precariously reaching blind with said half-shod foot for the top of the step ladder which inevitably wasn't were he thought it ought to be and while HE thought it unfortunate timing that I caught this, I ranted at him that its exactly the RIGHT moment for me to be checking up on him and I duly instructed him to clear the landing, reposition the ladders and PUT something sensible on his feet! He came back wearing his "slippy" dress shoes. which he's already had two slipping-accidents wearing hence the name "slippy" shoes .. FINALLY returns wearing sensible trainers ..
Why, I asked, hadn't he plugged IN the light he's fashioned out of cable?
He didn't it appeared want to work with it "live" while getting up into the loft ..
errm .. can you plug it IN for me, dear? he called ..
me? .. umm. ok. is it SAFE? I ask knowing that the answer will be resounding oh! yes! quite SAFE
oh! yes! quite SAFE he calls (as I think it)
right.
that will be the "live" cable fashioned as a light that YOU didn't want to plug in, then?
just get ON with it! its DARK up here .. plug it IN please (silly woman! stop fussing!)
right.
well. clearly it was safe in so much that this time there wasn't any "bangs" or puffs of light or smoke and I have to agree it did indeed light up the entire loft and dh did find a box of glasses so thats saved us a couple of quid!
Now all I've got to do is wait for the bruising on my leg to settle on account of tripping over the boxes on the landing which is now in complete darkness after about 6.30pm on account of the lightbulb is still attached to the cable-light-thingie up in the loft ..

Spent the day with a knit-pal

2011-09-11T12:45:00.000+01:00

Sally's craft room, cosy sofa

I don't think there can be anything NICER than being sat in amongst a pile of craftiness and have a bag of Collinette yarn FLUNG at you .. ? apart, I suppose, from having a large G+T? wait!. yes. there can! I spent almost the whole of yesterday with my knit-pal-sally enjoying a good old crafty gossip about yarns, patterns, projects - queues, wip's ufo's -yarns and needles to be tried, trends to follow, books to read and how to pack it ALL in and within budget too!
From when I was very little my LateMother oft said that the one thing I kept on asking for was for a "sister" and she frequently apologised for presenting me with two BROTHERS instead! of course it wouldn't be that I wouldn't want my brothers - now I've got them! but that rather I would have wished I could have had a sister!
Of course there's no saying that even had I had a sister that she would have been similarly crafty-minded? but there are some things and some interests that really are only OF interest to other women? My family are in the main at least used to be "trapped" into knitty-conversations and have developed strategies for effecting mild "interest" but without falling into the trap of feigning an enthusiasm they later regret. generally they feel this regret after 3-4mins .. IF I'm ~~lucky~~ sensible, I manage to stick to short bursts of excited enthusiasm over a pattern or yarn and then shut up. .. sigh .. difficult though when you get these feelings bubbling up and its why I enjoy my cyber-friendships so much! I can log on and squeak about several different areas of excitedness over yarnie things knowing that SOMEONE at least will be online to squeak back and share the hysteria that comes about from finding THE perfect pattern! THE yumminess yarn ever! or in working out HOW to do the trickiest ever technique!

BUT its nice to connect with a real "live" pal and do it "live" for REAL and in the absence of having a sister, the next best thing is to have a best-knitty-PAL! Having a slightly obsessive and compulsive enthusiasm for knitting means its got to be a certain type of pal that can put up with me, can enjoy my company without getting to the end and thinking : well thank goodness she's GONE! and having already had an email this am from my pal, I can safely say that she probably feels the same way too!

What you get from spending the day with someone you know well and who shares in your interests and enthusiasms is more than just a dollop of inspiration to continue such enthusiasms, it sets you up nicely with a feeling of inner-wellness - do you know what I mean? Since becoming unwell and losing some of my independance following redundancy and with changes going on in the family the one constant that has been there for me has been my knitting but the connecting with friends and sharing the enthusiasm for the knitting is what helps make it a positive experience beyond "just the knitty stuff" and its a bit like the giggly nights in with a bottle of wine and girly gossip only with good mug of tea and tons of yarn! and stacks of TEDDIES!

I have a vey good cyber-pal who will just love these pics I took of the simply gorgeous teddies and toys hand-made by Sally and the way they just sit so comfortably and naturally within her/their home; the skill is not just in the making but of the placing and homing of the things one makes and my pal has this just perfect!

Sally's handmade bears on the stairs

I want to run away with this pair atop the stairs!

Sally's handknit jumper perfect on teddy

collection of Sally's handmade teddies

but I'd have to take these too? I actually have hazy recollections of LateMum stopping up way into the night stuffing and sewing up teddies and other toys - rag dolls - made to order to eke out a living after her first divorce and I wish now that I still had some of these that came my way as a child (usually the rejects!) so I know a little of the time and skill devoted into making these.

Sally's handknit bunny

Sally's needlepoint cushion in progress

it was great to see all the other stuff that Sally has either collected/made over the years including all kinds of embroideries which I wish I'd taken photo's of - x-stitch and tapestries - quilty fabric stuff its not just about the knitting and as a former passionate sewist its good to talk about all the other interests too and share in the yumminess of fat quarters and lengths of co-ordinating quilt cottons! We've talked about having a quilt/sewing session one day and if we could both manage to contain our enthusisams and actually DO something productive I bet we'd both enjoy it!!

Sally's yarn for jumper

Sally's shawl stash

Sally's sparkle shawl purchase

I am a mere beginner in the yarnie stash stakes! my pal has the equivalent of a yarn shop! and when I ran out of some of the smoke kid classic for my jumper and the shop only had one remaining ball, Sally was confident she had a leftover ball in this exact shade at home - and she did! it might well help me out to have this to hand and she kindly offered it to me just in case I ran out again!

The thing is, even when you have a stash to end all stashes, when it comes down to it you never seem to have quite the RIGHT yarn for the project - no matter how much you have, you still need to buy more? well we both bought some of this - for different projects (I'll blog mine later with pics of the yarn and link to the free pattern when I CO like as not today/tomorrowish).

I'm going to knit scarves and pair of gloves with mine - and Sally is going to do something rather wizz and designerish with hers! Here are some photo's of Sally wearing her latest handknits:

Sally in her hoodie knit in Lima

Sally wearing comfy jumper

I wish I'd taken a pic of the gorgeous KSH stripe scarf knit using the pattern on the ballband - Sally came up with loads of ideas for introducing KSH as an additional yarn and/or as stripe to break up areas - an afternoon with Sally is like an intensive course in design, knitting technique and project planning normally done over a year crammed into 4hrs! too much to fully take in in one go, it did enthuse me to FINISH my jumper and baby cardi and get my needles ready!!
We're both hooked on shawls at the moment and while I've been veering away from self striping and patterning sock yarns and vowing to avoid such yarns, I'm now starting to rethink this!

one of the many shawls Sally has knit

planning the next shawl

All of a sudden I wants a stripey shawl! bah!! and she's right too! the garter stitch shawls are lovely! I wants wants wants!!

Well I came home and finished the little cardi which is now just waiting while I finish off the rest of the goodies to make up the gift - I CO and started knitting another of the "mini teddies" which will sit in the pocket of the lovely bag I shall make which comes from another of my enthusiastic mad-sew-pals - Jan! who has a lovely blog shared with a craft pal of hers.
Watched the first of the two X-factor programmes this weekend and will catch up with Doctor Who this afternoon after dh returns from work, next week sees the final double-episode of The Killing which no.1.son and I are enjoying at the moment - HE for the plot and ME for the knitty-sweaters the lead detective is wearing!!

A good sort out and tidy up!

