Food and Hats: Both Good Things!

Life is going on, and alas, I am no less busy. But it's a good kind of busy - the kind where you feel like you're getting somewhere, where none of the tasks are loathsome, and where at least you have time to stop and pause once in a while, even if it's not for very long (just long enough to read a few chapters or eat some cake or knit a few rows).


Anyway, to business! First off, here's the hat I knitted for my brother:



Specifics: Pattern is Turn a Square, by Jared Flood. Yarn used was Bendigo Woollen Mills Rustic 12ply in 'Redcurrant' and Cleckheaton Merino Supreme (black). I used 5.5mm double pointed needles.

Comments? This is a great pattern. Followed unaltered it makes a rather nifty, very wearable hat, and it also provides a useful template to work from when you want to do something a little bit different. This is the second time I've made it, and both times I actually ended up using a different weight of yarn, but it's a great starting point, and very easy to adapt. This time around I decided to do some colourwork instead of stripes (my brother already has a stripey hat), so I just made up a very, very basic red/black chequered pattern (didn't bother drawing up a chart or anything - it's not like you really need to with something this basic!).

I managed to make the entire thing in a day without having to stress about it too much - the heavier yarn makes it a very fast knit, and the colour stranding doesn't slow you down too much since you don't have to be forever consulting a chart. Brother seemed quite happy with it, so I'm calling it a successful project!

My other knitting is coming along well. I have high hopes of finally finishing the Tea Leaves cardigan today, so stay tuned for that one in the next few days. I also started a cute little mini-neckwarmer in the lovely Louisa Harding yarn that I found squirreled away in a bedside table drawer.

Still, the last few days have really belonged to essays, work, and kitchen!



On Saturday night I made baked felafel, and then proceeded to eat nearly the entire batch, dipping them in Greek yoghurt and hummus as I shovelled them down. Even though the ingredients are pretty humble, they are really, really good, and I foresee many more batches in my future! Possibly starting tonight... And for all those omnivores out there who never know what to cook when they have to entertain vegetarian/vegan friends, I strong suggest these - they're very easy.

I also made the cupcakes to end all cupcakes. It was a coworker's last shift on Sunday, and she had requested something chocolatey. So, I complied... and then some.



The base was Nigella Lawson's chocolate cupcake recipe from How to Be a Domestic Goddess (amazing book - I have made so many wonderful things from her recipes). Some are iced with basic chocolate butter-cream and topped with a Malteaser, and the others have a cookies and cream icing (made by folding roughly chopped Oreos into vanilla butter-cream) and are decorated with an Oreo quarter. They were actually very easy to make, despite the fact that they look pleasingly fancy. I got out my piping bag. I love my piping bag.

More knitting and less food next post, I promise!

Birthday! May Also Contain Traces of Zoo.

So, it was my birthday two days ago! Alas, I had a lot of study to do on Monday, and several hours of classes to not only attend, but also lead discussion in, so there was not a lot of birthday-ing on my actual birthday. However, last Saturday we celebrated with (another) trip to Melbourne Zoo. Yes, I know that there was a zoo trip only a few months ago. But the zoo is fun! We all brought cakes and biscuits and savouries and picnicked on the grass near the seal enclosure. This was the first time in over 10 years that I'd dared to plan an outdoors event for my birthday - Melbourne has enjoyed torrential rain on May 17th for the last two years running, so I was a little wary. But I am happy to report that the sun shone on both my plans and all of the intrepid (cake-bearing) adventurers who came along for the fun.




I had never seen the bottom of a bear's foot before. It looks entertainingly like a slipper (these slippers in particular). And just to make sure our good old Aussie wildlife is represented:



After the zoo, there was a knitting at the pub, and I ate a cupcake with a criminal amount of icing (I got some assistance from The Boy, and even so I was barely able to finish!). On Sunday, my family presented me with some new cupcake and muffin tins, a new teapot, and a couple of nice leather notebooks (I plan on lugging at least one of them along with me on my travels). And yesterday The Boy and two good friends organised a surprise dinner at Kamel, which was lovely. We ate the vegetarian banquet, and walked out very full afterward. Oh, and they gave me the Wuthering Heights mug that I have been coveting for months now.




