Crochet hats!

Sorry I haven't been posting on here much, I have been very busy with my new job. What a rubbish phrase, and used far too often by too many people...


Anyway, I made the first of these hats much earlier in the year

This is my hat for me to wear, I made the butterfly using the most commonly found butterfly pattern and the hat was made using a pattern-plan as opposed to an actual pattern.
Magic ring with 10 dc (US sc), then 2dc in one stitch, dc in next stitch around into those ten, next round 2 dc, dc, dc, continuing each subsequent round with one extra dc before the 2 dc.
Once you get up to the size you want for the crown, plain dc into each stitch for as many rounds as necessary.

I made another one on this basis, which I will be sending out to my best friend from High School for her first baby, and I hope it will fit her!

 
I also crocheted this last one for the second baby that Amy, my school friend, is still cooking up and I must be a psychic because she told me two days after I finished the hat that baby 2 is a girl!

So here are the two little hats together.

I have been wondering if the little cream hat will be big enough, but since I didn't have a baby close to hand to check the sizes on I just have to hope.
If not, I guess bibbit #2 can have it once she is big enough

I have also been making lots of snowflakes, thanks to the wonderful Birthday present my sister bought me and once I have some photos of those done I will post them up in a blog. All design credits for those are reserved and I will make sure that is stated clearly, I also won't be able to share any patterns, but will give you the title and author of the book!
It really is wonderful though, I cannot thank my sister enough for such a thoughtful gift!

Cards

Emi's Birthday card - needs a beak though!

Mariko's Birthday card - a gerbera flower, one of her favourites

Mothers' Day card for my Mam, afternoon tea

All handmade by me in my flat.

Owl Biscuits

Two Blogs in one day? What madness is this??
Yes, well, I dunno, I just saw the owl biscuits photo when I was uploading my crochet photos and I just wanted to show you these guys

I baked them for my friend Emi for her birthday. She loves owls and I was visiting her home for dinner a few days after her birthday, a few of them were a bit overdone and I broke the first few I took out of the oven through careless handling so I was lucky enough to be able to profit slightly from my carelessness and munched the substandard ones myself!

The recipe is from here Halloween hoot owl biscuits

Crochet!

I've been inspired by my great friend Emi to take up crochet.
I started out last January just before I succumbed to De Quernan's Syndrome in my right hand - which is basically completely ruining the tendons that run through your wrist and into your thumb through over-use (stripping wallpaper and failing to rest at all when I got tendonitis).
With the stupidity of my GP (I've swapped since), the length of time waiting on specialist appointments and physiotherapy, I finally finished my treatment at the end of November.
So, I picked crochet back up properly in the lead up to my TOPCIMA exam (for relaxation purposes in the evenings) and after mastering the basic stitches with the aid of some great videos online,  I've managed to learn how to do Butterflies

First Butterfly I ever made!

...which I adapted to make a 5 petal flower too (no photos yet)

Tiny Whale hiding behind my husband's ear

Then there's also this little fella (the mini-whale, not my husband!)














He's for my Nephew because that's what he asked me to make for him when he saw me finish off the second butterfly (not featured here).
I think the eyes are a bit wonky, but it's difficult  to get them sorted if you put them on when the pattern tells you to. Those were made from one nice flat shiny bead and one tiny black bead.

My Dad asked for a dragon, so that's going to be one of the next projects I think.
In the meantime, I'm going to make lots of small flowers from the fine crochet yarn that I have so I can use them for card making and suchlike.

Big thanks to my Mammy for all of the ends of wool that she's donated to me from her knitting ball-ends, I'm really enjoying all of the different colours and will be making lots of different flowers and butterflies with them.

Stay tuned for Owl Biscuits!

Hello readers!

All the very best of the season to you all.

I have been away from here for a good long while, but I have been baking in the meantime. I think it tends to just end up on my G+ page without much story behind it because I'm still such a busy bee!

Quick life-update:
I get the results from my penultimate level of exams for CIMA on Jan 15th, hoping to have reached the final level of one mega-exam in the end-of-February sitting.
Once that is done I will start work on my husband +Ash Wilkinson 's accounts for his self-employed business and start taking more time to post updates on here. I might try to make it a weekly thing.

"Best of the Year" Bakes

The year has been very quiet for craft, primarily because I have spent since mid-February recovering from De Quernan's Syndrome (aggravated thumb/wrist tendons) and only actually got physio at the end of November! But here are some of the Bakes I did not share with you that I am pleased with:

Christmas Cake!

In keeping with the season, The first item on the list is my Christmas Cake.
All decorations are hand-made by me.
It is a dark fruit cake, covered in the traditional marzipan and Royal Icing.

And this is what it looked like in October, ready to go into the oven. It contains no Mixed Peel (food of Satan), nor raisins, nor currants. Sultanas, dried cranberries and glace cherries are the dried fruit.
I also broke with tradition on the fruit-soaking/cake-feeding liquor and went for Rum instead of Brandy. We don't drink Brandy, so I didn't have any to use.






Choux Buns

Fresh from the oven

 In Septemeber my husband bought me the much-coveted GBBO Showstoppers book and I decided to have a go at Choux buns and fill them with Creme Patissiere.

Some plain, some with chocolate on top - all filled with creme pat' and blueberries

Gaining the Husband's Seal of approval

They went down very well and I plan to try the Swans in the book some time in the New Year, possibly for a nice Easter tea.