2011-09-07T08:10:00.001+01:00

I've had a good sort out and tidy up not just of my sewing room - ha! but also my READER!
I used to be quite good at keeping up with stuff, forums groups etc but lately I'm all over the place and my Reader just put me off with its bold list of squillions of stuff to READ - SO I took a deep breath and went through it, read as much as I could and marked the rest AS READ and now I feel all weird! I keep opening it up and checking! just a few new posts trickling in and easily managed!
I've started to go through my blog list and will update to reflect the ones I read and follow regularly.
In a bid to be more efficient, I've started reading the tips on various helpful forums on Ravelry and discovered there is LOT more to that resource than first appears - if I could "live" anywhere I think I'd live there! its SO organised and efficient! far more to it I just LOVE it!
Back to the sewing room!
Yesterday I finished the final sort out of my woolly stuff and I even put out some YARN! gulp! yes! and without a 2nd thought! only "fun" yarns I must confess, not the "good stuff" but in addition I sorted through my needles and have now got three rolls of matching sets and duplicates I have set aside to donate to new knitters at next week's charity knit event.
I found it harder to sort through my notions and accessories than actual stash - yarn and fabrics etc but I've made my set of drawers much more efficient by being ruthless and all my scissors and rotary cutters now sit INSIDE their cases (how long THAT will last I can't say!)
In trying to free up "space" I've now managed to get everything into either a cupboard a drawer or a box or bag and all the WIP are zipped into plastic project-bags and this leaves me with two large bags for my knitty projects "on the go" which I will use to transfer the current 3 or 4 knitty projects that are cluttering up the coffee table. the only danger with bagging stuff, is that its easy to "forget" I've already got several things on the go and I start something NEW which I am resolved NOT to do! My new resolution IS to finish something and THEN start something new. the only exception being: another pair of fingerless mitts/gloves. see? my problem? I just can't help myself! hopeless! oh well, at least they will be a quick knit and to be fair they are a request that I've promised! (excuses .. excuses ..)

some of my needles sorted into pairs!

some of my scissors all in cases

press & box of quilt threads

knitty & quilty projects "resting"

knitty projects WIP

yarnie stuff sorted

wadding & filler corner

felty stuff

craft fabrics

lingerie fabrics, powernets etc

household & silk fabrics

lingerie notions, elastics, straps etc

card making & glue gun

stuff I plan to "do" something with/to finish

embroidery station

tracing papers & stabilisers

emb threads & spray

emb hoops

dressmaking notions, tapes, shoulder pads etc

bag making handles, craft & labels

useful bits & pieces marking pens, tapes, rulers measury things

Knitting Updates

2011-09-06T20:52:00.002+01:00

I've decided to try and keep the knitting updates separate from whitterings about other stuff going on ..

The jumper is coming along nicely, I've now knit the front up to the point where I switch to yarn E (the black) and blast it! I've run out! I checked, double checked! the pattern definitely says 1 ball, but I've got inches left of this and still got two sleeves to knit a stripe each too! I hope to get to the shop next week to buy another and shan't fuss too much if the dye lot is different, but I shall be cross if I can't get this "off black" shade as it particularly complements the other colours and really makes the sequence attractive I think.

I'm enjoying this pattern and would consider knitting it again.


Tender: the front

Instead, I've concentrated today on knitting the Sirdar cardigan, design E and have just started the first sleeve after knitting both fronts - I decided to knit the size 6-12months thinking it would be a more "useful" size to knit for the forthcoming season and age of the new baby as she will be heading toward this over the colder months.
Its a quickish knit and not much to it in the way of shaping, but then baby garments don't need much in the way of knitting or shaping and I'm pleased with the colour. Now all I need to do is finish it, and knit a "tiny teddy" before choosing fabrics to make up a baby-nursery-bag and the gift is done!

Sirdar Design E

OFF the needles and frogged are:
scarf - mainly because the pattern wasn't that interesting afterall and I don't think the number of stitches was particularly attractive either. I've got other patterns for a single skein of KSH that would better use this so I've pulled it off and rewound it!!
gloves - simply because its too much effort to manage the stranding with the way my brain is at the moment and even though the errata came promptly I still found myself spending too much time for the value at THIS time (with all else I've got OTN's).
onto a cable and "resting" is:
Portree - for similar reasons as above although the value of this as a garment means that I may return to pick up and continue (or I might just unpick and use the yarn for something else, but until I decide am giving the project the benefit of the doubt and "resting" it).
I ripped back one "teddy" that I'd started for no.2.son too. I will start over when I've time to commit to making it in one go.

I feel SEW much better for tidying up my projects and tomorrow I will blog and upload pics of the finished declutter of my sewing room - all my UFO's now are contained in one SMALL basket - I have been RUTHLESS the lot is either dumped or its got a last chance!

Grandma's box of treasures

2011-09-06T20:45:00.001+01:00

In amongst the bits and pieces in my sewing room that belonged to both my late Mother and Grandmother I came across a box of "bits and pieces" and here are some of the more weird of them!
no.2.son and I laughed at some of the things, in particular the old pens and thermometer-thingie, the thimble without the finger end and some rather scary costume jewellery!
Now one thing I've learned over the years is not to just "open" strange boxes without some care and poor no.2.son had quite a shock when he opened a match box - expecting - naturally - a box of MATCHES and found a box of TEETH! .. he yelped! I said not to worry they looked more like animal teeth almost certainly horses teeth but quite possibly cows!?
Having recovered from that, he opened another box of "dust" - between you me I expect thats all it WAS - dust! but I couldn't resist suggesting it might have been remains of great-great-someone or other!? (well. knowing both Mum and Grandma, is more likely to be dusty remains of some beloved pet than a relation! but that, he said, wasn't much comfort and off he went - coughing and heaving slightly ..)

box of teeth!

my baby id

a shell

bits & pieces

Canadian coins & scary costume jewellery

I remember my Late Grandma taking a trip to Canada just a year or so before she died and it was nice to come across this purse with some coins in, I know somewhere in the box are photographs of her trip - taken at the time with her then "boyfriend" - Henry whose family it was they visited and stayed with on the trip.
Lovely to see a tattered envelope marked "Susan 12.8.1961" and inside a tiny scrap of ribbon printed with "baby Bayliss" which I think you can just make out.
Most of the box I'll be honest I threw out, I just kept one or two things but there was a lot of junky stuff that just got collected, I suppose? I've now got one smallish sized old fashioned case that is packed with old photo's and bits and pieces which is reasonable to keep and a nice momento from the past to pass on.

Cats and boxes

2011-09-06T20:31:00.004+01:00

We've got two cats and enjoy their antics - some pics of them curled up in no.2.son's new-shoes-box which nearly brought about a huge fight over WHO claims the right to ownership!
Lilly likes boxes and is very fierce despite being a skinny-strip of nothing and last night poor Bertie inspite of being the bigger and stronger turned tail and hopped it after SHE made it very clear with some impressive hissing, spitting and fluffing up that SHE was NOT giving up the box for anyone or anything!!
Instead Bertie decided to chase his own tail underneath the curtains - silly cat, he "forgot himself" and bit his tail to his own surprise!

Bertie ventures to the box

He doesn't fit & needn't settle! Lilly spots him!

goes off to chase his tail instead!

looks surprised when he bites his tail!

tight squeeze but she manages it

& shuts out the family to curl up and sleep!

