Lucky Girl

I’ve been a lucky girl recently. Not only with my awesome birthday gifts, or my fab family.  No, I’ve been given some cool stuff too…

My friend Anthea has about 35 feijoa trees on her wee lifestyle block. She has been valiantly stewing, baking, and preserving them (jam, chutney, sauce), as well as taking some on her jaunts around the country.  When we moved in here nearly 5 years ago, one of the first trees I planted was a (supposedly) self-fertile feijoa. 5 years on and not one fruit. It’s nicely bushy and thriving, but I think I should plant a mate for it if I want any produce. So, the lovely Anthea has been providing us with feijoas every time I see her. Mmmm, feijoa crumble! Fresh feijoas! Delicious. I feel very lucky 🙂

Yesterday I tried something a bit different, which I thought I’d share with you:
Feijoa, Passionfruit and White Chocolate Muffins

2 C flour

2T Baking Powder

3/4c caster sugar

1/2 c oil

1 c milk

2 eggs

4 fejoas, peeled and chopped roughly

1 passionfruit, scooped out

1/4 c white chocolate buttons, broken up

Mix all ingredients except fruit and white chocolate well.  Add fruit and chocolate, stir.  Put in muffin tins and bake until cooked (15-18 min) in 200 degree oven.  Enjoy!

I say 4 feijoas because I used more, and it was too many. I don’t think they would keep very well with so much feijoa in them. Although I might never find out, as there were only 3 left at the end of the day. Thankfully I can blame that on having guests around!

I will definitely be making these again, but without the passionfruit as that was the last of ours until summer again.

In addition to this bounty, I have been nominated for not one, but two blog awards. Now, being new to blogging, these are the first ones I’ve been nominated for. So I hope I’m doing this right.

The first one is the Imagination Award, which I was nominated for by the lovely Tink’n’Frog.

 

Here is how her friend Darcy described it:

This Award was created by Bella and Ces in honour of their friend Renee, an incredible lady who in the face of a frightening life battle is tackling each day with great spirit and courage.

Here is what Bella says of this award: “this is a brand new award and I have the pleasure and honor of spreading the seed, watching it grow. I hope it finds it’s way to those who are like Renee: the acorn, becoming a tall and sturdy oak, giving acorns…”

Now, I was chosen as she was rather taken with one of my  Thirteen Things “I’m a cloth-nappy-using, tandem-extended-breastfeeding, vegetable-gardening, recycling, non-hippy freak.”

Now, at the moment I’m raising more of a crop of weeds than vegetables – hazard of the fallow season combined with two-essays-due-in-two-weeks neglect I’m afraid. But the rest remains true…

So, in the spirit of the award, I really have to nominate the lovely Leanne . This incredible woman has her own chooks, an amazing vege patch, and more fruit trees than you can shake a stick at. And her crafting (!) She makes the  most incredible clothes for her children, and has generously made available a number of awesome free patterns for modern cloth nappies. You rock Leanne!

The second award I was nominated for is the Imagination award, thanks to the lovely Amybel.

The Rules:

Tell 5 things about your crafts you like the most…what inspires you to make home made gifts.

Send this award to 5 bloggers.

So, 5 things 🙂

1. Value for money! You can afford to be more generous when you add your time to the raw materials.

2. Thoughtfulness.  When someone crafts a gift, you know it is the result of lots of thought about them.

3. Satisfaction. There is something emminently satisfying about making things for others.

4. Challenge. Time pressure, the pressure to create something beautiful and worthy of gifting is a good thing.

5. Creativity. I love putting thought and time into chosing patterns, yarns, colours and themes together.

And the easy part… 5 creative bloggers to nominate. Well, you are an amazing bunch of women and such talented crafters, so this is easy!

So, I nominate:

Gabes at SweetP

Kelly at Knit.so.quaint

Neak at Neak’s Craft Corner

Sharon at Sharonnz

Christine at Purdy Peas

Told you I was lucky!

Birthday girl or mutant?

I had a birthday this week. And, lucky me, I have a husband who is well trained. He *asked* me what I wanted, and top of my list were two sock knitting books. I told you I was addicted to sock knitting, eh?

First on my wish list was Sock Innovation by Cookie A. I drooled over the patterns when it first came out, and having seen some finished products on Ravelry, I’m still drooling now. Only one problem – it’s sold out on Amazon! So, this part of my birthday present will be delivered in a couple of months time. One way to prolong the celebrations.

