Advance Warning: Giveaway ahead

Ginger Monkey has suggested a chain of blog giveways for 4th February. I've been planning to have some more on this blog, and that seems a great way to start them off.

In other news, I got a gorgeous collection of yarn from a fellow raveller. She was asking on several forums for a specific colour of a specific rowan yarn. I had some - less then one ball, but it was plenty for what she wanted. So I sent it to her, and she sent back a collection of Habu yarns. I've photographed them, just need to upload the photos and resize them etc.

I've also had my sewing machine out for the first time since October. Hmm that's a bit embarassing. I'd got to the point where it was so long since I used it that it was a Big Thing to use it. But now it has been out and in action. All I did was start a single patchwork block.

Oh yeah, and Latin. I've got the course books, and I've started reading them, although the course doesn't officially start until Saturday.

Green shoots

Whatever the media have to say about green shoots, sometimes they appear just when you aren't expecting them.

I spotted these harbingers of spring when I was bringing in the shopping.
They were hiding in the leaf mulch we put down on the front bed last year. I suppose that tells you something about the circle of life: the decayed remains of an Autumn of a few years ago now support the promise of life in the Spring to come.

Nothing crafty

The crafty things I did last week were:

1. -

Yes, I had a very non-crafty week. It seems all my knitting is at the stage where I have to think about it, with nothing I can just pick up and knit. And I haven't thought about it. The most annoying is the seventies waistcoat, which should be easy knit stuff, however

1. I don't think I'll have enough wool
   
2. the left front I started is actually the right front with missing buttonholes
   

Similarly no sewing, and no cooking except the routine boring teatime stuff. You know, baked potato with cheese type, and tuna pasta bake and other things of that ilk.

However, those of you who know Ferret - she has big news. She has been invited to do a gallery at the Festival of Quilts in August. Go Ferret!

Porridge

This is quite an old post from the List Writer. But if you like porridge, she has a good range of topping and liquid variations.

My standard recipe:

1. One chinese teacup of good-quality oats (about 50ml), put into a small saucepan, with the same volume of milk, and a half volume of water from the electric kettle (the temperature is anywhere between 'boiling' and cold, but it means the next step takes less time then with cold tap water).
2. Bring to the point of boiling, stirring constantly.
3. Instantly turn the heat to minimum.
4. Put the oven timer to 15 minutes, and go and do other stuff for at least five minutes.
5. If the other stuff includes the kitchen, stir. Possibly add a bit more milk.
6. Leave it to cook for somewhere between 5 and 15 minutes: do not cook fro more then 15 minutes, otherwise it goes too glutinous.
7. If it is too solid, add more milk to the saucepan before you serve it.
   
8. Put some soft brown sugar in a bowl, add the porridge, then some cream or milk
9. Eat.
   

Pictureless Progress

Thanks for all the ideas about the waistcoat wool. I'm really enjoying knitting it. The yarn is really chunky so it is growing very fast - I'm only doing about an hour a night and with just three nights knitting, I'm about a third of the way up the back. It makes a change from the pair of gloves knitted in sock yarn that I started in before last Christmas (as in over a year ago) and haven't quite finished.

Unfortunately, I can't show you any pictures. Usually, I upload pictures from my camera via a memory card reader, but right now my computer is ignoring memory cards that have been in cameras. Any camera, not just my camera. I could get pictures that had been scanned onto a memory card in a scanner. Unfortunately my mobile phone is out of charge, and the charger is in DH's car at work, so I can't do complicated bluetooth things either.

Perils of charity shop kit Knitting

So, I did the swatch, washed and dried it. I calculated the changes I'd need to make to get the right shape.

I cast on for the back. I started the ribbing. I got to a bit that was hard to the touch, and seemed a bit thin. I wasn't quite sure what had caused it, but I knew I had to wash it, just in case my imagination came up with ideas I didn't want it to have. So I used a tiny bit of wool wash, and just very gently washed it, and teased out the hard bits, and dangled that small stretch over a radiator to dry.

Then I knitted past that place to the end of the row. Then I knitted the next row and horrors:


The place where I'd washed it had come apart!

(I'm going to tink back to the beginning of the row, and restart from there.)

Happy New Year

Happy New Year, everyone.

My camera has been requisitioned by the Animation Team. They are making a short film using Korknisse and the dolls house. My camera can't be retrieved until the film is completed - which could be some time as the Korknisse can't climb the stairs, and this appears to be a vital plot element.

I will content myself with redesigning this:


It is a kit I bought from a charity shop, but I think it is reasonably modern, and I love the colours. With a few tweaks, it should look modern rather then dated - I'll be changing the dark brown for a dark red to lift the colours, but any other suggestions welcome.

Christmas Crafting

A catalogue tree, a Korknisse (using Saartje's translation of Manne's pattern) and an Alte-korknisse using my variation:

Apple-cinnamon decorations - mix pureed apple (in this case a tin of baby food) with as much cinnomon as it will absorb, cut out shapes and leave to air-dry:


Tin of mince pies, cheesy biscuits and melting moments:

Oh all right, tin which did have mince pies, cheesy biscuits and melting moments, but now has mainly crumbs.

All stuff Posted

In the Christmas preparation saga, I have posted out all the things I should have posted. so if you expecting anything from me, you should have it soonish, depending on the postal system between here and there. Unless I don't think you're expecting anything, in which case you won't get it.

After I came back from the post office, the Kiddos started making sweets. "We don't need any help from you", they told me.

Well, there was the mix up over the weight of icing sugar needed - if you don't know how much one bowl weighs, then put a different one on the scales, and weigh into that.

Then there were problems with the powdered egg-white mix. If one sachet makes the equivalent of two eggs worth, how do you get the equivalent of half an eggs worth? (Hint, the sachet needed 60ml of warm water and the recipe says that half an egg-white is about three teaspoons. There are 5ml in a teaspoon. Thus the written sources are in agreement over volume.)

The Kiddos did clean up. But I seem to be sticking to the floor, the fridge door, and anything else I touch. Just as well, cleaning the kitchen is still on my list of stuff-to-do.

What happened to that post

I wrote a long and well-linked post in which I described my Christmas preparation status (seriously behind on cards, but with plenty of catalogue trees, and a single Korknisser - English translation). There was also to be the frogging of Loden and of a glove, a trip to Greenwich, Christopher Wren's buildings, and a talk by Simon Singh (of Fermat's Last Theorem fame).

But my computer crashed and poof went my post.

So, all that is left is...

I met Heather on Monday. She was knitting.

Lost Tradition

"You notice the firsts, but the lasts just happen and you never know until too late." So said the older mother when my children were little. And it was true. And it has happened again.

For years, teatime in December was accompanied by the lighting of the advent candle. Sometimes we forgot to light it one evening and would have to burn it for an extra long time the next night. But it was there.


It was one of those traditions that happens, not one we planned. It began when they were handed out at playgroup by the Danish playgroup leader. It continued that way while the children stayed at that playgroup, then I started to buy them. Some years I was organised and got them in October, other years I only remembered at the end of November and tried shop after shop until I found one.

This year... This year I forgot completely until today. It wasn't that I didn't get round to buying it, more that I didn't even think about it.

And the sad thing? Not one of the children remembered it either, until I asked. And then they didn't care.

I might get one anyway.

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This morning I took this snap of reflected sunlight on our neighbour's garage. I didn't have time to work out what the light was reflecting off: there was nothing obvious.