We made it Tuesday (instead of Monday)

2011-09-06T20:24:00.001+01:00

no.1.son prepares Pork in Cider casserole

dried fruit soaks overnight for "cider cake"

plate of cakes!

fruit scones & fresh cream

biscuits

Ok, so we made it today and not yesterday! But I have "made" Mondays my day to get stuff done in the house - mainly getting the vac. out and cleaning the bathroom which is pretty boring to blog about.
No.1.son is gamely joining in with preparing meals and cooking and baking like the good lad he is! I've not managed - yet! to swing it that he washes up as well, but to be fair he already does do this on a regular basis AND without my asking too which is pretty good? for an 18yo?
The cakes and biscuits are familiar favourites, the cider cake comes out everytime I make a pork casserole as one can "does" for them both and always goes down well.
Now we're changing seasons, I'm looking forward to switching from lunch salads to soups and will be trying out some new recipes I've come by in various books.

hurrah! he's passed his theory test! (at last)

2011-09-03T15:20:00.000+01:00

HURRAH! third time lucky and no.1.son has finally passed his theory driving test.
Seems a really odd way to test - using this sort of computer tap-tappy thingie?
Anyway, had a good old rant about why can't they do things the old fashioned way and WHY does everything have to revolve around tap-tapping on computers but now he's PASSED then hurrah who cares??
We had this dilema you see, on what to do in the event he'd not passed; on the one hand we've spent a fortune on lessons which would be "wasted" had we abandoned paying to continue BUT on the other, until he has passed this test he cannot progress anyway and I had this awful fear that he'd never pass it! doomed to always score 2 marks off the required pass rate.
Trying to encourage him to be positive and "go for it" with some enthusiasm and willing him to wake out of this perpetual teen-zombie like state he gets into (particularly when around his father and I!) but without frightening him with threats of withdrawing lessons like a punishment for NOT passing, I think I managed to impress upon him the importance OF trying his hardest but that if he had failed though we'd be disappointed we'd not shriek - impossible to tell whether he'd pass/failed he sent us a text saying "done". done. done what? done how? done PASSED? or done FAILED? completely expressionless he took about 4seconds to catch up with his ears hearing what we were asking and managed to tune his brain in sufficiently to convey that he had of course : PASSED. and then ducked. neatly. out of the way to avoid my outstretched arms seeking a congratulatory hug and very nearly collpased into the path of an oncoming bus. We grappled a bit with me managed to get my fingers onto his coat but it took dh blocking his exit and helping me corner him to get into a position where I could aim a friendly thump at him and THAT I had to make do with.
Got my own back. though. while waiting for him to sit his test, dh and I looked around at bedding sets and bath towels and crockery and decided that perhaps we ought ask no.1.son what colours/styles he would prefer! Dh backed me up and INSISTED that no.1.son accompany us back to the shop in order to express his preferences.
Seriously I would be tempted to just shove a handful of notes at him and say GO BUY YOUR OWN if I thought it would make ME feel better. Managed to get him to point vaguely in the direction of a set of uninspiring plain sets whereupon I directed his finger toward some lovely hot pinks, brilliant blues and vibrant limes and reds .. ? no ? no. ok. no. then. NO. plain. ok, he'd accept a "stripe". Rather reluctantly he said he'd accept a pale blue stripe if I couldn't bear to just get him the pale cream and slightly paler cream stripe .. by the time we approached the crockery dh had already anticipated his feet heading in the direction of PLAIN WHITE and cut him off announcing that PLAIN WHITE and pointly vaguely toward the dull and uninteresting corner AWAY from the jazzy sets of smart pillar box red that I was aiming for ..
on the bright side, dh commented that at least the plain and uninteresting sets are the "cheapest".

Baby knitted cardi and masses of teen-expenses & a party!

2011-09-02T21:05:00.000+01:00

KNITTING.
First of all there has been lots of knitting. I've just not achieved very much! I felt a bit dispondant when my good knit-pal-sally rang and has knit squillions of stuff since I last saw her but I think my biggest problem IS that I have far too much OTN's at any one time! No wonder nothing gets "done" when I'm spending hours knitting on several things all at once? .. Of course if I find out that she does exactly THIS too, then I shall have no choice but to stick my collection of needles into her neck and FAINT .. bah ..

I'm starting to work out what my problems are, where I'm going wrong and what I ought NOT be doing. which is great - except it doesn't seem to make it easier to put right .. I'm far too easily distracted and tempted to fling everything aside to CO for something "new" and especially if my cyber-knit-pals are doing it! I've signed up for two glove KAL's already and am now wavering and thinking of doing some nice scarf knitting with the delicious KSH stripe ever since Sally mentioned buying some and Di dropped a casual suggestion of knitting THIS .. .. yes. its in my queue and no I've not bought the yarn - YET but I've squeaked by reply so in a way thats practically a commitment, isn't it?
mind, at this price! I might find myself backing away slowly albeit crying slightly?

Sirdar back, design E

Progress has been made on the baby cardi I'm knitting for Becky's sister's new baby daughter - I'm pleased with the colour which is a "nice" pink not at all the "baby pink" you'd expect and even dh says its "nice". Bit shapeless as most of the garments in this book are, the pattern is interesting because of the bobbles but I've a strong feeling I went a bit wrong and am hoping its not going to be noticeable, it being the back it shouldn't be too obvious to a non-knitty-new-mum?
Progressing nicely is my jumper! I've just done the stripe sequence where the two yarns are knit together and this is proving to be a quick (and easy) knit, I've resolved to not CO on any new projects until this at least is done. I've not taken a photo because tbh its just the same as the back!

We're dead broke at the moment on account of both lads costing us money with their respective return to 6th form college and uni this month/next month. Yesterday we spent a fortune on clothes for no.2.son and really just the basics! we've still to buy him a new winter coat, a new bag and possibly a hoodie/top thingie - poor dh had to be dragged shopping to pay for it all on his CREDIT CARD!
Hate having to do this, but what with buying his very expensive travel card, clothes AND same for no.1.son together with all the household items to take to Uni its just too much for our meagre account to manage in one go.
dh is not very good at shopping. dh does not go shopping very often. he suffered. at one point I had to lead him to a chair to wait while no.2.son proceeded to spend best part of 40mins trying on his clothes .. shopping with teen lads is NOT fun and I would say I'd leave them to it except that we have a discount card worth 20% including store offers which makes it favourable for us to buy their clothes which means we have to stand and wait outside changing rooms .. for ages .. sigh ..
no.2.son is not much good at shopping either, we had the usual 6min strop and fit when I "tried to help" by helpfully suggesting tops and shirts .. ? asking which style jeans he might be favouring? .. I was instructed to GO AWAY and leave him to it which I was happy to do until he produced jeans for £40!
I wasn't the only mum there, I had a conversation with two others also shopping with their teen sons for return to college (which doesn't go down well with the family. apparently they don't like it when "mum" starts "talking" to people. I ought, they think, to really sit in the corner. and keep quiet!). dh doesn't like it because inevitably he knows it will extend the experience of shopping by some minutes once I get going and if I'm lucky enough to find a crafty-mum to chat with it could be a lot of minutes!

Luckily - I think? - for US our son's college has not gone with this new trend of insisting their students wear "business dress". One poor woman/mum was frantic trying to persuade HER 16yo not to throw away his good GCSE grades because he couldn't shove his arms through a jacket and face having his neck buttoned and tied up - the sales assistant advised us a lot of the local colleges have gone this direction even insisting on colours and styles OF "suits" to be worn!
I don't think this will be successful or popular. Particularly for lads. After years of "uniform" seriously are 16yo's really going to take to adopting "business dress" for College for 2yrs?? I know our no.1.son was THRILLED that at least HE could get rid of his blazer and tie and school shoes in favour of jeans, tee and trainers and HE wasn't even a problem to get to wear "uniform".
no.2.son is still going through a no-photo phase and would NOT permit me to take a photo of him wearing the lovely clothes he did eventually choose! but he does look very nice! x

Our eldest son, 18yrs is busy working all the shifts they are flinging his way and being rewarded with a weekly wage which WE are thrilled to watch his bank balance going steadily UP but even so, we're spending a fortune on kitting him out for his first year at Uni. We can't afford to subsidise him much and certainly not on a regular basis, but are hoping that we can start him off with a few basics and with this in mind he has been in training in our kitchen "cooking" all week and we made him come to the supermarket with us a few times! which was a nightmare. the lad is NOT interested. I've tried to make it interesting, I've tried to impress upon him the importance of being aware of stuff while out shopping but at the same time I've come to see I need to relax and let him find out for himself, and wait for HIM to come to me on the phone with the questions or plea for HELP! MUM!? WHAT DO I DO? HOW DO I? ..
We're having serious problems in coming to terms with the inevitable fact that our son is leaving home and we won't be able to do a thing about it after next month - a health visitor at one of the "baby clinics" once said that things didn't really change much as our "babies" grew older, the problems just changed to suit their age but essentially being a parent is no easier when they are grown up and you worry just the same.
When our no.1.sons first started at infant school, my best-pal-Ann and I were feeling tearful and proud all at once and we waved our small son's off and blew into tissues on the playground for several mins until we noticed our "teacher" waving! and calling? to us? we RAN thinking/fearing some dreadful accident? some trauma, perhaps? a mistake! even? that our son's needn't have started school this year? to be TOLD - quite FIRMLY - that WE had to do some homework of our own! APPARENTLY a small select group of us "first time mums on the playground" were all guilty of NOT LETTING OUR CHILDREN DRESS THEMSELVES! gulp! well. its quicker? and easier? isn't it? to carry on dressing your small child afterall we've been doing it since they were babies? I remember we got ticked off by the teacher for NOT letting our children develop and learn the skills of independance by doing everything FOR them, we're not, she said, doing THEM any favours. And I suppose I've continued for the rest of his school/college years to do exactly that: do everything for him! and now I've got exactly 4 weeks to train him to cook, shop, manage a budget, handle money and organise himself not to mention clean the bathroom? operate a washing machine? help! I need to start NOW with no.2.son?

half price oven gloves and tea towels

set of saucepans!

and a frying pan!

