elephantJuice

handspun, handwound

noreply@blogger.com (elephantJuice) — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 08:08:00 +0000

As much fun as it is to wind yarn cakes on a ball winder, sometimes it’s nice to wind a rustic little yarn ball by hand. Or perhaps it’s the fact that I know I have the option of convenience that makes it so nice to hand wind a little ball of handspun wool!

This really is a little ball - just 20g of merino I spun years ago on my drop spindle. It’s thick and thin, and a little ropey, but still surprisingly soft. I’m almost sad to have to knit it, I love it in the ball so much, but I’ve another little 20g spindle spun hank stashed away, so I shall knit on and look forward to winding a second ball.

something new

noreply@blogger.com (elephantJuice) — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 19:52:00 +0000

I’ve been working on something new lately. It’s so simple, but I love how these cabled stitches twist and wind in and around each other. I’m trying to work to a bit of a deadline on this one, so hopefully there’ll be more pictures to share soon…

Spiral

noreply@blogger.com (elephantJuice) — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 14:44:00 +0000

My Spiral Cowl came off the needles back in December, but I’ve only just gotten around to photographing it.

Spiral Cowl by Keri McKiernan

Yarn: Manos del Uruguay Silk Blend

Ravelled here.

This started off as a gift for one of my best friends, but gradually morphed into a Christmas gift for my Mum since she’s a big fan of cowl. Instead, the Flutterby mittens went to my bestie after I spied the book that inspired the pattern on her bookshelf.

Spiral would have been a quick knit if I hadn’t taken an almost month long hiatus from it to concentrate on the mittens, but it was still a relaxing knit which allowed me to enjoy quite a bit of reading throughout. (looking back at my pics of Spiral as a WIP reminds me that I’m yet to post my Amsterdam trip photos! That shall go on my to-do list…)

I made a couple of mods to the pattern. I’m not a fan of picot edges so changed it to a garter stitch edge. I also increased one stitch after the border, which allows you to knit the cowl in one continuous spiral rather than working a pattern repeat over 7 rows. If you’re ever going to knit this pattern then I’d definitely recommend this mod. It really frees you up just knit and not have to count rows or pay any attention to a pattern. Just keep going round in a spiral until it’s long enough or you get bored. Much easier, and much more fun!

The Manos yarn is an absolute dream and I loved every moment of knitting with it. It’s soft, has a wonderful sheen and is sooo warm. I’m a complete sucker for semi solid yarns, so I adore the subtle colour variations within the skein. I probably wouldn’t rush out and start buying it regularly, but for a once-in-a-while indulgence it’s definitely a winner.

chasing the lights

noreply@blogger.com (elephantJuice) — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 15:32:00 +0000

I’ve always wanted to see The Northern Lights, and for the past couple of nights they have been visible from the northern parts of the UK. Last night the Boy and I went in search of them.

I thought Northumberland might have been a good place to try (and a closer place!) but there were spectacular views of the event from Tan Hill Inn on Sunday night so the Boy wanted to drive out to Tan Hill in the hopes of seeing them again (the very excited bar girl told us that we’d missed the BBC news crew filming the report I linked to by about 15 minutes!). Sadly we didn’t see any lights, but i did get the chance to wear lots of my nice woolly hand knits and play around with my camera and some long exposure settings.

There were a lot of people around the Inn, but I found the headlight trails in the long exposures quite fun!

We eventually left the inn and drove a little further down the road where it was a bit quieter. I’d read reports that the Lights were sometimes tricky to see with the naked eye but appeared quite well on camera, so I thought I’d try again in an area where we could get a better view of the northern horizon where the Lights were supposed to appear but there was still no luck. I’m assuming the orange lights are just inner city light pollution, but it was quite pretty to see. Most of the time I really couldn’t see what I was photographing in the darkness, it was very much a case of pointing the camera in the general direction of the sky/horizon and see what we end up with!

So we failed in our quest to see the Northern Lights, but it ended up being a pretty decent night for stargazing and I loved the quiet serenity of the dales at midnight. Hard to capture the constellations on camera though, you can barely make out Orion’s Belt!

