More knitting

Yesterday I wore my new pink ensemble to my knitting group and it was, I have to say, well received.  It's always so nice to share home-makes with people who really appreciate the time and effort involved in making a garment - and even nicer when they actually like it!  So thank you, lovely ladies, for your compliments :-)

But what's next on the needles?  It's funny but I've always had a secret urge to make something orange.  It's not a colour you tend to see much of in the shops, which makes it all the more appealing to me.  Funnily enough, it's not that easy to get orange wool either (surely I'm not the only person who likes orange???), but thankfully Sam at the wool shop pointed me in the right direction.

This is a Rowan Wool Cotton (no, not cotton wool!), a 50% blend of each and so is perfect for a Spring cardigan.  Now, I do have a thing about cardigans, preferring a cardi to a jumper any day of the week as they are so versatile and easy to throw on.  However, after a recent shopping disaster involving the returning of 2 cardigans to Boden (birthday pressie), I am beginning to learn that it's only a certain sort of cardigan that really suits me.  Because I am a pear shape and therefore have a relatively thin waist, anything too boxy or too long makes me look huge.  Therefore, I need something which falls just below the waist and is nicely shaped/nipped in to give the definition.

This cardigan is an old favourite - a pattern I've used before from a pattern book which is literally falling apart and is currently held together with sticky tape!  Really it's a simple raglan design but with a long ribbing which gives the cardigan a 50's vibe and really emphasises the waist.  Having said that, I won't be doing quite as much ribbing on this one as I seem to remember that the last one I made had the unfortunate effect of looking as if the two sides would never be able to meet in the middle, as the ribbing pulled the front apart to such an extent!  So, less ribbing than specified, but still more than is usual.

 

So rows and rows of stocking stitch, here I come.  Perfect for a wintry evening of knitting in front of the old goggle box.



Tank Top Story

You may remember that I was nearly at the finishing stages of my pink knitted tank top.  Well,

here it is!

 

You will have to bear with the fact that every picture I take appears to show a different shade of pink - nothing I can do about this, let's just blame the sunlight (or lack of it, more like).

Here is a slightly closer look at the cables.  You will see that the twists on either side of the central column are irregular, just to confuse the knitter who is trying to simultaneously watch some telly :-)

 

I always sew my seams with a mattress stitch, as it gives a lovely 'seamless' appearance,

Where is it?

The seam is actually where my needle is, above

Mattress stitch is worked from the right side.  As you can see above you simply catch two strands of wool between stitches on one side, then repeat on the other, a bit like a ladder, going back one pace each time (i.e. 2 stitches forward, one back on the other side). 

But I know you all want to know what it looks like with the pink skirt ... well, let's see shall we?

(sorry about the discarded clothes on the bed!!!)

And from the other side (so you get to see the laundry bin once again).  Quite by chance, the skirt I took off in order to put the pink one on also looks good with it too!

Hurrah!  A successful knit, although it probably won't get much of an airing until Spring comes and warms us all up by about 10 degrees.  By the way, the pictures above show a much better likeness of the colour, which is a lovely raspberry pink.  For anyone remotely interested, this pattern came from a pattern book called "Rowan Pure Wool Family Collection, by Sarah Hatton" and was knitted in Rowan Pure Wool DK.  It took just over (annoyingly) 5 balls, so 6, which at roughly a fiver a ball is £30 of anyone's money. 

I guess knitting isn't really a cheap hobby these days, if you go for pure wool you are going to have to pay for it.  However, you do get to enjoy knitting it and then wearing it, which is really twice the enjoyment.  Plus it's a unique piece and will last forever.  Don't quite know why I'm trying to justify it (it's not as if husband is reading this) but if you compare it to say, a night at the pub, a meal out or even a week's worth of fags, it's pretty good value and it keeps me off the streets at night ;-)



A Cooking Frenzy!

This weekend I seem to have taken part in some sort of cooking frenzy!  I have to admit that sometimes I find weekends a little difficult.  Louis is either playing with friends, at his drama group or generally amusing himself in his bedroom - he's a great kid like that, very happy in his own company.  My husband works physically hard all week and likes to relax and chill at the weekend, sometimes cooking curries or just putting his feet up and reading.  Which leaves me at a bit of a loose end!  Don't get me wrong - we always take the dog out together and some weekends are chock full of outings, but others can be rather ... dull.  Especially when it RAINS all weekend (ahem!).