After an hour long lecture on NOT falling into the trap of buying takeaways every night - BUT at the same time not missing out on opportunities to mix in - NOT spending all his time in the pub BUT at the same time joining in .. I came to the conclusion I was wasting my time. HE had gone to sleep and zoned out after 3mins and all I'd done was reinforce to myself all the possible scenarios of HOW he could expect to come by some harm or misfortune. by the END its a good job he had zoned out and nodded off, because I'd had him lying in a gutter mugged and drunk for 3hrs before dragging himself home to find he'd lost his keys, lay there bleeding on the step after trying to break in to find all his valuable stolen on account of the attempted breakin by robbers and criminals just happening to be passing who stepped over his body and made off with his LAPTOP containing all his vital WORK - DON'T GO! I SUGGESTED? FAR TOO DANGEROUS! STAY HOME WITH ME INSTEAD? .. my SON woke up around this point and was slightly panicked at finding his mum sobbing slightly and muttering through sodden tissues about accidents, ambulances and the police .. of course I THEN had to spend twice as long convincing myself and reassuring HIM that he would have a marvellous time and that we'd be looking forward to hearing all about it! at 8pm. every night. by 8.15pm at the latest 8.30pm. or we'll be worrying? which led to another ponder over whether I oughtn't to buy him a 2nd mobile phone? just incase?

Personally I shall be glad when its all over and done with and he's GONE. At least then anything that does happen will be happening for real and we can deal with it.

In the meantime we're spending a FORTUNE on household stuff and between you and me, quite frankly are NOT getting the excited response one might be expecting after spending that month ON all household things like pans and cloths. Even dh remarked that our son might at least feign a little interest? (he chose the black and white themed tea towels/oven gloves).

Party gifts

TOMORROW we shall out in the evening partying! hurrah. Our neighbour is celebrating her 60th birthday with a party and we're invited. Didn't know what to buy, difficult to buy something suitable when you don't especially know the person all that well. Not completely convinced she "drinks" we seem to think that maybe she doesn't? from a remark passed one time between dh and her dh. Anyway we settled for a bottle of champagne and box of seriously expensive chocolates. you can't go wrong with that? Might take my camera with me to take photo's at the party. After this occasion its back to "normal" as no.2.son starts College on Monday and dh is back to normal working pattern after the summer of filling in on odd days to cover staff holidays - I shall use the opportunity to revise my craft goals as I always find September a better time for me than, say, new year goals and resolutions.

What I got from "love wool uk" in the post!

2011-08-31T15:39:00.000+01:00

LOOK at what arrived yesterday morning in the post!

When I signed up and they vaguely mentioned sending some sort of "pack" I thought perhaps some leaflets and info. on the series of month long events and perhaps something a bit yarnie but as well as a nice pen and the usual leaflets, a set of instructions and some wool to "felt"! hurrah!

Not sure what I'm going to do exactly! but I'm hoping something will inspire me ..

Knitting Progress : Tender Rowan Mag.50

2011-08-29T12:44:00.001+01:00

Progress has been made and I'm very pleased with it so far - its a lovely and quick knit and the pretty bobbles at the top are delightful and make it just that bit more interesting (to knit) don't you think?

Finished, the back and started - the front!

close up of the bobble effect

I'm loving the colours and feeling inspired to do more knitting in colour!

I'm joining in with this KAL to knit these gloves starting (I think!/hope?) 1st October! (also, I'm hoping I read right that this IS the winner! either way I've downloaded the pattern and will knit them anyway!)
My Sissal gloves are ripped back - I've decided that life is too short to struggle with complications I can't manage at the moment although the alterations to the pattern are very minor its more to do with how I'm finding it hard to "manage" remembering stuff and I can do without the stress at the moment.

Enjoying a catch up on knitting magazines this weekend - for some reason I occasionally end up with issues I've not read the minute they drop through the letterbox and then there is a rush to read before the NEXT one is due! I've a sneaky feeling another one or other is about due so best crack on, then!

One of my lovely little teddies was featured in this month's "knit" magazine readers gallery - I'd forgotten that Adrian had contacted me to see if I could send him a pic and when I opened the page and saw it the first thing I thought was : oh! look! I knitted one just like that! and then read that I did! bah! it WAS mine! duh .. silly moment .. else where in print I found that one of my excerts from a bit on the charity knit event was picked out and included on the page for knitting as therapy too! weird "finding" yourself like that! (if I can find it again I'll link it!! but thats one topic am trying to address on my fave sewing forum - HOW to manage myself electronically! and sort myself out I mean sort my patterns and files! so far all I've done is sign up for and join in with squillions of stuff and hardly any of it is organised never mind sorted!).

Typical Bank Holiday Monday - the weather is grim and rather dismal - I've run out of space to put the washing in the house to hang about while drying which it doesn't! in this sort of inbetween not quite ready for central heating to go ON but not warm enough to dry anything. The cats are miserable and to show their displeasure in the change of weather have each taken to deliberately walking IN the muddy patch and asking to come in and walking across the new carpet with their muddy paws .. dh thinks we ought to leave them outside until their feet are dry. all that happens THEN is they jump up with their muddy paws and now our patio is full of paw prints .. and they STILL are muddy when we do give in and let them in only NOW are double cross on account of being kept out longer than necessary and walk MORE across the carpet to show their displeasure and squeaking at us to reinforce the message! you cannot win with cats!
this afternoon I plan to knit some more! and finish my magazines and because its "making monday" I shall make shepherds pie for dinner AND look through my book again to see if I can find something different to bake for pudding - like last week, if I do I'll edit the post and fling a pic up!

Pictures from my celebratory meal with family

2011-08-28T11:53:00.000+01:00

It was a lovely occasion! both my brothers and one stepfather came along meeting up at our house and setting off in 2 cars the night extended well into the morning! and I paid for it yesterday with a full day of ectopics and Afib but it was WORTH it! absolutely NO knitty chat just a selection of photo's from the pub ..

the steaks were lovely

meal portions perfect for hungry teens!

enjoying the ambiance!

enjoying the drinks!

dh and no.1.brother

dh not used to finding food in a glass!

chocolatey pudding! yum

me! happy birthday to me!

no.1.son and me

In memory of my late Mother

2011-08-26T17:52:00.001+01:00

My Mother and my Son

Today is the 8th anniversary of my Late Mother who died on her 62nd birthday and would, had she lived, have been coming out with us tonight to jointly celebrate her 70th birthday along with my 50 of a fortnight ago. Tonight we are going out as a family to both remember her, and celebrate other recent birthdays in our family during July and August enjoying, too, our son's achievements with their exams this last week for a meal to mark the occasion.
I chose this photo because it was taken during a family party to celebrate my son's birthday and was the last time that we all enjoyed a family party unknown to us she was already in her final few weeks with her cancer having spread to her liver. She chose to keep this news from us so as not to spoil the birthday celebrations and its not hard to see how she managed to fool us - she doesn't look in the least poorly!? We learned the sad truth two days later, and she died some 3 short weeks later on her own birthday and has been missed ever since ..
Our gathering later on is not going to be a sad occasion! rather I chose to arrange it on this day but we will be looking forward to happy and bright futures for our sons and its them that we shall celebrate.

