Cabled Cardigan progress

Making a cardigan in sock weight yarn is turning into a bit of a mission - even if it is only to fit Thomas! I've been working on this since the end of July. Hopefully that last sleeve won't take too long.

At least it seems to fit.

The pattern is 1240 from Sirdar.

I am messing about with it a little as it is written for DK. I knit in one piece up to the arm pits, casting on the right number of stitches for the age 4-5 years but knitting so it measures the same as the 1-2 years.

A hat for Evie

My friend Cath asked me to make her a hatfor her little girl to replace a lost one like this from Mothercare.

I evenutally chose McKinley's Springtime Hat


I chose the deliciously soft Malabrigo Worsted, this is made from leftovers from my Brownie Hat and my February Lady Sweater.

It was super-fast to make, it was completed in a couple of hours one evening.

Thomas modelled it before it was sent off to Nottingham - he got the pose just right ;o)

15 months

And a very cheeky chappie

Making Monday - The 2 B Cake

We now have an abundance of beetroot at the allotment. It was planted by my inlaws, but as they are on holiday I have been harvesting it before it gets too big. It is not ordinary beetroot, it is (I think) Chioggia beetroot and is striped inside like a candy cane!

This seems to mean that when it is boiled and pureed it turns into pink mush rather than dark red mush! (However it doesn't stain your hands, which has got to be a bonus!)

I was looking through the Abel & Cole website for ideas of what to do with all of these beetroot and decided on Sara Blackmore's beetroot cake rather than another chocolate cake.

It is certainly moist, and is nice enough, but isn't the best cake I've ever made. A little too sweet and, despite the mixed spice and nutmeg, possibly needs a little something else.

However, it still hit the spot at 11am this morning whilst Thomas slept after a hectic morning at Tumble Tots!

Making Monday - A Wolves Scarf

It is football time again, and my team are sitting at the dizzy heights of 5th in the Premier League (we were top for a short time on Saturday).
This scarf, made for the Stephen West KAL, is my new football scarf. I am hoping it is lucky.

This was a mystery knit along and after much deliberation I decided on Wolves colours and I am very glad I did. I am not sure any of my other choices from the previous post would have looked as good. I was hoping the pattern would be more like his stripey shawls such as daybreak - however this helped me overcome my intarsia fear and I quite like the end result.

The yarn is The Yarn Yard Clan in Saffron, Soot and Tanzelope. The Tanzelope was a club colourway, the Saffron was a recent purchase and I got the soot from someone destashing on Ravelry.
Clan isn't my favourite sock yarn, it isn't hard wearing enough for me. However it is perfect yarn for a shawl; lightweight, warm and soft.

I used the whole skein of Saffron, bar a few metres. However I have about 1/3 of a skein of Soot and over half a skein of Tanzelope left. Socks for Thomas maybe?

Making Monday - Fruit time

This week has seen me starting to collect the fruit from the gardens and allotment.
I came home from the allotment with a few blackberries and a handful of tiny yellow plums. These were joined by some damsons and a couple of pears from my FIL; and some raspberries from the canes at the bottom of my garden.

Now, what to do with this random assortment of fruit. There wasn't enough of any one thing to do anything useful; so I stewed it all together with a tiny bit of sugar and ended up with some kind of tart fridge jam



It seemed like it would be the perfect filling for a cake. So I spent yesterday perfecting my sponge recipe. I have 8" cake tins, and a normal sponge recipe is never enough. Yesterday I used 4 eggs which weighed 270g. I used the same amount of butter, sugar and flour and it seemed to work perfectly.



Now to find some friends to eat it.

Making Monday. Too many courgettes.

I have ten courgettes plants at the allotment. This, I have discovered is probably eight (or maybe even nine) too many. It is not possible for one family of three, their relatives and friends to eat the volume of courgettes produced by ten plants. It is courgettes with every meal here. I have even resorted to baking and can tell you that the Green & Blacks recipe for courgettes loaf is very good indeed. This is of course due entirely to the courgettes and has nothing at all to do with the bar of dark chocolate it contains.