In knitting news, I made an impromptu hat for my brother's birthday. Amusingly enough, it's from the same pattern as his Christmas hat, but instead of stripes I made up a chequered pattern in red and black. I think he liked it. Pictures next post, if I can coerce him into modelling for them.

I've also been knitting away on my Tea Leaves cardigan, but it's been a little while in finishing because I just can't make up my mind about the sleeves. More specifically, I can't decide whether to make them 3/4 length or full length. I am pretty sure I have enough yarn for full length, but not 100% positive. So then I started considering 3/4, and now I just can't decide. I've reached the stage on one where if I wanted to go 3/4 I would have to start the garter edging, so I'm thinking that I'll just slip the stitches onto waste yarn for the moment, knit the other sleeve, and then see how I'm going for yarn when they're at matching lengths. I've already knitted the button bands, so I don't have to factor those in. Urgh, I hate indecision - it's the single biggest enemy of creativity, in my experience. Even more so than procrastination.

On other fronts, I've just been busy busy busy. I'm trying to get final assignments going, trying to organise my internship for next semester, and just dealing with all of those other random things that crop up (like, oh, I don't know - planning an overseas holiday that starts in LESS THAN A MONTH!). Still, busy is good. Makes you remember that you're alive! Or something.

Miscellany!

Behold: lots of miscellaneous things that don't really justify a blog post on their own. And also lots of me showing off my new camera:


This was my birthday present to myself! Three tasty skeins of Sanguine Gryphon yarn. Three skeins of 'Free Range' (100% organic wool, DK weight) in the 'Green Jungle-fowl' colourway, to be exact. I love it. It's absolutely gorgeous, and it makes me happy. This was the first time I'd ever handled organic yarn, so I don't really have much basis for comparison, but I can say that this stuff feels absolutely beautiful...


My favourite dip in all the world - spicy hummus from Queen Victoria Market (please don't ask me what stall, because I can never remember the number). It comes with fresh parsley and dried chilli sprinkled on top, and is nothing short of the best hummus in the universe. The fact that I actually buy it is testimony to the awesomeness of this dip. As cluey readers might have begun to suspect, I am usually the type of person who likes to make their own stuff where possible, and my home-made hummus is perfectly fine. Problem is that it's not as nice as this stuff. Not even close. Magic dip!


I tried my hand at felting for the first time. Or rather, it was the first time that I actually tried to go about it scientifically - I am guilty of once maliciously throwing a particularly hated handknit jumper into the washing machine just to see what would happen...

Anyway, this has turned out quite well. It didn't shrink as much as I was expecting, and the strap is a little too long, but that's easily fixable. It's not too far off being finished - now I just want to add a couple of buttons to make it closable, and put some kind of decoration on the front (the jury is still out on what kind). So basically, we're up to the fun part, having progressed from both the drudgy endless part and the soapy soggy part.

Also, in the background of the above shot is a Wisp that I'm working on, with the goal being simply to keep my hands busy during lecture recordings while getting rid of some hateful mohair that I bought in a fit of madness a few months back. I'm actually pleased with how it's coming along, though I'll likely end up trying to fob it off onto somebody else, because mohair is really not my thing...


And here is a birthday card that I made on the weekend for my aunt's 50th. Because I'm one of those people who can never quite bring themselves to fork out $5 for a shop bought card. I do of course like making cards of course, but, um, yeah, tight-arsery weighs in here too. It would be a filthy lie to suggest otherwise...

Anyway, I'm off to the iron. My poor Terra had a very unfortunate run in with some hot wax today, so I'm using all the tricks in my arsenal to try and salvage the poor sleeve in question. I'll be rather sad if I can't get the wax out - I love this one to pieces, and wear it all the time... Wish us both luck!