 

So this is how I ended up making my first Lemon Meringue Pie.

 

Which was flipping gorgeous.  Recipe from Mary Berry.  Very tart lemony base which you just cannot get in a bought pie.  Yum!

 

After that I decided to go for a homemade pizza - perfect Saturday fare.  I made my own dough, which I have never managed to master before.  However, judging by the speed at which it went down, I think I cracked it this time.  Recipe was again from Mary Berry.

Spurred on by the compliments (!) I went the whole hog and produced this on Sunday

Looks good, doesn't it?  Again, it was the first time I managed to get the ruddy dough to rise (don't know why it's been such a problem), although it did need double the time it said it would (i.e. 2.5 hours in a warm place) to rise.  The smell after 10 minutes in the oven was well worth the effort - there is nothing quite like the smell of warm bread, is there?  I'd love to say it tasted glorious - well, the warm crust that I just had to immediately cut off and spread with butter DID taste good.  But once it had cooled it revealed a very heavy dough inside.  Positively brick like.  Not good.  Edible, but not great.  This was a Farmhouse loaf though, where you rub in an ounce of butter to the flour before adding the liquid, so I think my next attempt (for I am not to be deterred!) will be a straight forward white loaf. 

And after our lovely roast chicken yesterday, today I turned the leftovers into a stew thanks to Save With Jamie (Oliver).  I would highly recommend this book - he basically shows you how to get the best cut of meat for roasting on a Sunday and then gives you a whole host of scrummy ways to use the leftovers. 

I didn't realise how easy it is to make your own chicken stock.  Just chuck the carcass into a pan, cover with water and boil for half an hour!  That's it!  And the taste is superb, just full of flavour when used in this stew (or any other recipe for that matter).  Jamie gives 4 different ways of serving this stew (pie, with dumplings, in a lasagne and with mash) and with 300g of leftover chicken you get 6 generous portions.  I will freeze half of this for another day and scoff the rest for tea :-)

Low and behold, as if this wasn't enough for one day, I decided to whip up a very quick swiss roll for pud.  I had no unsalted butter, so couldn't make a sponge cake, but had the brainwave for a swiss roll, as it only uses eggs, sugar and four.  So simple to make and only 10 minutes in the oven.  But then - arghhh - no jam left!  So out came the Nutella (hurrah), it has saved my cakes before.  I need more practise at swiss rolls as it sticks to the paper EVERY time.  Not the greaseproof paper it was baked on - that peels off easily - but the greaseproof paper that you need to turn it out onto.  Sticks like glue to that!  Think next time I will try spreading the paper with caster sugar and see if that helps, although I seem to remember trying that once and as soon as the sponge plopped onto it, the caster sugar scattered all over the worktop!!  There must be a knack, surely?

By the way, my tank top is finished, just need to take a decent picture in something other than dull grey daylight.  I can report that it does indeed look good with the pleated skirt - hurrah.  Finger's crossed for some sunshine at some point in the next millennium ...

Here is a stupid upside down preview, which I cannot get to go the right way up!  Can you tell that I'm new to blogging (or just technically inept)?

The Pink Skirt Story

Hello again!

Yesterday I left you dangling, wondering what would become of my lovely pink charity shop skirt, didn't I?  Well, I have shortened it and also made one or two other adjustments.

Firstly, I decided that it would need to be shortened by 10cm.  I don't know if you can make out my tailor's chalk mark in orange, in the above picture (at 0cm), but I marked 10cm up from the bottom of the skirt and then marked another one 3cm down from that (in white chalk).  The 10cm chalk line would be the finished length and the line which I folded up on.  The White chalk mark was the lined that I cut the skirt on, giving me a 3cm hem.  So I marked all the way round the bottom of the skirt which took a while due to all those pleats!  The then carefully cut along the white lines, and pressed up the 3cm hem with a steam iron on the orange lines.  At this point I just pressed flat and didn't worry about the pleats.

You can just see my fold mark here on the top left if you look.  Then I simply finished the raw edge of the skirt with a zig-zag stitch on my machine.  I didn't want any extra bulk of a double-folded hem - it had to lie as flat as possible due to the pleating.