Apparently the Lights are supposed to be visible for the rest of the week so we night try again. I’m not holding out much hope for tonight though, it’s a horrid, overcast, drizzly kind of day so unless things clear up dramatically there’ll not be much of the sky to see tonight!

dragon knitting

noreply@blogger.com (elephantJuice) — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 15:28:00 +0000

新年快乐 (xi nian kuai le – happy new year) and 恭喜发财 (gong xi fa cai – congratulations and be prosperous) for the year of the Dragon! We had our New Year’s Eve family dinner of steamboat last night, and it was so warming and delicious!

I haven’t had a whole lot of time this week for knitting, (still haven’t caught up with Sherlock!) but I’m on my last stripe before the short row heel so hopefully I’ll get these socks finished before the end of the New Year!

small pleasures

noreply@blogger.com (elephantJuice) — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 14:05:00 +0000

fresh off the wheel, squishably soft merino & silk handspun…

a new pink, rose scented shower gel…

a book to get lost in…

green tea in a pretty Japanese cup…

and a bit of chocolate never goes amiss either.

socks & stuffies

noreply@blogger.com (elephantJuice) — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 16:45:00 +0000

I finally picked up Sophie again, and although the body and leg appeared surprisingly quickly I seem to have lost momentum again. I think I’m putting off the picking up of stitches. It’s not that it’s hard to do, it’s just that I don’t particularly enjoy doing it! I’ve also been a little over zealous with the stuffing. I find it hard to know when to stop, which is very apparent by the stretched out stitches on the body and leg. Sadly I was too keen to bury the ends, so there’s not much I can do about it now! I might try steam blocking when (if!) I finish to see if that will even things out a little.

There’s also been very little sock progress as I’ve been distracted by spinning, but I’ve got some catching up to do with Sherlock so I’m anticipating a good chunk of knitting getting done whilst I enjoy that. Mindless stripes and t.v. are made for each other!

one down…

noreply@blogger.com (elephantJuice) — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 17:46:00 +0000

one to go.

After one and a quarter Harry Potter films, and a good chunk of Escape to New York I finally finished (just about) my sock. I say just about because I was in no mood after midnight to start kitchenering, so I left that for this morning.

I couldn’t resist trying it on before I kitchenered, and although it looked a bit weird I’m pretty pleased with the fit. I used the Priscilla Wild short rows that I mentioned in my last post to make the toe, and I found it just as straight forward as the shadow wraps. It’s probably even simpler as you don’t need to do anything particularly special, but it is a bit easier to identify the wrapped stitches using the shadow wraps.

At this stage I’m not really convinced on the benefits of a short row toe. I can see where short rows can be a preferable method for heels, but the jury’s out for toes. I don’t find that the fit is any different than my usual method, and in the end I had to kitchener over 70 stitches instead of my usual 18. I also started grafting too tight so it took me twice as long since I had to go back over the row and loosen things up. Not fun! I’ve started the cast on for the second sock now, so we’ll see if the learning curve makes this one any easier!

Fourth time’s a charm

noreply@blogger.com (elephantJuice) — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 22:22:00 +0000

I finally succeeded with my short row heel! After complaining about it all going wrong on Wednesday, I ripped it out and started again on Thursday morning and finally managed to get things going smoothly. It’s sort of weirdly pointy at the sides which I suspect is caused by leaving too many unwrapped stitches in the centre (I left 16) so next time I’ll have to experiment a little. I briefly considered ripping back again, but frankly I was so fed up with taking so long to get past the heel that I really couldn’t be bothered. Perhaps they’ll block out, and thankfully they pretty much disappear when the socks are on my feet so it shouldn’t annoy me too much.

I ended up following the directions on Minniemoll’s blog (how gorgeous are her socks in that post?!) where she suggested wrapping a second time on the return row so that you create another “shadow” just before you k3tog to incorporate the wrapped stitched back into the knitting (that’ll probably make no sense to me when I refer back to this post the next time I try shadow wraps! I loved the idea that pinkundine suggested on Twitter of knitting the shadow with the stitch before it instead of with it’s twinned stitch, but for some reason that method still gave me holes.

The only downside I see to this method is that it’s rather messy on the inside, but again this isn’t something that bothered me too much when I tried the sock on.

