Yarn along

Joining Ginny in sharing what we are reading and knitting/crocheting


After finishing my socks on Sunday I have started b my handbag kit I got from my parents for Christmas, I have already made one of these bags, in purple and I use it as my every day bag.

It works up surprisingly quickly. I am also reading Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind by Hayo Miyazaki. The film was based on the book of the same name. It has to be one of my favourite films and the manga follow the same story but goes into much more depth.

Finished another pair of socks!

Yay! These have taken me just over a month to finish and here they are in all their rainbow-y noro goodness!

Yarn along

Sharing what I am reading and knitting at the moment with Ginny from the small things.

It has taken me nearly a month to get these socks knitted! My my, but I did make decent progress since yesterday. I knitted the gusset and started work on the final length of the sock (the bit what holds your foot? Not sure what it's called)

At the moment I am reading the spring issue of landscape. As much as I love the magazine. It has me waiting for spring even more now. It has some great pictures of the obligatory baby animals and daffodils, some great desserty custardy recipes. Baked custard slices if definitely one I shall try. And also a super cute pattern for knitted lambs I shall have a go at once I have finished my socks. 

Another thing I took five minutes out to do was jazz up some hair ties. As a child of the 90s scrunchies were the thing, but they are impossible to find now! So I saw some really cute fuzzy ones on Pinterest but they were from Japan and it would have cost me a fortune to make, I saw a tutorial, (I would link it but I couldn't find it again) that uses snowflake wool, wrapped around plastic cross stich canvas. 

My creative brain started buzzing and I thought "I wonder what would happen if I crocheted some of it around a hair elastic?" So the end result is this:

The weather

As many of you know the UK has been battered by storms and rain and wind. It's all starting to feel much like normal life and spring will never come. I also think the lack of sunshine is making me feel well a bit ugh I guess. There is so many things I should be doing (like writing my New Years Resolution update), but instead I have been snuggling up on the sofa watching tv and knitting. Nearly completed my noro socks now. 

I love the colours, lovely and cheery on these terrible winter storms. I just turned the heel yesterday so I am hoping I can get it done today, fueled by copious amounts if tea. 

This is the view from the living room window, with added rain too! Those eagle eyed of you may notice the neighbours are having their windows changed. What a time to have that done!

Just a quick note at the end; to all those living in the South West, my heart goes out to you. I spent my younger years growing up there, and whilst it flooded regularly, it was never to that scale. I hope for your sake, it will end soon. 

Yarn along

Today I am joining Ginny in the yarn along and share what I am knitting and reading.

Another pair of socks. These ones are for me! Again in Noro wool. The photo doesn't do the wool justice. It's a fantastic colour way and I can't wait to finish them. 

As for what I am reading. The Complete Father Brown Mysteries by GK Chesterton. I am a total sucker for the tv series on BBC one during the day so I thought I would give the book ago, so far enjoying it!

I am looking for more sock wool suggestions too. I currently have a ball of crazy zauerball sock wool ready and waiting after this pair is complete. What's your favourite sock wool?

Woodland Knits Book Reivew

I have been meaning to talk to you about this book for a while. But with being sick and the weather being terrible (I didn't have any decent light to take photos) it's taken me a long time. So here goes!

Woodland Knits by the wonderful Stephanie Dosen, aka Tiny Owl Knits. I have admired her work from a distance and loved the whimsical theme of her patterns, but never took the chance to buy one. When I learned she was going to be publishing a book I jumped straight on it. 

Inside it looks so beautiful. The layout and the photos are all imcredible. There is a little story to go with each pattern which is fantastic. Everything is clear and consise (although I haven't had the opportunity to work on any of them yet. 

Here I have picked out my favourite pattern; The Free Rapunzel hat to look at in bit more detail.

On the right page we have a lovely picture of it and on the left we have the title, description/story, difficulty level, requirements and stitch definitions. I love the the typography and style, it just screams Stephanie so much!