The addition of fresh fruit to the filling made them a little less-guilty a pleasure, and helped to lift the stodginess that I find choux can sometimes have (when you have 10 buns to eat between 2 people, even if they're airy and light like mine were, there's a denseness comes from plain creme patissiere!)



Husband's Birthday Cake
My husband shares his birthday with his mum and in previous years I have made them a joint cake, but as his mum didn't seem all that impressed last year, I decided I'd just make it for him this time. I did make two separate mini-loaf cakes (each big enough to share between two) from the same mix to have as "her" cakes, but she didn't seem that impressed with those either. Maybe she just wants someone to buy her a cake instead? I think I may never know.
Anyway, Ash's Birthday cake:

As you can see from the piped Chocolate on the Christmas cake, I have learned that greaseproof paper and practising are better than going straight for the cake. It was quite impressive in February, but the standards are always getting higher.



I was certain that I had taken photos of the crown of bread I made the other day for dipping into a baked camembert - it was made with seeded flour, chopped rosemary and serrano ham wrapped into the rolls and it was very tasty.

I have also recently made onion bhajis and samosas from scratch, and hope to get back to making sushi in the New Year when Ash and I get started on our get fit campaign. A stone and a half each to lose by the summer - roll on the veg-packed lunch boxes and soup-filled evenings!

So long, for now

Super(food)Brownies!

I made these brownies with beetroot and blueberries today, reducing the fat and upping the antioxidants without making something unpleasant!

Anyone that thinks beetroot needs to remain in a vinegar-y jar, only to come to the table with corned beef and cold meats, I urge you to try something new - get some raw from a farm shop (or garden/allotment - ours came from Ash's Granny's farm) or some boiled, vacuum packed ones  that you can get in most supermarket chilled veg sections (NOT in vinegar) and give this recipe a go!

There are other ones out there, by the way - if you don't like this one there is a similar one on bbc good food (no blueberries) and I know Hugh Fernley-Whittingstall has done some because he inspired me last year!

Remember, whilst working with beetroot, to avoid "murderer hands" you should wear plastic gloves!

3-4 medium raw beetroot, peeled, topped & tailed, chopped into chunks

100 g margarine/ butter 

200 g plain chocolate

250 g golden caster sugar (or soft dark brown sugar gives a denser brownie)

3 large eggs

100 g plain flour

40 g cocoa powder

100 g Blueberries (optional)

50 g extra chocolate chopped (optional)

*Pre-heat oven to 180C/160C fan/gas 4.*

1.     Put the beetroot into a bowl. Add a splash of water, cover with cling film, then microwave on High for 10-15 mins (until tender).

2.     While the beetroot cooks, grease & line a 9 inch square cake tin. Roughly chop the 200 g of chocolate and cut the butter into cubes. Drain off any excess liquid from the beetroot, then whizz them down as smooth as you can with your choice of blender, food processor or hand held whizzer.

3.     Melt the 200 g of chocolate and butter over a water-bath whilst you blitz the beetroot down, then stir them together and leave to cool slightly.

4.     Put the sugar and eggs into a large bowl, then beat using an electric hand whisk until thick, pale and foamy, about 2 mins. Spoon the beetroot mix into the bowl then use a large metal spoon to fold it into the whisked eggs. Try to conserve as much air in the mixture as you can. Sift in the flour and cocoa powder, then gently fold these in to make a smooth batter. If you’re using the optional extras, stir them in now, very gently.

5.     Pour into the prepared tin and bake for 25-35 mins or until risen all over, with an even crust. Cool in the tin, then cut into squares – makes 16 brownies in that size tin, but they are nice and deep.

Because my beets were quite big, I ended up with very red, very moist brownies - we like this, but if you like them less easily identified as containing beetroot, you'd be better working with a precise amount of beetroot. The BBC Good Food recipe gives 400g raw flesh as the best amount to work with, but I guess a lot of it is the luck of the draw as some beets will be more inclined to soak up water when cooking initially.

Garden Of Wonders....

Well, this year we have been a bit more successful with our garden, in some ways, and less successful in others.

A couple of pods of Peas

We did alright for Peas, though the second batch that we planted didn't come up so well. Definitely planning to plant more of them next year, and make sure they're close to their canes from the very beginning.

The runner beans have run off again like crazy! We still have some in the freezer from last year (9 plants) and even though we reduced it to 5 plants this year, I still reckon we'll not have to buy any until well into next year if we ever do buy any then!

The king of the onions

The onions have been properly harvested this year and I plaited the majority of them when dry as we ran low on twine. I only did 3 (or 5 of the smaller ones) to a string though, I don't have the skills to do a full plait that you just cut the onions out of. Maybe one day I'll learn to do that.

Lots of carrots, some beans

 

We planted the same amounts of parsnips, but only one seed germinated! We filled in with the transplanted carrots, of which there were a total of over 130.
The tranplanted ones are mainly a bit leggy, so those that we've taken up have been chopped and blanched and frozen but the ones that stayed put in their original germinating spot have done quite well and they haven't needed to be take to bits (except if they've been munched by bugs)!



So all that's left in now are about half of the carrots, the Solitary Parsnip, all of the leeks and the runner beans, which will probably send us another pound or two of beans to freeze before they die off.

Looking forward to cheesy Leeks in the winter!
Harvesting them is difficult though, as they're all up in York and we're mainly down in Bristol.

Hoping to work out a better plan of being in York at the right times next year, but it's hard with my exams.

We do also have some pepper plants on Bristol, the most productive Chilli I've ever seen and some celery plants.
I've got no idea if the celery will be nice or if we should've fed it better or anything.