I’m now really keen to try the Priscilla Wild method of short rows, which Leah was sweet enough to point me towards on my last post. I googled it and it looks so simple, so I might have to give it a shot when I come to the toes…

I managed to knit a couple of blocks of stripes whilst I was at the cinema yesterday, so I’m pleased that I didn’t completely screw up the stripes in the dark! We went to see The Artist, and although I wasn’t really in the mood for it before I went in I ended up completely falling in love. It is the most beautiful film, and it’s worth every bit of praise that’s being heaped upon it. I definitely recommend it.

back to stripes

noreply@blogger.com (elephantJuice) — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 18:34:00 +0000

My stripey socks are on the go again. I abandoned these in favour of Christmas knitting, and in the spirit of my 2012 “resolutions” I’m going to try and get a few WIPs off the needles even though I’m itching to start something new.

These socks are my first attempt at a short row heel. I’m a big fan of a nice, thick cushiony heel flap, but I thought I’d try something different with the stripes, and a short row heel would probably look a bit neater than my usual flap and gusset. Unfortunately it’s not going too well.

I’ve worked short rows before, even though I’ve never tried a full on short row heel, and despite trying a variety of different short row techniques, like many knitters I often end up with holes. I thought I’d try Shadow Wraps this time around, and even though I really like the technique I’m still ending up with holes. I refuse to be beaten though, so I’m giving it another go tonight and if my heels are still full of holes I’ll have to start again with wrap & turns!

flutter on by

noreply@blogger.com (elephantJuice) — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 18:50:00 +0000

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and New Year! It’s all been a bit hectic round at chez EJ so I didn’t manage an end of year round up. But I am kicking off my first blog post of 2012 with an FO!

The Flutterby mittens are done and gifted and were very happily received.

I was running late (as usual) on the day of gifting, so all these photos are a tad rushed and the mittens are still damp from blocking, but hopefully it doesn’t show too much!

Flutter Butterfly Mittens by Mimi Hill

Yarn: Sirdar Country Style 4 Ply in Cream & Navy

Ravelled here.

I love these mittens. Love them.

It’s one of those patterns which looks a bit more complicated than it actually is, and as a result progress is quite speedy. It does take some concentration though, as colourwork invariably does, and knitting these mittens in a moving car on the afternoon of a British winter is not a good idea… trust me. After finishing the first mitten and cockily thinking that I had things down pat for the second one, I thought I’d be clever and get a bit of gift knitting done on my birthday trip to Yorkshire. Never mind that it was too dark and fiddly to read a chart in the car, I’d done this before!

No.

I’d completely forgotten about the rather large and beautiful butterfly who sits in the palm of the second mitten. The next day all my smug feelings of how I was pretty much on track for finishing these on time were wiped clean away when I picked up my mitten in daylight and realised my error. Cue much swearing and frogging.

But aside from that little incident, this was a fun project to work on. I don’t often knit colourwork because it often requires more concentration than I like to give my knitting, but after these pretties I may have to rethink that mind set.

I didn’t modify this pattern at all, other than knitting the cuff in twisted rib because it looks neater. If I was to knit these again however, I think I’d knit the cuff on smaller needles and work it for a bit longer, it was a bit too short and loose for my tastes. I’d probably go up a needle size for the body of the mitten too, as although this pair are a perfect fit for their recipient, my hands are not as dainty as hers and they’re too snug a fit for me.

I was furiously trying to dry the mittens on the dashboard heaters in the car… it didn’t work!

Mittens and gloves are definitely things which are in deficit in my stash of handknit goodies, so I’m going to make an effort to knit more of them in 2012. I was a little disappointed when I looked over my Ravelry page and realised that I’d only finished 13 projects in the whole of 2011! In contrast I have a whopping 7 projects which were started and then abandoned, so I’m going to make a concerted effort to finish the projects that I start.

I’m not actually a fan of New Year and never really make resolutions, but I admit that I do still get seduced by the idea of a clean slate at the beginning of the year, so my plans for 2012 are more socks, more mittens, more spinning, just more of everything except unfinished projects! I also want to design and dye more and be much more active on the Ravelry forums. I’m afraid I’m a bit of a lurker, which probably has it’s roots in the fact that I’m really quite shy, but I think it’s time to break out of that and try and participate a bit more, especially since I joined some really lovely forums towards the end of 2011. So what do you guys have planned for 2012?