Moving on to the next few pages are next section of instructions, some notes and another picture.

Overall I love this book, the patterns are great, the photography is great although some of the patterns are a little to whimsical, even for me, I still totally recommend it to add to your collection!

What are your favourite recent craft book(s) additions?

Been a bit poorly and Kale Crisps.

The past two weeks I have suffered a really heavy cold so that was no fun. The weather has been pretty dire too.

The rabbit house kept flooding so we bought them inside to be warm and dry.

Although the chickens managed to endure it ok.

Some very soggy chickens and a very muddy garden. Thankfully the weather has set to improve. The weather man said Wednesday was the first day; since the first of December where there wasn't a singleweather warning out. And my, what a beautiful day that was. Although I did spend most of the afternoon asleep, I felt poorly so I had an excuse.

Also on Wednesday I decided to make some kale crisps. I have seen these appearing in shops recently but I have made them in the past so I know just how yummy they are so I can strongly advise you to make some because they are not only tasty, they are very easy to make.

Kale Crisps

Preheat the oven to 170C.

Firstly you need to wash and dry your kale as it can be a little gritty.

Next you need to chop the tough stems out. I found the easiest way to do this is to fold the leaf in half and run a knife down it.

Next you want to tear it into bite sized chunks and add to a big bowl. 

Next add in around a tea spoon of olive oil per handful of leaves and a pinch or two of salt and shake it up! When everything in nicely coated lay it all out on a baking tray and try desperately hard to not over lap anything.

Bake for around 10-15 minutes until the edges are brown, yes even with purple kale!

And they should look something like this:

Yummy!

New Year's Resolution

 Hello and I hope you all had a lovely Christmas. I took some time out of blog land to relax and spend some much needed time with my family. It has been lovely. Almost time to come back to the real world now. 

The past few days I have been thinking, reviewing my status in the world I guess. Taking a look at my aims in life and re-assesing them as most people do at the end of the year. I have decided to go 100% rubbish free by the end of the year to help my sustainability. 

This means I will only purchase things that come in recycliable, reusable or compostable containers. And try and buy in a bulk where possible. Not only does buying in bulk save money, it also has less pacakging. 

Inspired by this blog here No Trash Project, Colleen lives in NYC and has given me some excellent ideas, I thought were impossible in a city, so I must try these out.

I have started this a bit early as I was running out of castille soap. I bought the smaller bottle at the end of April last year and only finished using it yesterday. I paid £5 for it and got almost a year's use out of it, so not bad value for money. But to save even more money I bought the next size up which was £8 something so who knows how long it is gonig to last me.

The next thing I was running short of was washing powder. I have been using Daz washing powder since I moved out from my parents' house nearly 6 years ago now. I must give it that most UK washing powders still come in a carboard box which is recyclable/compostable but all the health warnings on the side give me the heebie jeebies. All the grease lifters and optical brightners and heavy synthetic perfumes etc, are they really needed? I looked around online and came across BioD, it is 100% natural with no perfume and it comes in a paper bag which uses less material than a box so it should break down easier and faster on the compost heap. I bought a small 1KG bag to see how it fairs but you can purchase much, much bigger bags.

The next thing is packaged snacks, sometimes I like to make myself something to take to work for lunch, sometimes this isn't possible and I need something to grab and stuff in my bag quickly before I leave. I found these from InSpiral, quite expensive at £1.45 a pack, but they look tasty (haven't gotten round to trying them yet) and the package is compostable which is excellent. Snacks is something I need to work on, but I think it is more a self-discipline issue, as I make snacks for a week, but then end up eating them the day I make them!

 

The next thing I thought about was increasing the amount I compost, most councils in England provide you with a food collection bin which you either empty into your garden waste bin or a sepeate larger bin you keep outside. Which you can put most food waste in and they collect it, compost it down and sell it back to you as compost. 

I wanted to cut out the middle man, and was looking at ways to compost the things you can't easily do on your heap, i.e. dairy products, cooked food and bones. 

