A rather belated update…I have given my blog a little facelift, I hope it is user-friendly. I may not have been blogging much recently, but I haven’t been completely idle!
There has been some knitting:
I still don’t put my projects on Ravelry, but I have spent more time on there recently trawling for patterns. My queue is now so long that I doubt I would get be able to knit all the projects if I gave up work and knitted full-time until my fingers seized with arthritis, but on the plus-side I am ploughing through my stash at a respectable rate. There is now some space in the Box of Doom, which is just as well, as I will be embarking on a baby-blanket knitting project soon (no, not for me!) and I’ll need some room to store it in-progress.
First, a modification of Eden’s Eve (I knit the yoke in stocking stitch, not garter, to better complement the colour changes in the yarn. Also added a border, just picked up all the edge stitches and cast them off again on the next row). It’s Wendy Fusion in Anise (discontinued now I think) and some white acrylic. A well written pattern in a good range of sizes (with the boy’s version included too) so it was worth paying for. Gifted to a friend’s little girl.
Next, stash-busting some Peter Pan DK. I don’t know any baby boys of the right size, so this is currently in the Box of Doom awaiting a recipient. Pattern is Sweet Baby Sweater, I think my only modification was to knit the button band as I went along, instead of as an afterthought.
Finally, a Hitch-hiker scarf for me, in Schoeller + Stahl sock yarn, bought ages ago to make a phone sock for Mr BH. Not my usual colours, but I have worn it several times, it’s a useful design and it co-ordinates with a surprising number of items in my wardrobe.
And the customary headless-Boo shot:
There has been some baking:
A bumblebee cake for a colleague – rather hastily thrown together… My first attempt at baking a cake in a Pyrex bowl, and it worked very well. This is my usual chocolate mud cake, I used the quantities for an 8″ round split between two bowls and baked until it seemed cooked. Iced with butter-cream and more additives than I care to think about, wings are white chocolate.
I bought a macaron/macaroon recipe book just because…brightly coloured and sweet, what’s not to like? Had my first attempt a few weeks ago – not perfect, but not bad (if I do say so myself!). This is what they were supposed to look like (caramel flavour):
This is what they actually looked like:
The book takes you through each stage with a detailed description, then lets you loose on the various flavour combinations. The shells are mostly just almond flavoured, with appropriate colouring. The variety comes from the filling – in this case it should have been a homemade caramel but I cheated and used Dulche de Leche from a can…
I will attempt some more soon – ideally I need to get some bigger baking sheets, rather than the trays I currently have. I used a nozzle on my piping bag which was a little large, next time I will just snip an appropriate amount from the end of the bag.
There has been some tie-dyeing:
A friend recently had an 80s themed party. As you may know, Mr BH and I take fancy dress a little too seriously. I also have a slight shoe fetish, which given my day job and the practical, outdoors nature of my hobbies, doesn’t get indulged very often. My outfit was designed around a pair of particularly lovely fuchsia pink stilettoes – these were not a novelty purchase, but as you can imagine, they are limited in their day-to-day usefulness!
So…pink stilettoes, black leggings, over-size pink earrings (these were purchased for the occasion, I do like dangly earrings but silver and artistic is more my usual style), back-combed hair, pink nails and lips, all sorted. But what to wear on top?
1) Buy a cheap XXL white shirt.
2) Carefully scrunch it into a bizarre shape with multiple elastic bands and bits of string
3) Assemble fabric dye (I used Dylon in an appropriately lurid shade of “Flamingo Pink”), salt, scales, jam thermometer (so far only ever used for dyeing, never for jam-making)
Don’t use a saucepan you really love. This one will forever be slightly flamingo.
4) Vaguely follow the instructions on the Dylon, I think it recommends stirring for 15 minutes then soaking for 45. I stirred for 15 minutes, then panicked that I’d lose all the definition and started rinsing. I recommend doing this in the bath.
5) Do a happy dance that the process has worked so far. Rinse, spin and dry.
6) Modify – I made a slash neck which turned out to be indecently slashed, so added some ribbon straps to hold it up. This had the added bonus of making the whole garment sit about 3″ lower than it had with the original neckline, which helped to cover my backside. Since I went through puberty, I prefer to only wear leggings with substantial top garments that come to mid-thigh, otherwise I feel like I’m exposing myself. This one was a little outside my comfort zone, length-wise!
It worked surprisingly well, and was fun to do – although I don’t think I will be doing it again – as retro as my taste in design can be, the 80s aren’t really a decade that gave much worth repeating.
There was also a yarn-dyeing escapade in June, hosted by a friend from the Thursday night pub knitting group I attend when I can. It was a very entertaining day, but sadly my dyeing was pretty poor and I ended up with nothing worth knitting up (and therefore no photos worth blogging!). It wasn’t completely negative though, as I have a great idea for a colour-scheme for another Hitch-hiker scarf, in bright tropical/parrot shades. I repeated one of my attempts at home with Dylon (instead of the food dyes previously used) and some lovely Cashmerino/Silk which worked better, and I have already knitted that up. It’s a gift for a friend, so I will post pictures once I’ve given it to her.
I’ve learnt that black is impossible to achieve with food dyes, and difficult to get with Dylon – I think if you left the yarn to soak for the recommended time it would give you a good black, but the shades of grey into black I was hoping for came out more lavender coloured. Maybe next time I want that effect I will try over-dyeing purchased grey yarn…
There have been some outings and makings in July too, but I will save those for next week – there’s only so much WordPress/Picasa I can take in one session!
Mr BH and I are currently embroiled in the process of taking on a much bigger project – it will be much blogged about so we can keep track of progress, but knitting, baking and outings may be put on hold for a little while as this project is going to be a major thief of time and money!
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