And second on my list was Wendy Johnson’s Socks From The Toe Up.  This is newly published, so I thought that I could offer a bit of a review.

First, this is a beautiful book, with lovely clear illustrations, each sock is pictured numerous times, taken from different angles. The patterns in the book are intended for solid of semi-solid yarns and are pictured in a range of lovely colours and beautiful yarns. The layout of the book is logical and accessible. Beginning with a section on techniques, it then moves through three basic sock patterns, and then onto sections on lace socks, gansey socks, cabled socks and sportweight socks. Within each of these sections there is a range of patterns, and all begin with the most simple patterns first and get progressively more challenging.  This allows the knitter to choose wisely, and gives a sense of the difficulty involved.

And what review would be complete without me throwing a sock pattern onto the needles? I had been thinking about casting on the Noro sock yarn I bought a couple of weeks ago, and wanted  a stripy pair of socks. So, I cast on one of the basic sock patterns, the Gusset Heel Basic Socks.  It is a simple knit with a wide toe and an interesting gusset heel rather than a heel flap, not something that I have come across before. 

Now, here’s the mutant part.

The pattern says to knit the length of the sock 5- 6.5cm shy of the length of your foot before beginning the gusset. Which I did. Yet when I tried it on later, it was too long. I decided I must be a mutant.

Until I finished it and tried it on the other foot. And it fit.

I forgot I have one foot longer than the other.

Mutant.

So, now I have to decide: do I knit the other sock the same length and have it slightly too long, or do I knit it to fit my smaller foot. They are going to be fraternal twins anyway – totally different colour combinations so I think that I might make it a centimeter shorter and embrace my inner mutant.

Aside from this, it is an easy pattern. It would be an excellent pattern for a first-timer, with a Turkish or Judy’s Magic Cast On, simple gusset heel, and not a lot else for challenge. I chose to do a sewn bind off -my first blast at it – which is described in the techniques section. I like this a lot, and see myself using it for my toe up socks. I don’t like the really wide toe though. I think I prefer a narrower toe, but that will be easily remedied.

I can see that I will be knitting lots of patterns from this book. It’s an excellent buy. And by arriving two months before its competitor, it has the jump.

A good find

When we were in Christchurch, my auntie gave me a wee unfinished jersey for Miss 2.8. Mum and two of my aunties are involved in knitting blankets for an orphanage (shamefully I can’t remember which country it is in right now).  Part of their mission is to score as much cheap DK weight yarn as they can to knit with – Mum did 4 single bed sized blankets herself last year, which you can imagine chews through wool rather quickly! So they scour second hand shops for jerseys they can pull apart, and suitable 100% wool sold cheaply.

In one of the bags my auntie picked up, there was this wee jersey…

Now, I’m not particularly into picture knits – it’s certainly not something that I would knit myself – far too much effort  I’m more into cables etc. But Miss 2.8 loves it, as you can imagine. She loves cats!

But it did get me thinking, what on earth would possess someone to give away a nearly completed jersey? When I got it, it was all knit, and sewn up all except for one side seam and one arm. Oh, and a few hours worth of sewing in ends to do (Sigh!). I can’t help but wonder if some little boy or girl suddenly stopped liking cats. Or if by the time the jersey was finished, the intended recipent had started high school…

I don’t know what the jersey’s story is, and probably never will. But I have one grateful wee girl here. Not grateful enough to model it for the camera, but grateful nonetheless.

Command Performance

Okay, so a command performance of the Whisper Cardigan. Here it is modelled. No way were these going to be outside – only 9 degrees today!

And a chance to show off my cool new t-shirt too. I picked up a couple of different prints of these t’s in Christchurch.  They are made from Organic Cotton, and bought at none other than The  Warehouse! Cost? $22.99, buy one get one half price. Cool eh! The other one I got was a silver fern print on grey background. Also seriously funky 🙂

Back to the cardigan… I knit the back an extra inch longer, making it nine inches, as I like my cardigans long.

And since we’re still here, from the side…

When Interweave published this pattern, they also included it in their Knitting Daily gallery, which shows the sample cardigan on several models. It was absolutely slated by many people, which was at odds with its popularity on Ravelry. I think that I will get masses of use out of this, once the weather is better. I love the fact that you can still show off the top underneath – that’s one of my pet peeves about wearing sweaters and cardigans. You might never see the top underneath, a pain when you make an effort with your outfit. Whisper doesn’t have this problem.  And as I said earlier, I think a second Whisper will be joining my wardrobe once the weather is warmer.