Candy Cane Brownies

noreply@blogger.com (elephantJuice) — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 08:46:00 +0000

Yesterday recipe for Christmas gift baking. Today, I’m posting a recipe for some entirely selfish Christmas baking (knitting posts will resume shortly, I promise!).

These brownies are ri.di.cu.lous.

Rich and dense and intensely chocolatey, they are one teeny tiny tippie toe away from being fudge. A true Christmas indulgence. Now, I’m an equal opportunities brownie lover – I’ll take them blonde, brown, cakey or fudgy. But if I had to choose… if I had to choose, fudgy would be it. And these are well and truly in the fudgy camp. Yum.

Like yesterday’s Russian tea cakes, these are a Christmas staple in my house, although I’m too selfish to gift them (although I sometimes get into the holiday spirit and cut a couple of slices for people who pop round!). According to the date on the recipe print out, I’ve been making these since 2006 and I don’t think I’ve missed a single year. These brownies are very much a highlight in my baking year. I’ve googled and googled, and I can’t find the website that I originally found the recipe on, although Google did throw up this, which seems to be a newspaper article of the exact same recipe I have. The article includes quite a sweet backstory to the recipe, so it’s worth a look if you’re anything like me and love reading “behind” the recipe.

Candy Cane Brownies
adapted from a recipe by J.M. Hirsch

(makes 9 generous servings)

1½ cups sugar
¼ teaspoon salt
1 cup plain flour
¾ cup (150g) unsalted butter
350g chocolate, chopped (I use a combination of milk and dark)
⅔ cup cocoa powder
3 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract (see how to make your own vanilla extract here)
½ cup (120ml) warm milk
10 crushed candy canes

Preheat oven to Gas mark 4/180°C

Grease a 20cm/8inch square baking pan.
In a medium bowl, mix together sugar, salt and flour. Set aside.
In a double boiler combine the butter and half of the chopped chocolate. Melt, stirring often, then remove from the heat. Whisk in the cocoa, transfer to a large mixing bowl, and set aside.
In a separate bowl, whisk together eggs, vanilla and milk. Add this to the chocolate and cocoa mixture and whisk well to combine.
Fold in the flour mixture, and then stir in the remaining chopped chocolate and the crushed candy canes, reserving 2 tablespoons of the candy canes for sprinkling.
Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Sprinkle the top with 1 tablespoon of the reserved crushed candy canes.
Bake for 45 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the centre comes out covered with cakey biys. The centre of the brownie should look set. I like the surface of my brownie to be nice and crisp to give a nice contrast to the soft fudginess underneath.
Dust the top of the brownies with the remaining crushed candy canes, then cool completely before serving.

I’ll be leaving a piece of this out for Santa tonight. Hope you all have a lovely Christmas!

Russian Tea Cakes

noreply@blogger.com (elephantJuice) — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 00:03:00 +0000

A few years ago I was really stuck for Christmas gift ideas for the Boy’s parents. I’ve always loved an excuse to get busy in the kitchen, and being rather addicted to food blogs at the time I thought it’d be fun to make a Christmas hamper full of homemade goodies. I bought little baskets from Ikea and tucked all my paper packets of biscuits, cakes, and mulled ciders into them, and although I can’t remember everything that went into my homemade hamper that year, these biscuits were definitely the stand outs. When I asked the Boy how the hamper had gone down with the ‘rentals he said that his mother couldn’t get enough of these biscuits, and from then on I’ve popped a batch in their Christmas box every year, and brought another fresh batch along when we go round to their house for New Year’s Day lunch. They have become a Christmas staple.