The simplist way seems to be a Bokashi bin, where "bokashi" is a japanese term for fermented. Basically you put all your food waste into the special bin, spinkle some bran which contains a bacteria in it and leave it to break down for a few weeks. Most websites suggest you need two, one to fill, one to ferment. I am thinking I might need more, so this is a trial run to see how long it takes me to fill and then I can work out how many bokashi bins I need.

You get two products from the bokashi bin, liquid which you syphon off with a special tap which you can use as liquid plant feed and the fermented waste which you need to dig into the compost heap to finish breaking it down before you can use it. 

 The basic kit gives you one bin and two months' supply of bran. but the actual bin is a behemoth. In the picture you can see it next to a standard issue council food waste bin. It's easily twice the size so not practical for everyone.

 

 

 

Irish crochet

 I recently have been looking at (and admiring) Irish crochet. I came across this on my Pintrerest feed:

 I was immediately hooked as we say. I had a bit of an idea brewing in my brain to make some mini-doilies. Which turned out ok, but look more free-form crochet-y. I have made them into pretty hair ties.

 

 

 

 

and all four together

 

 When  I was looking for some information online initially I found it quite hard to find instructions and information about, it seems to be one of those skills that is passed down through the generations.

Although some digging around has bought up some very useful archives on the Internet, here and there are some lovely old patterns here. There are a few books that I have seen recommended such as the Priscilla range of books and Irish Crochet by Mdme Hardouin (although this one is in French).

I feel super inspired by these books and pictures and will keep you posted about how things turn out.


xxx

Oh and PS we did have snow this morning but it didn't settle!

My crochet waist coat - Yarn Along.

Here is my finished waist coat/vest thing.  No new reading this week. Still reading last week's Landscape and just finished a rather charming article about Harris Tweed.

Unfortunately the lighting isn't very good as we have had a bad storm blowing in all day and it's been super dark. 

Here is the back too

Also there was a lot of ends to weave in too:

Phew. Apparently we are due for snow tomorrow! I am quite excited.

Xxxx

Work in progress

Phew, it has been wet and windy and very wild. But today is a welcome break from all of that. Clear skies and lots of lovely sun.

There's the last of the afternoon sun!

The past few days I have been hunkering down from the weather and working on my next project. A cotton vest.

Here is the front panels. Currently working on the back, which is going to be a large granny square with the same fabric pattern on the top to join at the shoulders to form some sort of yoke. 

I hope you all are well. xxx

Yarn along and Christmas presents

This week I have been enjoying another magazine, Kitchen Garden. In my opinion I find it is the best gardening magazine, it always comes with a pack of seeds and has lots of very useful tips, even though some of them are aimed at the young at heart!

I have been knitting with my hand spun silk, which is super hard as you may know that silk itself is very slippery. 

The finished product.

I have also been busy crocheting candle holders to go in the gift boxes.

Here they are all finished.

And packaged up

Yarn along

Joining Ginny in sharing what I am reading and knitting.

I am on a knitting rampage. I decided to give everyone a couple of knitted dish cloths as a present for Xmas as well as the usual chocolate. I think that handmade useful gifts are much more appreciated than the usual shop-bought chocolate. 

So at the moment I can knock out a dish cloth in about an hour and a half.  

This is going to turn into a bit of review too, so I apologise if you feel this a bit long. I am also reading a new magazine I discovered recently called "Landscape" at first glance I thought it would be like The Small Things magazine. Now, I have picked The Small Things magazine up a few times and had a flick through, I felt the editorial was little weak, although it does have some pretty pictures in and I found the craft tutorials a little basic for my liking. But I was pleasantly surprised when I picked up Landscape.

 

Lots of really interesting articles about various topics, including traditional Christmas decorations, around the garden, animals, crafts and some pretty tasty looking recipes. I am definitely buying the new issue when it comes out on the 11th.