FO: Whisper Cardigan

 NaKniSweMoDo #7 is complete.

When my Spring Interweave Knits was purchased, we were enjoying warm autumn days, so the delightfully airy Whisper Cardigan appealed to me. I thought it would be great for spring and autumn.  I got mired a couple of times on this project though, so now that it’s finished, it’s much too cold to wear it!  Yup, we are in the middle of another cold snap!

So, excuse the lack of modelled pics please, I just couldn’t bring myself to take off my long-sleeved merino top to take pics! I’ll update you with pics later.

Anyway, the pattern is Whisper Cardigan. I knit it in sock yarn – some black Patonyle, which is 80% wool, 20% nylon. It was intended to be from stash, but the reality is this… it took about 220g, and, well, I picked up a bit more black at sale prices in Christchurch last weekend, so I now have another 180g of the same yarn in my stash. Oops!

The good bits: it’s an easy pattern, casting on in the round on one sleeve, decreasing every 8 rows, then going onto straight needles across the shoulders like a shrug before going back to the round for the second arm. Then you pick up the stitches for the ribbed section, and finally cast off the collar, and continue on the lower body stitches. You increase to create the drapey bits at the front.  Very cool pattern, and not too boring to knit.

But the bad bits… a couple of weeks ago, DH got all excited about cleaning his computer desk, and somehow in the melee, a huge (10cm or bigger) pull emerged in my unfinished Whisper.  It was made worse by the loose weave – this is 4 ply knit on 4.5mm needles after all! I spent at least 2 hours trying to fix it gently tugging this way and that, with various implements – knitting needle, crochet hook etc. I sought help on Ravelry, read articles on Knitty, and ultimately ended up cutting it in half and kitchener grafting it back together (the pull was on the straight part of the back). And to be honest, it was hard to get it to look great. It’s acceptable, but not much better 😦  The other part that was difficult was the motivation to knit 3 inches of 1×1 rib with rounds of 300 stitches plus. But that’s just lazy old me!

Despite all of this, and my disinclination to model it, I do like both the pattern and the finished garment. I chose black because I wear a lot of black, and I think this will get lots of wear when I head back to work. I would love to knit another in brighter colours. Perhaps when the weather warms up.

Knitting and Adventures

After five lovely nights away, the girls and I are back home.  A couple of months ago I mentioned that I was going to go on a Knitter’s Weekend, and this was the reason for our trip. We were fortunate that a) it was held in my parent’s hometown and b) that I scored cheap flights, making it all possible.

It was lovely staying with Mum and Dad, and catching up with my PIL too. FIL headed off overseas the day after we arrived, but we enjoyed a lovely dinner with them both before he left, and we had a great time with MIL on Saturday morning at the museum cafe, crunching leaves in Hagley Park and browsing at the Arts Centre afterwards. Miss 2.9 delighted me with her recall of previous visits, saying to Nana in the car “Oh, I had fun last time I was here!” and telling me where to turn for Granny and Grandad’s driveway on our trip out there.  Miss 11 months delighted her grandparents with daring displays of walking – although Nana counted to 28 steps at one stage, they were more like a shuffle and she was still only half way across the room! Daddy noticed she is gaining in confidence now though, and I think we will ce calling her a walker soon.

The Knitter’s Weekend didn’t exactly go as planned for me though. I was slow to register as I was waiting for my friend to decide what workshops she was taking, so we could co-ordinate. She ended up pulling out, and somehow my emailed registration form was never received. So when I turned up for my first workshop, I found it has been cancelled.  I was disappointed as it meant I missed out – they were running the same option the next day but I had another one to attend then.  The organisers couldn’t be nicer or more apologetic. They encouraged me to attend the dinner that night after I put the girls to bed, and I had a fun evening.  There were knitting related quizzes and games. I even came away with a prize. The task was to knit with a partner – we had to hold one needle each – one hand only per person – and knit as many 10-stitch-rows as we could in 3 minutes.  My partner and I knit the most, and this was my reward…

Two balls of brand new, not even on the market yet sock yarn! From Naturally, a NZ company, it is a blend of merino, nylon, alpaca and merino. And sooo soft! Lucky me, eh!  My partner also got some, in a different colourway.

Speaking of goodies, there was also a goody bag. I gave a few bits and pieces to Mum, but here is what I bought home with me.

I don’t think I’ve ever owned one ply yarn before – temptingly soft though! And a gorgeous colour. Mmmmm!