Some people call these Mexican Wedding cakes or snowball cookies, but I’ve been calling them Russian tea cakes since I first made them six years ago. They’re buttery, crumbly, not too sweet, and melt in your mouth delicious. And perhaps more importantly, they’re a doddle to make. Always handy in the festive season when you have several simultaneous bakes on the go.
I can’t remember where I found this recipe, it might have been on a blog, it might be a hash of several different recipes I liked the sound of. What I do know is that I lost this recipe one or two years after I first found it, and that year I had to resort to another recipe, and for some reason or other I wasn’t overly thrilled with the results. I was so happy when my original recipe showed up again, so I’m typing it out here for posterity in case my original handwritten copy ever goes walkabouts again!
Russian Tea Cakes
(makes 36 – although I made mine rather large this year and only ended up with 27)
225g softened unsalted butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract (see how to make your own vanilla extract here)
6 tablespoons icing sugar
250g plain flour
120g chopped walnuts/pecans
40g icing sugar to dust
Preheat oven to Gas mark 4/175°C

In a medium bowl cream butter and vanilla until smooth.
Combine the the 6 tablespoons of icing sugar and flour. Stir into the butter mixture until just blended.
Mix in the chopped nuts.
Roll dough into 1 inch balls and place them 2 inches apart on a baking tray.
Bake for 12-15 minutes until they are just golden on the bottom. Transfer tray over to wire cooling racks, and while still warm roll the cookies in the icing sugar.
Let cool completely and roll again in icing sugar to give a second layer.
Scoff and enjoy!

For extra flavour try toasting the nuts, but be sure to let them cool before you add them to the dough.
Sometimes I’m too lazy to roll the dough and get it all over my hands, so I simply press and shape a ball using two spoons.
Similarly for rolling the biscuits in icing sugar, the high butter content in the biscuits (whilst making them utterly delicious) can cause them to melt a little in warm fingers which can get a little messy if you’re rolling them in icing sugar by hand. Instead I like to pop a couple of tablespoons of icing sugar into a bowl and use a couple of spoons to roll the biscuits around in the sugar. This also has the added benefit of allowing you to “pour” the icing sugar over the biscuits which sometimes coats them a little bit better.

Obsession

noreply@blogger.com (elephantJuice) — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 08:35:00 +0000

Not a blog post about perfume, but rather about my latest obsession with dyeing fibre.

I’ve tried dying fibre in the past, with limited success. This time I think I’ve cracked it.

This was my test braid. I didn’t want to commit to dyeing too much in case I fulled the fibre again, and I played it safe with colours I knew worked well together. I used a lot less water this time around, resisted poking the fibre around too much, and it worked out brilliantly.

But I always seem to gravitate towards this sort of colour palette so I wanted to step outside my comfort zone a little and in the end I came up with this:

This is totally not something that I would normally go for, but my god I love it. It’s fresh, and vibrant, and feminine, and it just screams sunshine and flowers.

Just looking at it makes me long for summer, and I’m not even fed up of hunkering down for winter yet!

birthday hauling

noreply@blogger.com (elephantJuice) — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 21:53:00 +0000

Yesterday was my birthday, and to celebrate my lovely Boy drove me down to Yorkshire and treat me to a little wool hauling. I had planned to bring my camera along, and show you pics of all the lovely places we visited, but in the rush and excitement of the morning I forgot to pop it in my bag! But I did manage to snap the occasional phone pic…

So here goes. A snapshot wool filled birthday tour…

Giant needles at Texere. These things were ridiculously large!

Beautiful snowy Bradford on the drive to Coldspring Mill. It’s nice to see pictures of Bradford being beautiful because I lived there for 5 years as a student, and the area that I lived in by the university was thoroughly awful. I won’t bore you with the details, but needless to say my last couple of years there were miserable. Hopefully my bad memories can be overwritten with images as lovely as this!

More of the drive to Coldspring Mill, followed by…

a nice cup of Yorkshire tea at the Mill! And a lovely lunch of giant Yorkshire pudding, sausages, gravy, mash and peas (that I was far too hungry to stop and take picture of) for the utterly bargainous price of £3! I’m a bit of a sausage snob, so I was dubious when I saw the price, but it was completely delicious, and I still can’t believe how cheap it was.

We rounded it all off with a stop at Whitby on the way home, and an obligatory visit to the Magpie Cafe for fish and chips and mulled cider, followed by lovely moonlit walk along the pier. There really is nothing nicer than being wrapped up in deliciously warm handknits, staring up at the stars with the sound of the waves crashing against the shore, and the wind whipping around your face. A perfect end to the day.