Bank Holiday - rotton weather AND a good old tidyup in sewing room!

2011-08-26T11:25:00.000+01:00

WHAT a rotton day! pouring with rain and forecast for more/worse - but then it IS the Bank Holiday weekend ..
Not as rotton as those in the way of the hurricane, mind! I can't imagine what the experience and devastation must be like to live through and I'm hoping that my cyber-knit/sew pals and their families will be unaffected or at least safe!

ready to GO!

I've had a GOOD clear out! and decluttered my sewing room once more. I did this exercise about 8 yrs ago after my late-Mother died and I inherited the contents of her sewing room and trying to pack in two room's worth of stash and machines was not going to happen! Over the years I've managed to part with some things - and used/sewn/knitted some! and the biggest change I made was in NOT madly randomly and feverishly BUYING stuff!! I'm much more discerning both in my purchases and in my projects and this latest exercise was two fold, firstly I wanted to clear some space in the room and "manage" ALL of my craft IN one room (I've spread out into the landing upstairs, the lounge and our bedroom! gulp!) and secondly I wanted to clear my WIP and all unfinished stuff with either a commitment TO finish OR to just say goodbye to it! once and for all! (not easy!).

First to be sorted was the fabrics - I've not sewn really for some years and it was relatively easy to get rid of some fabrics, particularly stuff I'd bought for when my lads were younger - raincoat fabric for instance! fleece and other outwear that I'd picked up when going through a phase of making waterproof coats for them. Next was the lingerie and lace & stuff! I've decided that though I enjoyed sewing outerwear AND lingerie, I've done it! I did it, but I'm no longer likely to do it again!
This is the hardest part for me, in wanting to keep a reminder of things I've previously enjoyed and just in case I should want to revisit this area of sewing I've blocked up a whole area of space - for what? well! for "just in case"! and I've been completely ruthless and got rid of ALL the outerwear and MOST of the lingerie/elastics/notions bar a small container which is much more sensible and manageable.
For two days I pondered about my 4 large bags worth of "oddments" - pieces of fabric that I had kept for patchwork. One the one hand it has taken me years to build up a useful stash of variety of cottons, but on the other hand in reality I've actually made very FEW items from it!
In the end I just gritted my teeth, refused to even LOOK inside - I just PUT the bags OUT! they are going! to the Charity shop and thats that! IF I decide to do something quilty or scrappy, well! I'll just buy something! The local shop sells lots of oddments and strips and rolls and scrap bags in themes its not like I can't EVER do this again ?
I sorted out the boxes of notions and general haby collected, again, over years and some of a mix of mine, my late Mother and even Grandmother's! Some things - Grandma's leathercase of beeswax and Mum's very very super fine beading needles double threaded with yarn through an eye you can't SEE even under magnification and SHE was half-blind and did it through "feel" rather than sight! - I've kept. But some of their things I have also let go too. You can't keep EVERYTHING. In fact, in keeping "everything" it sort of devalues the few items that do mean something, and you can't appreciate it when there is so much of it. On the one hand I find it difficult to throw stuff out, I'd naturally err on side of keeping things BUT on the other hand I can find it easy to be firm about making choices and once I've decided, then I don't hanker after it, regret it or sneak it back again!

yet to be sorted

Its made my working space SEW much clearer and will inspire me to use my room more now that I've got SPACE in it!! Nearly everything is sorted through and put away, yet to tackle are my stash of magazines and this box and three bags of "knitting" stuff, patterns and projects OTN's for example.
For the sewing projects I've sorted just one or two pieces that I intend finishing and all the rest I've thrown out!
I find it very lowering creatively to be reminded and surrounded by the evidence that the things I started out with enthusiasm are just hanging about half done! waiting to be finished! and if I'm completely honest, MOST of what I'm looking at I have no real use or purpose for it when it IS finished! so? whats that all about? hmm. Apparently I just like "doing" things. "trying things" and having a go! joining in and doing what others are enjoying! well. thats FINE. but when its MOSTLY what I'm about, its not so good! I resolve, therefore, to change! hurrah! how about that? what are my chances?
I'm not sure quite WHEN I changed. In the very early days I defnitely wanted to "learn" and find out ways of doing things and looked for challenging techniques and it was always important to me that the dressmaking projects both FITTED me AND were sewn "well"; but in those days I did get it DONE. I had a need to sew for instance, a skirt and top so I sewed a skirt and top. These days although I probably still have the same "need" I don't have the same enthusiasm and commitment TO sew the skirt and top. I'd rather faff about blind hemming and roll hemming and perfecting my stitching with one of my many machine feet .. sigh .. playing. thats what I like! playing at the craft.
NOTHING wrong with that. but somewhere along the years, I've slid over to more "play" than actual achievement of finished item and scarily I'm starting to do the same with my KNITTING.
Here again. A change.
YEARS ago, I knitted because everyone else in the office was knitting, so we'd all sit in the lunch hour over a sandwich and knit and pop down en masse to the LYS to pay for the next week's balls of "wool" set aside by the shopkeeper and it was ONE knitted jumper after a cardigan ..
The bargains to be had in the sales with double discounts bringing down discontinued yarns in particular to really SILLY prices, eg 10xballs of Rowan KSH for £10 10x balls of Rowan Fine Milk Cotton down to just £10 .. I could go on? .. I've got BOXES of the stuff! and have I knit it? well no. but do I want to buy MORE? .. well yes. well NO. alright. yes AND no. ok. I can't afford to turn down a "bargain" and these days I'm more focused on mostly buying what I know I would want to knit and generally have an idea of a pattern in mind - eg the fine milk cotton for the Arielle project that I had coveted for months before the offer of double discount yarn IN the colourway I wanted just threw itself at me while browsing the wool dept one day .. how could I NOT?

I am resolved now to FINISHING the projects I have on my needles before starting anything afresh.
I am also resolved to FINISHING the sewn/quilty projects before starting anything else.
The only exception to the above one, is the little nursery bag I shall make to accompany the baby knit I shall do that is the exception to the first - bah - see? how DIFFICULT it is? already? I'm making "excuses" for "exceptions"? shall I ever change? should I expect to? or just do the best I can?

halved the storage of stash

decluttered by 50% the shelves

EMPTIED the fabric boxes!

SO. I've ended up now with a good working space that is not looking so cluttered as before, I've halved the amount of storage units and created room to fit boxes and bags of things like toy filler and wadding to be tucked away in the corner that is hidden by my Horn cabinet when opened for sewing and the shelves are now much neater and easier to sort through now I've been ruthless and got rid of 50% of the contents. Best of all I emptied the complete built in cupboard storage space of fabric and patterns and managed to contain it within a few boxes and given me SPACE to put my books and my knitting and beading within it! hurrah! ok. I've still got "stuff" on the floor. I can't help this, I don't have room to put it anywhere else but it is manageable in the corners and from my families point of view the BIGGEST advantage is that I now have NOTHING outside on the landing! gone is the drop leaf cutting out table! GONE is the set of storage units for "cardmaking" and GONE is the 4boxes and bags of YARN and GOING is the huge stash of magazines (once sorted!!). phew! I could almost have a housewarming party to celebrate! except that its all still HERE. temporarily! until we get to take it to the Charity shop. which being the bank holiday weekend will likely be middle to end of next week.

Next week I'll blog an update on what I plan to finish sewing wise and do a knitty round up on progress on projects.

More good results! and some knitting on the go and in the planning!