Cold-ridden but constructive...

Well, I've been silent again for a little while, but life has been busy around here. The kind of ridiculously busy that only May brings. Come May the exam timetable is handed out (mine is officially irksome, of course), the weather gets colder so you begin to lose your energy, and virtually everyone has a birthday (well, it feels like virtually everyone). So I've been running around like a headless chicken the last few weeks. Probably why I came down with a cold... At least it's mostly cleared now.

Anyway, behold: proof that I have not been idle in my absence:

Here is my younger brother's birthday cake. Epic, right? It was his 21st, so I told him he could pick any cake he wanted from our not-insubstantial library of cookbooks, and dutiful sister that I am, I would make it for him. So he picked a black forest cake. And not just any black forest cake, but one with crazy elaborate construction. It's made by making two flat rectangular cakes, cutting them into strips and then rolling them up so that you get a tree-trunk rings effect when you cut into it. See:


I am so proud of this cake that it isn't even funny. Amusingly though, I haven't actually tried any of it - I'm not a fan of black forest cake. I've been assured that it tastes good though. Brother had a good birthday too, for the record.

And then four days later it was my birthday as well. Yesterday I celebrated a quarter of a century on this earth, so now I'm officially no longer able to use "I'm young and stupid" as an excuse for doing moronic things. Or that's the plan anyway... I didn't get up to much during the day, as I had to work, but in the evening the family and I went out for Thai food, and they plied me with a substantial amount of champagne and rum (substantial enough that I was somewhat remorseful when I had to scrape myself out of bed for lectures this morning...). Oh, and the blog will benefit from this birthday too, as my present was a new digital camera - one that is markedly better than the thing that I've been using for the last year or so. So better photos from this post onwards, hopefully!

I've been knitting busily too. Because of my cold I missed some classes this week, so I had a lot of lecture recordings to listen to, and therefore a lot of time with my ears occupied and my hands free. So I finished up the things that I was knitting for my coworker's new baby.



The red one is a Presto Chango in a nylon/acrylic blend, and the eye searing one below it is just a basic top down raglan in an 8ply wool. Cute eh? The red one especially - it's such a gorgeous pattern that I now want all of my friends to procreate so that I can make more of them. Quick, and required a very modest amount of yarn as well (two paltry balls!). A very pleasant diversion all in all, and definitely a change from knitting things for my not-so-baby-sized self. That said, I am looking forward to getting back into some new projects. I only wish that I had enough time to get even half of my ideas going...

Hmmm... Sore throat has regrouped and returned to wreak havoc - time for another cup of tea, I think. More frequent posting from now on, I swear! Just don't expect me to always have elaborate cake to show off...

Erk... Just a short one...

Bllllerrrhhhhgg.... Am wretchedly hung over, and attempting to distract myself from it with the Ravelry forums. Moderately successfully I must say - the thread that's amused me most this morning was in the YarnWords forum - Crushes on Fictional Characters. I never would have guessed that so many people would have a thing for Gilbert Blythe - don't see the appeal personally *shrugs*

Anyway, the reason I'm hungover is because I went out with my Dad and brother last night for a belated birthday celebration. I gave Richard his garter mitts, all tied up nicely:

I made his in black, since I figured that there was no way he'd wear them if they were any non-sombre colour (my bright green/blue ones aren't for everyone, I suppose). He seemed to like them. They definitely fitted him well at any rate, which is what I was concerned about. Actually, somewhat annoyingly, they also fit me a lot better than my pair (mutter mutter....). Oh well, I can always make myself some more I suppose, since they take all of two hours per mitt - probably not even that.

I got him some other stupid stuff as well. He has more money than I do these days, so I figured it was best to go the silly/fun present than to aim for something serious that he might like. So, he got a pizza box full of silly foods. And a pair of mitts.

And then we all went out for Japanese, and he and my father funnelled large quantities of wine down my throat at high speeds. Hence this morning's state. Now I'm off to go and die in a corner somewhere...