Next I hand stitched the hem in place with a hemming stitch

Then of course I had to deal with the lining.  This time I shortened it by 13cm as I hate it when you can see a lining underneath the skirt

The lining was not pleated in the same was as the skirt - just a straight lining, so it was relatively easy to zig-zag on the machine.

As this is a woollen skirt and therefore one which will need to be dry-cleaned, I thought these hem finishes would be sufficient.  Had it been a skirt that I would wash and dry more often I might have come up with some better finishings!

Next I needed to put those pleats back into the finished hem which was done with a good amount of steam and some gentle pressure on the folds.

Eventually, the skirt looked like this.  It was shorter, but still closely resembling a Miss Marple staple.  Hmmmm, what now?  I'm thinking it's the pleats - they're too long.  So next I decided to shorten them which was very easy - I simply unpicked them up to the point I wanted them and then secured them with a little stitch.

Here is the finished skirt.  Shortened by 10cm and the pleats lifted.  It hangs just below the knee, which is a good length for me.  I can't really tell whether this is going to be a success until it is teamed with the pink tank top, which I am about to deal with.

So now I am going off to my lovely knitting group which meets in the local wool shop and I'm taking my pink tank top with me in the hope that someone can help me pick up all the stitches around the neckline.

I tried picking them up yesterday after I'd sewn the shoulders together and made a right hash of it!  Wish me luck :-)

Hello!

Well hello and welcome to my blog!!  I am very excited to be blogging again - I did once dabble a few years ago but I'm afraid that life took over and it is now languishing in the internet ether.  I cannot remember my password to revive it, which is a bit sad, so here I am with a brand spanking new blog instead, which is actually a bit more exciting (for me, anyway!).

Where on earth do I start I wonder?  There are so many things ping-ponging around in my head (as usual).  Someone (possibly Mary Poppins) said you should start at the very beginning, so I shall start with a few pictures of my very wet walk on the beach this morning.  Why on earth would I be walking on the beach in the pouring rain, I hear you ask?  Well, it's got something to do with this little fella ...

George.  (Gorgeous, moi?)

Here he is this morning, getting stuck into a lovely pile of seaweed. When he's not chowing down on this, what he really, really loves is to chase seagulls and big black birds.  The fact that they can fly and he's only a puppy on the ground doesn't seem to cross his mind, as he shoots off, crashing into the sea and attempting a few doggy paddles before he finally realises he may not quite succeed.  The optimism and total belief in himself is stunning, as he repeats this over and over.  One day he will get one, I'm sure.  Every day he comes home soaking wet from nose to tail, so whether it's raining or not is irrelevant to him - he needs a full towelling down, whatever the weather!

As for me, well, I'm not a natural when it comes to exercising, I have to admit.  I'd much rather be knitting or sewing or baking - even ironing, quite frankly.  Or cuddling up on the sofa (with the dog!).  But he's such a lovely little thing and he so loves his walks that I just feel duty bound to let him run free at least once a day.  And today it was tipping it down (as they say here in Wales).  Real wet rain.  Torrential.  So I just got my wet weather gear on and went for it anyway.  It's actually quite liberating, allowing yourself to get wet (if I say this often enough I might actually believe it)!

But now that I'm nice and dry again I can get down to the business of the day which will be to sew the shoulders together on this, my pink tank top.  I have a thing about tank tops - don't know why - but as they are almost impossible to buy these days I am simply forced to knit them instead.  I know, a knitted tank top doesn't exactly sound like the epitome of fashion, does it, to be fair?!  However, when I tell you that I'm going to team it with this little number

you can see that I am completely insane at the height of fashion.  Yep, I'm going for the Velma look from Scooby Doo, I think.  The picture does not do it justice, I might add because it's actually a rather lovely tweedy pink and is a recent charity shop acquisition, found in pristine (probably brand new) condition.  At the moment it is Miss Marple to a T, but I'm going to shorten it, you see - utterly transforming it into a bang-up-to-date little outfit!  Ahhhhhh, delusional, moi?  Lordy knows whether this plan will work but I have to try it and find out.  This is the curse of a creative brain. 

There is a small chance that I shall have achieved these two feats of sewing by tomorrow, so do drop by and find out.  I know you're on the edge of your pants, aren't you?