2011-08-25T15:21:00.000+01:00

FIRST of all! so PLEASED that along with bragging unashamedly about no.1.son's A level results last week, I can do the same for no.2.son and his GCSE results from this morning!
They both work hard and we appreciate that we have the sort of son's that have taken to "school" and exams etc it makes OUR life much easier given the competition for places in FE these days that both our lads now have the "pick" of their choices!
No.2.son achieved 3xA's, 2xA* and 5xB's and easily meets the requirements at his first preference of college - tomorrow when we all meet as a family to generally celebrate both the occasion of my 50th, remember my late-mother AND our lads' results and enjoy their successes it will be a very happy time for us all as a family!

Knitting is coming along nicely! the newest OTN's are baby socks! in left over "Harry Potter" sock yarn from Opal - two pairs for the newest baby that I'm knitting for ..

2nd pair of baby socks

first pair of baby socks

As well as socks, I'm planning to knit another cardi from the Sirdar book which has proved to be a good buy as I've knit 4 items so far and well worth the money and this will go OTN's tonight (while no.1.son and I watch the live final of "show me the funny") (slight argument with no.2.son and dh who wanted to watch the NUFC match earlier this evening but I managed to win on account of basically you don't want to cross me!! lol!! they will watch the first half and then tape the 2nd, watch it after we've watched our programme .. I would point out that this is a "regular" game and not a special or important one, had it been so I would have agreed to their watching it, but frankly EVERYtime the tv is turned on there is some sort of football and/or cricket, golf ON and it gets a bit boring after a while .. zzzz).

I bought the yarn here - "playful pink" and the buttons too as always excellent value and terrific fast service it arrived yesterday after ordering it late on Monday afternoon. I think the shade is nice - I wanted to knit "pink" but not the usual sugary "baby pink" and was pleased to see this was one of the discounted colourways, even with the postage costs added, it was way cheaper than buying from shop! I ordered 3 balls as plan to knit a "mini teddie" too - naturally I will be sewing one of Jan's famous "nursery bags" and filling it with usual baby toiletries - fabric still to be purchased but likely from here.
Further on the knitting/charity front: the lovely pattern that will be available to download soon - is looking LOVELY! I'm proud that my photo's have been included and can't wait to see the variations knit from it over the coming months - next month sees the "Event" launch both the pattern and the initiative and I'm hopeful that it will be a success!!

I made it Monday - and recipes!

2011-08-23T10:11:00.000+01:00

Well I did take photo's but ran out of time to edit yesterday's post in part due to getting carried away with sorting out sock yarn for "new baby socks" AND ordering something snuggly for a new project for the new baby I mentioned ..
AND poor dh went out for a game of tennis with another group of players for the first time in months (one of his regular team-mates is currently recuperating following operation) and promptly slipped - did the splits - done his back IN (again). He has a dodgy back anyway and I'm constantly ~~nagging at him~~ suggesting that he adjust his posture in order to ~~nag at him~~ to help him better manage his pain; he spent the entire night in agony and clearly didn't remain in bed the whole night & this morning when I got up early and showered thinking I'd be set to take him to the GP - he's gone! to work. one presumes.
The trouble with dh (and most men?) is that they shriek about a minor cold and expect hot toddies and be let off washing-up duties but when they ARE "ill" or have an accident, they steadfastly refuse to accept its happening and carry on regardless. He's clearly raided the cupboard looking for pain-killers and the problem with THAT is that as he never takes them even when under instruction by a Dr to, he's got no idea what to take - when to take them - and more importantly any "dangers" OF taking them.
My box labeled in pen "VERY VERY strong tablets ONLY for me for when my PAINFUL frozen shoulder becomes SO unbearable without taking these I'm going to SHOVE you out of your own WINDOW if you try and stop me" is left ominously EMPTY on the kitchen counter.
hmm. this means EITHER he's high as a kite and like as not wouldn't notice if HE fell out of a window OR I'd kept the box, empty, as a momento and reminder of this terrible painful experience ..
Either way, dh is NOT here and neither is the car .. which must mean he's gone to work .. and THATS another thing.
(sorry. its turned into a rant. I'm like this. End up going off on one. skip to the pics if you prefer, I won't mind!)
Like a lot of men (of his age) he WON'T take time off work. Not even when "ill" - in 27yrs I can honestly say he has rarely taken any time and while ok, he has rarely HAD to take time being as he is generally "lucky" to enjoy excellent health - he wouldn't even IF he really ought. And I do think that doing the splits and wrenching his back and possibly putting something "out" on the tennis court at his age ought to mean he'd be better off at the GP Surgery seeking advice on "managing" his back and getting his own suitable tablets and resting at home until his back goes away .. ?
And another thing! like as not he'll come home in agony, but insist is ok to go out for his regular snooker night! hows that going to help? bent over the snooker table with a dodgy back? its not, but if I try and say so it will be me "nagging" again (and spoiling his life) .. bah ..
YESTERDAY I MADE:

quiche for dinner

Quiche from Delia smith's book. The only problem I seem to get is that the pastry is inclined to come away from the container at the blind-baking stage prior to the filling/cooking in parts - unfortunately I forgot to take a photo of the entire quiche and only remembered later on in the evening that I was supposed to have photographed it! and this is the last bit left in the fridge for today's salad/lunch and thus is the bit with the missing pastry and slightly dodgily overdone bacon which makes it look like announcing "hurrah! its QUICHE for dinner!" is not a good idea if am expecting a positive response back of "hurrah!" BUT to be fair, we ate the better parts and this left over is somewhat a treat for anyone who might be wishing they'd had more.
(to be fair, its not often that anyone ever does wish they'd had "more" but there are some meals I cook which are more popular than others; and there are SOME in my family who respond rather less well than the rest on some things I fling their way. We had a dodgy moment at the weekend when after some couple of weeks of "busyness" meant I did a few not especially healthy veg filled meals in a row and THEN presented no.2.son with a roast dinner including both broccoli AND peas with his carrots he promptly proceeded to nip at the edges with his teeth in manner of presented with poison and HEAVED into his plate .. this is VERY offputting to everyone including our son and I did think we'd got over this stage and that I'd learned my lesson following one memorable occasion when he heaved the entire dinner of shepherds pie back onto his plate after a mouthful of broccoli. but WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO? what I do do, is that I find the smallest most complete sprig and ask that he nibble around the edges a bit to show willing and then we're both happy that a/ I have tried (my best) and b/ he has tried (his best). QUICHE is generally popular with no.2.son and as its served with chips and baked beans for him and thus let off the horrid broccoli gets eaten and enjoyed - we eat quiche around once a month and I always do the same version and I always get the same resulting falling away bit but otherwise my pastry is improved & all the better from the practice!).

dough mixture

to be fair, I tend to use my food processor for most baking and in particular for pastry and dough for biscuits etc largely because its quicker and easier & any disadvantage in making it this method vs. the "proper" by hand rolling kneading and encouraging adding stuff like eggs and water drip by drip is knocked out by the cooking anyway! I can't blame the oven anymore on account of having a new super-duper one I have to instead accept that I'm not a natural "cook".
Looking through my books to find something I could make yesterday FOR the make it monday challenge suiting the ingredients I had in the kitchen made me try out two NEW recipes! for biscuity thingies that apparently require very little in the way of ingredients, making up of! baking therein! (~~and possibly "taste" too?~~).
and thus I baked:

melting moments cooling before being filled

THESE! "melting moments" or yo-yo's.
the ingredients and method in my book is very similar to this except mine were "filled" and paired with a butter/icing sugar with vanilla extract mixture which unfortunately I made slightly too runny and they have to sit in the fridge to harden and then get eaten rather quickly before the filling runs and the biscuit melts - one of my son's took rather too long pondering over whether it was SAFE to try and nervously took a small bite whereupon the filling ran down his throat and the biscuit melted sticking his teeth preventing him from swallowing giving him an unpleasant experience with a sneezing nose and several tissues ..
my other son on the other hand declared them yummy! bite sized HE bravely put the lot in his mouth in one go and just waited for the meltingness to process around his teeth before swallowing it with the filling no doubt helping if only a little ..

melting moments & almond shortbread drops

INSPIRED by the fact that apparently with the right book to hand one can bake anything out of nothing I decided to do a batch of almond shortbread drops (but without the almonds). I did! however! have a bottle of almond extract! and can confirm that this really DOES enhance the flavour of the nothing-much-in-way-of-~~taste~~-ingredients but to be fair you need to LIKE almond-flavour)
The link is quite similar but mine is even more basic using only butter, flour, rice four and icing sugar but adding the almond extract omitting the actual almond works quite well.
As my son said, at least they are small enough to pop into mouth in one go AND can be swallowed quickly and they don't hang out melting around your teeth ..