Well actually, the perfect end to the day was coming home to the birthday cake that my Mum had baked for me! Vanilla cake with lemon buttercream is my Mum’s specialty, and it is delicious.

But I suppose the important part of this post is the haulage, so here it is!

Some King Cole Riot DK, which is touted as being a Noro dupe. This ticks (almost) all my boxes (grey? Check. Jewel tones? Oh yes.)

Mystery yarn from Coldspring Mill. It’s a beautiful rust colour, looks like a DK weight, feels like merino and I’m pretty sure it’s Debbie Bliss but I haven’t a clue what line it is. Might have to do some investigating one of these days. They had a larger pack of this yarn, and I’m kicking myself for not getting it because it’s such a lovely colour!

Chocolatey brown Debbie Bliss Rialto, in what I think is an aran weight.

According to the pack this is Extra Fine Merino 4 ply, so although I initially thought this was a Debbie Bliss yarn, I now think it’s probably Sublime Extra Fine Merino 4 ply. Yellow is not a colour I’m usually drawn to, but I love this. It’s not quite dark enough to be a mustard, not bright enough to be lemon, and not brown enough to be biscuit. It’s just lovely and buttery, and I’m surprised at how much I love it.

There was more haulage. I picked up a couple of balls of colourful acrylic for my best friends daughter as I’m giving her knitting lessons for Christmas, and a few balls of Stylecraft 4 ply for knitting dolls clothes and accessories. There was also a huge amount of fibre haulage!

I’ve been a little obsessed with dyeing tops at the moment, so I’ve stocked up on undyed merino as well as picking up a few other fibres and blends so that I can try my hand at spinning wools other than merino. It looks like 2012 is going to be the year of the wheel!

halfway (almost…)

noreply@blogger.com (elephantJuice) — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 08:03:00 +0000

Just a thumb short of being half way through knitting these mittens…

They’re actually a surprisingly fast knit, I just seem to be taking my time over it. I’ve restarted with different yarn since the last time these mittens appeared on the blog. Once I reached the decreases for the top of The Mittens Take 1, I realised that they were definitely too small. They looked freakishly narrow. Serves me right for not swatching. (although I still didn’t swatch for these Mittens Take 2!)

Christmas Bark

noreply@blogger.com (elephantJuice) — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 08:38:00 +0000

I love homemade chocolate bark, it’s such a fun and easy treat to make at Christmas. This is the first batch I’ve made in a couple of years, and it’s so simple that I can’t understand why I don’t make it every year!

Like my Vanilla Extract post, this is so simple that I daren’t even call it a recipe.

All I did to make this batch was:

Spread an offcut of greaseproof paper onto a baking tray
Crush a few candy canes with a pestle and mortar
Melt a bar of milk chocolate
Pour melted milk chocolate onto greaseproof paper and spread into a vague rectangle shape
Melt a third of a bar of dark chocolate (it was all I had in the cupboard – I could have sworn I had more but apparently not…)
Gently dollop the melted dark chocolate onto the still-melted milk chocolate
Use a skewer to swirl the dark chocolate into the milk chocolate and make it all pretty (you don’t have to swirl if you don’t want to!)
Sprinkle the crushed candy canes onto the melted chocolate. Gently press the crushed canes into the surface of the chocolate if doesn’t look like it’s going to stick too well
Put the whole thing somewhere cool (fridge/garage) to set for a couple of hours
Once set, bash the slab up into nice big chocolatey shards and enjoy!

Easy as pie. It really only takes about 10 minutes to mix up, and then maybe an hour or so to set.

I actually wanted to use some almonds and raisins that I had for the topping on this bark, but the Boy wanted candy canes, so candy canes he got. There will definitely be some fruit and nut bark before the year is out though.

A couple of pics of how my bark looked it had set (I decided to make bark at about 9:30 at night so excuse the crappily lit photos!)

This stuff is just so simple and delicious, and the possibilities are endless. My original intention was to make a 3 layer bark (dark, milk and white chocolate) but there wasn’t any white chocolate at the shop I went to and I was too lazy to go on a supermarket-crawl-white-chocolate-hunt. I’ll save it for next time.