I only ended up doing one workshop – the one on steeks. We had really small numbers and thus lots of personal attention. We had a go at three different methods – and oversewing method, machine sewn, and crocheted.  They are pictured below right through left – excuse the mental cast on on the far right!

Some were definitely more secure than others – My pick is definitely between the machine sewn and the crocheted one – but definitely picking up stitches through two loops to knit on from there. So much stronger! The workshop was lots of fun, and it was nice to meet a fellow Raveler and blogger Libby there too. I was also able to identify a few others I met on Saturday night as Ravelers – after the event anyway – Diantee and Kate 🙂 It was lovely to meet you both 🙂

I would highly recommend the Knitters Weekend to fellow Kiwi knitters – it was lots of fun, and despite the slight technical hitch with my enrolment, I couldn’t fault the organisation. There was lots to see, heaps of special events in-store, interesting people to meet, and lots to learn.  And I’m not just saying that because I got goodies, either!

Cold Snap

When we woke up on Monday it was cold.  Really cold.  And it stayed cold all day.  When the clouds lifted on Tuesday, this was the view (from our front yard).

This was the first dump of snow for the year, and it’s a big one – I can’t remember the last time the ranges had snow on them, and they have a decent coverage on the top.

All of this has made me very glad to be a knitter. And made me even more obsessed with sock knitting. Which is just as well, as this is what arrived in my letter box over the last week….

At the back is some Noro Kureyon sock yarn, front is Arucania Ranco Multy, both are 4 ply sock yarns.

And a super bargain from Fyberspates in the UK, 5 skeins of DK sock yarn which worked out at $60 including postage, arriving in less than a week – gotta love Royal Mail!  The one on the far left is earmarked for a pair of socks for DH, the green next to it is gorgeous IRL this pic doesn’t do it justice, and is probably my favourite, although the plums and reds is lovely too 🙂 

With all of this lovely yarn tempting me, I’ve been knitting away, and I will finish my Whisper Cardigan very soon, and then I think I’ll knit a couple of pairs of socks so that I’m prepared for the weather.

Hostess Duties

Earlier in the year I was lamenting the lack of a knitting group. Well, since then a group of friends from The Nappy Network have been getting together fairly regularly to knit and natter and eat really sticky calorific desserts. Bliss!

Last night it was my turn to host, and Miss 2.8 and I decided to make something so inherently bad for you, it should only be consumed on occasions – such as knitting nights – where calories simply don’t count.

We made Chocolate Caramel Square.  I grabbed a recipe from the Chelsea Sugar website (Yep – a clue it’s *very* bad for you!) and adapted it just a bit. Here’s my version:

Chocolate Caramel Slice

Ingredients

Preparation time – 40 minutes plus refrigeration time Makes 20 slices

BASE
1 cup plain flour
½ cup desiccated coconut
½ cup  Brown Sugar
125g melted butter

FILLING
60g butter
¼ cup  Golden Syrup
1 X 400 g can sweetened condensed milk

CHOCOLATE TOPPING

1 package milk chocolate buttons and a splash of  vegetable oil
Method

1. Preheat oven to 180º C conventional or 160ºC fan baked. Mix all base ingredients. Bake for 12 -15 minutes or until golden brown, put aside.

2. Heat extra butter and Golden Syrup in a saucepan until butter has melted and simmer over low heat for 3 minutes. Add condensed milk and stir over a medium heat for a further 7 – 10 minutes or until caramel becomes golden brown in colour. Pour over the prepared base.

3. Melt the chocolate and oil in the microwave – blast 20 sec at a time, stirring well in between.

Spread over the caramel and refrigerate to set before slicing.

Hide from husband until guests arrive.

Excuse the slightly crumby plate! These are the leftovers – I suspect DH’s cholesterol level will not thank me for these.

Oh, and back to knitting: a good time was had by all – except maybe Trudi who is 39 weeks 1 day preg and baby is dropping lower and lower – not leaving much room for desserts! Looking around the room I could see in progress: a crocheted octopus, a bamboo/cotton baby cardigan, 2 variegated hoodies, a couple of pairs of longies, a wee Oriental Lily dress in NB size, and a pair of socks. Ah, great company! Can’t wait for next week – at Trudi’s house if bubs hasn’t arrived yet 🙂

Mother’s Day Swap

Things have been crazy around here the last few days.  Ear infections, overnight guests and a trip to Auckland for my block course at Uni… and I had a swap to get off for Mother’s Day as well! We had agreed to send them by last weekend so no-one missed out on having a gift to open for their special day.  Saturday came and went without my gift finished – in fact, it wasn’t finished blocking until Tuesday afternoon – gulp! And then I had a wee disagreement with the woman at the post shop who said if I wanted ‘FastPost’ I would have to buy her expensive packaging and repack the parcel. So it went slow post… but arrived on time.