I'm glad I gave it a go and tried something new - perhaps next Monday I will be better organised and able to gear up to making something else and blogging again possibly joining in, too! I've not linked my efforts to the list, instead I'm sort of doing it on the quiet! shhh! ;-)

Making Monday

2011-08-22T10:57:00.000+01:00

For some time I have been following the Making Monday as set by Natalie and listed here and kept trying to join in! but wouldn't you know it! every Monday SOMETHING happened! I really thought the previous Monday I was on to a winner when I'd started "making" something but "popped out" to the GP for a routine appt, and ended up in A&E for the entire DAY!! bah! although I had taken my wool and dpns with me and WAS able to knit several hearts I wasn't able on the DAY to take the step by step pics and thus announce it AS my "made it on monday" entry! bah.

SO. today I am going to:

MAKE from scratch a quiche lorraine for tonight's evening meal and will try and edit this to add the pic IF I a/ can and b/ remember!

To be honest, I usually "make" stuff on most days, and actually "monday" is the day I normally reserve for other more domestic stuff and since redecorating the lounge "monday" has become the day I spend cleaning it and turning the cushions on the new sofas! BUT with this in mind (and that today is dh's last days "holiday") I did the housework YESTERDAY! DOUBLE bonus - I managed to persuade dh that it was in HIS best interests that HE clean the bathroom as well! (to save me a job! cough) luckily he bought it and obviously didn't have his full wits about him to SEE through my frankly dodgy theory that IF he did the bathroom it would be doing HIM a favour as it would release "today" as a "free day" - this is ONE advantage of his getting up at 4am to take no.1.son to work - his brain doesn't work properly due to lack of sleep!! ;-)

This does give me the whole day to make the pastry, rest it and blind bake before putting together the quiche and I might well look and see if there are any other "pastries" I can make alongside - I sort of fancy eccles cake? Today I will be in the KITCHEN ..

"Tender" my new autumn knit from Rowan mag.50

2011-08-22T10:44:00.000+01:00

I'm knitting this from Rowan's magazine: 50 and Rav'd it here.
Although I've got two or three current projects OTN's and had resolved to finishing those before starting anything "new" two things made me cast on this weekend:
1/ X factor started! and I needed something nice and easy to keep track knitting while watching this with no.2.son (and we're steadily working our way back through series of 24 with no.1.son 2-3 episodes at a time to get through as much before he goes to Uni in Oct!) and what better a knit than one with blocks of colour in st.st and a dead easy pattern!?
and 2/ I really REALLY want to wear this new seasons pattern NOW - THIS season! and not in 3yrs time! bah!

the back

I'm loving the colours, it looks totally different to the book but I think this will be great for me! Just about to change colour again and continue with the shaping at the back, hope to get this done over the next few weeks ready for when I might need to wear it!! x

I am RUBBISH at finishing.
I think I am a process knitter.
I love having things OTN's and enjoy starting new projects, love the challenge of learning the new techniques eg ML and 2AAT but really I should just buy 2skeins of yarn and knit a handful of SAMPLES? bah!

I wish I were quicker at knitting - I can be quick to knit for example when knitting the baby-knits earlier this year (but then again, tiny baby knits ARE quick to finish on account of teeny-tiny!!). I've another new baby to knit for - the ex.gf of my no.2.brother has become an "auntie" - her sister whom we've only met a few times but enjoyed her company each time has had a gorgeous baby girl! AND hurrah and thank GOODNESS she likes PINK'N'FRILLS!! phew! about time!!
Need to get cracking. And order something in PINK to knit from my book.

My Sissal Gloves are on hold. temporarily. but might be ripped back.
I feel there are errors in the pattern and am waiting to hear corrections before deciding but in addition to this which has put me off, I'm really finding it a STRUGGLE to keep track and "remember" the key and sequence of the colour changes.
I'm finding this a particular neuro-problem since my incident during catheter ablation last Sept and it is worse when doing this type of "remembering". Poor old Portree has had to go on to a cable for holding and thats only got TWO colours for the same reason. I feel if I'm going to "struggle" with this type of knitting, I'd be better off "struggling" with Portree .. ?

ALSO I do NEED to knit more fingerless gloves and this will be a good way to use up my stash of 4ply wool and perhaps I could find a simpler pattern?

Arielle is also temporarily on hold. This is another reason for starting my "winter" jumper knit NOW - before I actually NEED it - "needed" Arielle "now" in this summer! but knitting it IN the summer is no good, particularly on teeny needles - I'm still loving the pattern and enjoying the knitting and will carry on but in the meantime I'm resolving to complete the Kate shawl and this new jumper.

This week we get our no.2.son's GCSE results and we hope to be able to celebrate his achievements along with his brother's A levels on Friday with a lovely family meal out to celebrate the occasions of my 50th and my 2nd brother's birthday, remembering, also, our late Mother who would have been joining in with her 70th birthday - THAT will nicely wrap up and complete the "summer" for us!
from SEPTEMBER it is time to take stock and start planning & making CHANGES!
(I say this every year, its sort of taken over from "new years resolutions" and yes, just as unsuccessful!! but I remain positive that ONE DAY I will find the answer and discover HOW to create more hours in the day to be used productively and creatively while maintaining my ENERGY!).

A chocolate cake to CELEBRATE the terrific A Level results

2011-08-18T18:24:00.000+01:00

you have to be QUICK in our house to grab a slice!

a slice of chocolate cake!

a slab of cake!!

and a tray of choc chip cookies!

You do have to be quick, generally, in our house to grab a slice of cake before I eats it all!! and with CHOCOLATE cake even quicker on account of no.2.son is very quick!!!!
Yesterday, part in post celebration of my recent birthday in which I ran out of time to bake myself a cake on the day and no.2.son declared himself unable to face baking (one for me!) I decided to bake a celebration cake from the new book I got recently - and THEN asked dh would HE like to make it?
Ever since he nearly retired he has been saying he'd like to start cooking and I thought baking a nice cake would be a NICE thing TO ~~eat~~ I mean cook!
SO. with a brief glance at the instructions, a bit of a sort out of the ingredients list to check we had everything IN I failed to spot the "SERVES 20" and poor dh set about flinging saucepans bubbling over with LITRES of chocolate mixture screeching about how to CONTAIN it all ..
turns out this "family chocolate cake" is meant to feed the extended complete family including inlaws and kids and neighbours and feed the pets too.
ITS HUGE.
this is just one HALF! (the OTHER half is cut in slices and buried in the freezer!!!!)
note to self : in future read the entire recipe including the number of servings especially in a NEW BOOK!!
anyway, its a lovely cake - I wouldn't bake it again as I've done other chocolate cakes far easier method than this complicated one of the bubbling boiling and leaving for 3hrs to cool and cook for 50mins .. sigh .. BUT it is rather yummy!
too bad our no.1.son doesn't eat chocolate cake!
HE has had a terrific result this morning with his A Levels and confirmation of his first choice place at Uni for the course he prefered - 3 grade A's! in Politics, Geography and History! hurrah!!
He has done particularly well as he'd had a set back last year with his Geography and had to resit the paper which we did wonder whether or not to bother/pay for but now, of course, we're glad! This year he had another minor set back with a History paper and when initially he got his "results" via the pc this morning, he was rather glum in announcing that he had achieved 2xA and 1xC .. which to US is brilliant what ever the grade on account of between us we manage a handful of "o" levels and RSA's for typewriting BUT it appeared it wasn't enough for his preferred course at his first choice of Uni.
HOURS of trying to log on to the wretched and complicated system OF checking had he been offered a place and failing we finally decided to bundle him in the car and dh ran him up to the College armed with phone and paper to try ringing about to find out WHERE he could go to, then, in October ..
20mins after he left - the POSTMAN arrived! with two letters for him - immediately we rang him and got his permision to open/read said letters which confirmed he'd got his PLACE! phew!

