Archive for October, 2009
Knitting David’s jumper
Oct 30th
David is a great friend of mine. He’s one of a few who have a hand-knitted jumper from me. I made him a sleeveless jumper, knitted in the round until the split for the armholes. I spent a long time working out the pattern and had lots of help from Mam (my grandma). There were beautiful swathes of colour sweeping across the jumper like lightening bolts.
Then David met a style guru and together they decided that the ‘stripes’ across his middle didn’t do him any favours… would I please knit the bottom half again so the colours weren’t in stripes?
I said yes! (Like I said, David is a great friend!) So I snipped a stitch under the armhole, unravelled downwards and have re-knitted a significant part of it. It seems shorter than before, but there may be more wool in the wardrobe! I’m still pleased with how it looks:
David's Jumper
David's Jumper (back)
The liquid soap mystery
Oct 29th
Well, the water didn’t really disolve very well into the soap paste overnight, so after work yesterday, I decided to help it along by heating it up a bit. It went all amber and translucent with the odd bit of white thick/foamy stuff.
I forgot about it for a bit [ops!] and when I went back to it, there were lots of bubbles on top it didn’t seem to be thining so out came my trusty potato masher. This didn’t help at all, and in fact it seemed to make it even thicker.
I gave up [again] and left it.
Here it is this morning – it’s all thick again and the paste is clear.
Let’s see what tonight’s experiments produce! Soap maybe? I did find lots of lovely bottles in the bathroom cupboard all empty and ready to be filled with soap…
Liquid soap experiment
Oct 27th
The recipe says to cook the soap paste for 3 to 4 hours, so that when diluted the water is clear.
After 8 1/2 hours it still wasn’t clear, so giving up on this experiment.
I’ve added the water anyway – the result somewhat speaks for its self…
Brownies. Yum!
Oct 24th
Don’t these look fab! Our neighbour lent us his angle grinder and as we’ve finished or rather as Peter has finished with it, I’ve made some brownies to say thank-you! Yummy squishy chocolate brownies.
Knitted cakes
Oct 20th
Hmmm… cake!
I’ve started knitting some cakes for my niece Amy. She’ll be 2½ this Christmas and so will be about the age for imaginative play. I would have loved to have had knitted cakes to play with when I was small… so Amy’s going to get some.
So far, I’ve finished a battenburg cake and a swiss roll slice! I’m working on an iced doughnut at the mo… and that should be finished tomorrow after my train journey home! One of our pillows has gone lumpy, so I’ve demoted it, cut it up and am using that as the toy filing – marvellous! It’ll be able to go in the washing machine AND it’s fire resistant. We’ll not ask about how fire resistant the acrylic or cotton is eh?
I’m also attempting to make liquid soap. I left work late and so started late. My large slowcooker wasn’t getting hot enough for it, so I switched to a saucepan on the hob – but that got too hot, like way too hot – but I got a trace in about 15 mins. As it’s now too hot, I’ve left the soap paste to cook off the heat with the lid on… I’ll give it a blast every so often to keep the heat nicely up at around 160F. It’s going to have to be made in two parts as I’d like to go to bed soon! Hope it turns out ok!
Advent Biscuits
Oct 18th
I can’t believe I’m prepping for Christmas already – but yes, I’ve made some advent biscuits…. They take a month to mature, so I’ve been ultra organised and have made them now, so I’ve got time to eat them in mid November, before having to make them at the end of November, in time for Christmas.
I wish I’d photographed the massive pile of biscuits on the plate – they looked great… you will have to see what they look like in the jar instead.
Have also spent this weekend on the sofa knitting more of David’s jumper. This is a real labour of love – having already knitted it once already. I’m not enjoying knitting it as much this time as I’m constantly worrying that I’m going to be hurting my finger again… I’m hoping with time that it will pass.