Chocolate bark makes an excellent Christmas gift too. I’ve given little packets of them out as part of Secret Santa gifts before. Just package it up in a little cellophane or paper bag and add some pretty ribbon. Simples. And yummy.

Seeing double

noreply@blogger.com (elephantJuice) — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 08:52:00 +0000

I had a little yarn splurge earlier on this week (the joys of a tax rebate!). Even though I ordered these skeins from two different shops at the same time, it wasn’t until both packages landed on my doorstep yesterday morning that I realised that I’d essentially ordered pretty much the same colours twice. Apparently I like this colour combination! Luckily there are enough differences between them to make me feel like I haven’t ordered a complete set of duplicates, and I can’t wait until my Christmas knitting is all done so that I can have a play around with these pretties :)

That’s a wrap.

noreply@blogger.com (elephantJuice) — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 08:58:00 +0000

My cinema socks are finally off the needles and blocked! They were actually finished a few weeks ago, but I’ve been putting off blocking them out of sheer laziness.

But they are now finally done, blocked, and ready for the Boy’s Christmas box.

I didn’t really follow a pattern for these, they’re just plain stocking stitch with a ribbed cuff, but I did follow the Sleepy Hollow Socks heel construction.

I love the Sleepy Hollow heel for the fact that there are no stitches to pick up and no working back and forth; everything is knit in the round. It also creates a really nice shaped sole that really hugs the heel and then opens out slightly as the foot widens for fantastic fit.

I think something happened with my gauge when knitting these though, because when I finished them I asked the Boy to try and them on and the first sock fitted beautifully, but the second was incredibly snug. I hoped that blocking might sort this out, but I won’t find out until Christmas morning because I’m wrapping them up for him!

Green & Grey

noreply@blogger.com (elephantJuice) — Sat, 03 Dec 2011 08:39:00 +0000

I’m very into IQ84 right now and I can’t quite seem to put it down. The stripey socks are perfect for knitting/reading fodder since they’re so simple.

They’ve been working up quite quickly as well, but they’ve been thrust aside for the moment because I’ve come to the heel, and even the simplest of heels are too much for knitting and reading!

Bettys

noreply@blogger.com (elephantJuice) — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 18:21:00 +0000

Last Tuesday the Boy and I took a trip down to Harrogate for an impromptu day out.

No trip to Harrogate is ever complete without a visit to Bettys Tea Rooms, and to be honest that was the main reason for our trip!

I had the most delicious pumpkin and spinach tortellini for lunch, but I was so hungry and it looked so good that I dove right in without even thinking to take a picture. Instead, here’s a photo of the homemade lemonade we were drinking.

Dessert for me was my favourite jasmine tea accompanied by a yummy fat rascal which I could eat all over again from looking at this picture!

The Boy had a serving of cream tea all to himself, although I did help myself to half a scone loaded with clotted cream and jam – impossible to resist!

After Bettys there was shopping, coffee and hot chocolate. Perfect end to the day!

Thursday

noreply@blogger.com (elephantJuice) — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 10:22:00 +0000

A couple of Thursdays ago I found myself with an unexpected day off work, so I followed the Boy into town (hampering some of his Christmas shopping plans in the progress – oops!).

Towards the end of the day we were running short on time, so while he ran off to get the car to collect some of our shopping I thought I’d pop around the corner into the Knit Studio. Unfortunately, the door was shut and I was too shy to knock, but at least this gave me some time to hang around Blackfriars and snap a few pictures.

I think I’ve briefly blogged about this place before, but it truly is one of my favourite parts of Newcastle. Tucked away in the city centre, it’s a beautiful little oasis of calm in an otherwise bustling city. It’s often used as a bit of a thoroughfare, but it still manages to be quiet and peaceful.

Blackfriars is also home to the Blackfriars Restaurant, which hails itself as being the oldest dining room in the UK. I’ve heard that their food is excellent, but it’s a little on the pricey side so I haven’t tried it yet. Hopefully I’ll get the chance one day!

There’s a cute little Korean restaurant in here that was much more within our budget and incredibly tasty. Can’t wait to go back!