Poor dh had in the meantime LEFT him at College - set off for home - got home and had to turn round and pick him up!! there was no one at the College the place was deserted! 'cept for a handful of students and tutors he didn't know personally. the one GOOD thing to come out of it, was that he visited one of the advisors who congratulated him on his 3XA's!! it turns out our son had been looking at the WRONG section - the "expected" grades and not the "actual" grades that he HAD achieved ..
stress and over excitment in the house promptly resulted in poor Bertie coming over all funny and was found heaving and hiccuping in suspicous manner in the lads' bedroom - HE was put outside and the door shut. LILLY meanwhile managed to trip everyone up and generally get under our feet and on our nerves SQUEAKING pitifully and "begging'" for "meat" so SHE too got flung out and they've since spent most of the day curled up fast asleep and IGNORING us!!

While most of this was going on, I meanwhile had shot down to frighten the GP further with my fast HR and we did decide between us that provided I came home, had a rest, and resumed my meds I could probably get away with improvement sometime next week .. bah!! slightly sidetracked into screeching a bit about the unfairness of this we had a sort of mini argument about whether MY theory of leaving myself with a fast HR was a good idea or not and IF not - then WHY NOT? the poor GP obviously couldn't think of anything accurate enough to threaten me with without FRIGHTENING me with possibilities and he latched on to my proposed suggestion that maybe I was "wearing my heart out" then? by letting it run away at top speed? .. he DID seem to regret this swift approval of theory when I ventured, then, to ask well how LONG will I have LEFT, then? IF I use up my alloted HR's at double speed?? it doesn't, apparently work that way. bah.
TRYING to get an answer out of a Dr is like trying to listen to an interview on the News with a Politician. I keep trying to understand, but end up getting on no.1.son's nerves when I fail to grasp the concept of the political theory being put forward. (although. it doesn't HELP when to ME as an "ordinary" middle aged "mum" I can't help but think, but wouldn't it be EASIER to just do a/b or c/, then? .. then again I'm not with one with bits of paper saying A .. ).

GOT to end the post with saying how pleased PROUD (and relieved!) both dh and I are of our son and now the next hurdle will be in saying GOODBYE to him as he embarks an independant life at Uni away from home!! I'm sure I'll be blubbing I mean blogging lots about this in the near future!
I do hope that others are also celebrating their children's achievements and enjoying seeing them progress with their education and next week it will be no.2.son's turn when he gets HIS GSCE results ahead of attending College for his shot at the A Levels next month!
WHO said it gets "different" not necessarily "easier" as the "children" grow up? different ages, different challenges? but all stressful and exciting for us as parents nonetheless! xx

Sissal Gloves - LoveWoolUK

2011-08-18T17:55:00.000+01:00

OTN's as of yesterday: the super pattern for Sissal Gloves designed by Jamison & Smith for Love-Wool-UK which you can download for free upon registering.
I like the look of this pattern and it suits my stash of the lovely (but now discontinued) Rowan Scottish Tweed 4 ply that I bought at half price plus a markdown a couple or three years ago and SLOWLY I've been knitting gloves and mitts in assorted colourways - THIS should clear a few of them!!

Luckily for ME the colours in the pattern are handily similar to those in my stash! I did try and "do a sally" and make my own colour scheme up, but it looked rather like something the cat had icked up with sludge brown shades of grey x3 and a sort of orange that isn't .. bah ..

Anyway, its now OTN and I'm knitting them one at a time due to a/ not being bothered to sort my 100cm cable and a bit of not being bothered to wind the wool into separate batches oh and also not being completely sure I could manage to knit fairisle in the round 2AAT and do a "left" and "right" glove ..

Looking forward to knitting these, I'm already thinking ahead and pondering whether I could make "fingers" and thus knit them into gloves - what do you think?
Using my lovely knitpro needle which I have to say I'm loving albeit I still think the lace addi turbos are the best for smooth joins and ease of sliding through sticky wool - I'm knitting with the best of both needles, knitting as I am WITH both sets of needles - my kate shawl is now chomping on yarn and 2nd side is shaping nicely!
Decided not to do the mystery shawl KAL in the end for the JL store (but thats not to say I wont in the future, just for now I have too much OTN's to be starting anything "new" and next to go will be the lovely jumper from 50!)

dh and no.1.son and I are currently rewatching the series 24 from scratch so there is a lot of knitting going on as we're watching 2 episodes at a time! Doesn't "Jack" look ~~fit!~~ I mean YOUNG! in series 1!? lol!!
On Sat no.2.son and I are looking forward to the X-factor starting - again! (so SOON? where does the time go! - it IS Xfactor starting?? lol!!)
We like the autumn tv best, and are currently struggling a bit with Torchwood but enjoying The Killing and looking forward to one or two other old favourites coming back - Spooks!

The summer is a slow time for me and this is quite productive as normally I get caught up in family activities but for some reason I've managed to knit right through the summer, but I do find that I knit rather less while the summer holidays/lads home in our family.

"come knit with us" the Heart Rhythm Charity, launches a knit Event 10th Sept

2011-08-15T17:13:00.000+01:00

FINALLY I can announce with some enthusiasm and pleasure the launch of a new knitting for charity venture that Fiona from the Heart Rhythm Charity, Arrhythmia Alliance is hosting at John Lewis store, Solihull on Saturday 10th Sept, 9am-11am at The Place to Eat, with Rowan yarn - a ticket event/£3 with all knitting on the day to help support and raise funds and awareness for this worthwhile Charity.

Unforunately I can't work out how to attach the flyer that promotes details of this event but if you contact Fiona either through Ravelry or by email I'm sure she'll kindly send it out to you electronically or in the post if you prefer.

I've posted on Ravelry for SK readers who might have unwanted free-gifts in need of a good home to support this new venture by donating small knitty/haby notions and would be pleased if knitters could knit and donate some felted heart corsages from the super pattern that the lovely Ben has designed on behalf of the Charity for its exclusive use.
Please contact myself or Fiona for the pattern ahead of it being added to the Ravelry pattern database OR wait until it is available to download for free.

For some weeks now I have got behind this venture putting together quite a lot of information and introducing people and helping to form contacts and do hope that the venture takes off and is successful, a newsletter will be published and, again, if you would like to be included please contact Fiona for details. Don't forget to remind her from whom/where you learned of this. I am trying very hard to get a good Ravelry presence as I feel that this is the perfect and indeed only! place that brings together such a terrific bunch of knitting, knitters and resources in one completely brilliant forum and format. If you are a Ravelry member already, kindly "friend" Fiona as she is hoping if it creates sufficient interest a Heart Rhythm Charity "group" will be created on Ravelry to provide one single place for all interested parties to share information and join in with future fund raising ventures. And! if you are not! yet? then WHY not! hop over and JOIN! its FREE! its FUN! and its THE place for knitters!!

THE PATTERN.
Ok, the pattern is in the final stages of being "poshed" up to a fab PDF format and will be available very soon - in the meantime here are some photographs I took to help illustrate the various stages of the knitting, felting and finishing of this super Felted Heart Corsage pattern:


knit till central 3stitches

repeat until 3st remain

"roughly square shape" pick up stitches over top two sides

distribute sts evenly with central one at top corner

work the first "bump" before repeating to create second "bump"

work both "bumps" then cast off (or draw up using yarn threaded)

I chose to thread yarn and "gather" each "bump" for ease of shaping

stitch to secure the bump into a rounded shape

then continue to stitch down rolling indented part inwards slightly

completed knitted sewn heart

"felt" the heart in washing machine to produce solid fabric

embellish to taste

sew a brooch bar at back to finish

create several using oddments of "wool"

have FUN with beads, ribbons and threads!

And then, of course, send them to Fiona! happy knitting xx