This is what I sent:

 The knittted gift is a scarf size Clapotis knit in Wool Company Watermelon, an 8ply yarn. My giftee loves pink and green, so I hope she likes the colourway.   I knit only four repeats of the increase and decrease section (the pattern has 7 repeats) to make it a bit smaller width-wise. And it was knit on 4mm needles – same needles as the one I made for myself!  It turned out about the same size as my one, but I didn’t really have time for more than a quick picture before wrapping it up.  And of course it was accompanied by some naughty treats – some special chocolates, fudge, and a cute woven bag.  The colour is much better in the first picture, but here’s the requiste self-portrait-in-bathroom-mirror shot 🙂

In the meantime, I had an exciting looking parcel arrive at my house! I’m sure the return address was a ruse, so I’m not sure who to thank for my beautiful gift.  We had all agreed to open the presents on Sunday and post pics of them – we were away for the weekend, and I left mine here as it was a bit big to haul away with us, so when we were finally home at 11.30 last night, and once the children were deposited in their beds (Miss 2.8 was rather surprised to find herself still in her clothes this morning!), I opened up my parcel to find a rather humbling treat.

I got a lovely pair of  (home made, I presume?) wooden sock blockers made out of plywood and varnished, a gorgeous skein of hand dyed sock yarn, and some beautiful home made Wool Wash. And decorating the container was a wee set of sock-knitting stitch markers too.

The yarn is 100g of Patonyle, dyed in shades of green and purple, called “Peacock Suprise” – I totally adore this colourway, and of course am thinking of what pattern I’d like to knit it up as.

This was the coolest swap to particpate in. It was awesome to see my friends getting spoiled too. I got a quick “Happy Mother’s Day” from the two biggest kids, and that was it… so having a special treat to celebrate the day was the best idea.

Self-imposed Exile

We are all sick. Not anything too dramatic, but a heavy cold that has spread rapidly from Miss 2.8 through the family has meant we have gone into self-imposed exile. After all, this is not the kind of thing we like to share with friends.

Now, if you aren’t off going places like playgroup and Music, you’d think it’d be a great chance to stay home and knit, right? Oh, so wrong! Miss 10.5 months is miserable, and has been a lap baby as much as possible. So, knitting has taken a back seat to cuddles. Which is, of course, its own reward.

Before the lurgy hit, I had finished a few things which only needed photographing: a cute shrug for the little miss and a pair of mittens for the toddler girl. Since then, I have to say, they’ve been less than photogenic.  I tried to bribe Miss 2.8 with a chocolate button this morning in the hope of a FO pic, but alas, she wasn’t in the mood. I ate it instead.

So, anyway, these are the wee mittens I made for her.

These are knit from Bendigo Woolen Mills Rustic 8ply yarn that was hand dyed, and gifted to me in the latest yarn swap. Miss 2.8 chose it from my stash. Mittens were requested because it is getting a little cold to bike down to the park at the end of the street when Daddy gets home from work. So, I hope that they serve her well.

The pattern was a free one I sourced on Ravelry. It was intended for sport weight held double or worsted yarn, and has two sizes, 4-6 and 8-10 years. I switched it to magic loop from DPNs and used the 8 ply to downsize for the little miss – they could be two rows shorter, especially in the thumb, but she likes them as is.

I’ve been using what knitting time I do have to knit up something secret for a Mother’s Day swap I’m participating in, and also working on my latest sweater in the green yarn I dyed. It’s looking cute – but when I looked at some FOs on Rav, I realised I’d made a mistake with the cables – one I quite like and intend to keep – they are meant to be separated by a band of stocking stitch, and mine are right up next to each other. You can’t quite see them in the pic below. Squint!

 

Time I’d usually spend knitting I did some internet yarn shop surfing, and have a couple of parcels coming my way.  I might need to have a month of knitting nothing but socks soon, as it’s all sock yarn! Can’t wait to have it in my hands…

It’s going to be a crazy busy week with FIL coming to stay (a suprise visit, the kids don’t know) and then up to Auckland for Uni on the weekend. So I’m desperately hoping that the germs flee and we are healthy before we head off.