Mooncalf made me do it…

noreply@blogger.com (elephantJuice) — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 09:24:00 +0000

I used to be a fairly prolific cross stitcher when I was a child, but I stopped because I didn’t know what to do with all the finished pieces that were accumulating in my bedroom drawers (plus there’s only so many times you can cross stitch Forever Friends kits before getting bored!). I vividly remember the last thing I stitched; a panda that I’d designed and charted myself. I probably still have it shut up in a box somewhere since I never throw anything away.

But seeing all of Mooncalf’s beautiful makes over the past few months has inspired me to pick it up again. I stitched this last night whilst watching the first couple of episodes of Fringe (I’m a little late to it, but totally my new favourite show!). I think this is going to be addictive…

eat, drink and be merry

noreply@blogger.com (elephantJuice) — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 22:05:00 +0000

I’m currently loving bright nails in winter. Greige is by far my favourite nail colour, but I was starting to feel a little stuck in a rut. This coral is the perfect antidote!

Saturday was spent deliciously snuggled up and reading, but on Sunday the Boy and I ventured out to the Christmas market. (this is going to be pic heavy – sorry! Got carried away with the camera :))

I absolutely love the Christmas market, and even though it’s pretty much the same thing every year I get ridiculously excited every time market time rolls around. We’ve got a little routine going on now: every year we go and get German sausages and Dutch pancakes. Winter would be wrong without that combo.

Yum. I definitely recommend the krakauer.

Stacks of stroopwafels in the background! (Can you tell I’m obsessed yet?)

Dutch pancakes. Dutch syrup. Green fork for the Boy, pink fork for me. Heaven.

We went for a wander around the other stalls after eating. I never seem to buy anything, I just like to ogle!

The smell of this sausage was amazing. We’re heading back to the market tomorrow and it is definitely on the cards for lunch.

Urban Outfitters coming to Newcastle. I’m excited!

We finished off the market by sharing some churros and chocolate. I’ve been wanting to try this for a while; it’s delicious, but quite sickly. I’m glad I tried it, but I don’t think I’ll get it again. Once is quite enough!

Speaking of sickly, the Boy was freezing (I was wearing my handknits so I was happy and snug!) so we ducked into Starbucks so that he could defrost and I could enjoy my beloved Eggnog Latte.

Bunnies spotted on the way back to the car! There were loads of them, but the light was too low for me to get a decent picture. This was the best of the lot!

And just to keep this blog knitting related, a quick snap of the latest project on the needles; Eskimimi’s Flutter Butterfly Mittens. I’ve loved this pattern since it was released, and it’s actually working up faster than I expected, if a little on the small side.

They’re far too small for my oafish, large hands, but the intended recipient is much tinier than I so I’m hoping that they’ll be a perfect fit for her.

Homemade Vanilla Extract

noreply@blogger.com (elephantJuice) — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 08:32:00 +0000

I love vanilla. I use it in so many things, in baking, in porridge, in drinks. I just love it.

Sadly, it can be pretty pricey stuff, and in the UK we only ever seem to get those little tiny bottles of extract, and I would go through those far too quickly. For a while I was super happy to find big bottles of vanilla extract in Costco, but for some reason or other they seem to have disappeared recently, so I went investigating how to make my own.

It turns out, vanilla extract is stupidly easy to make. Take some high grade vanilla beans bought cheaply on eBay, a bottle of bog standard vodka, slit the beans, stick them in the vodka, shake every so often and wait.

In fact, the waiting is the hardest part.

I started this batch back in late September I think, and initially added 12 vanilla beans to 700ml of vodka. I waited and waited for that beautiful deep rich amber colour, but it didn’t seem to be darkening up much so last week I whacked in another 4 beans and it now seems to be on it’s way. It smells heavenly already, and the best thing about this is that the longer you leave it, the stronger and richer it gets. And when you start running low, just top up with more vodka!

I think this would make a such a lovely gift, and that is exactly my plan. All I need to do is find a pretty little bottle to decant the extract in to, push a couple of vanilla beans inside for continued flavour and added prettiness, and tie a ribbon around it. Perfect for Christmas!