Christmas Knit

 This was originally meant to be a September birthday gift - but the initial leaves and ivy took so long that I re-scheduled it as a Christmas gift instead rather than rush.Also, it took a while to find several different shades of green and brown. Actually, after those two initial leafy sessions, everything else went pretty quickly.

The pattern comes from Ravelry ~ Woodland Wreath, by Frankie Brown.
Since I took the photos with different cameras in wildly varying lighting conditions over two months as I added each new item, I'm afraid the colours vary a bit from photo to photo. C'est la vie. A couple were taken with the wrong colour balance - and typicially, when I had RAW disabled so I can't correct them.

The foam wreath I used was just under 14" diameter, 35 cm. Since I got two, I am planning to make another one of these for myself. I had it hanging on the wall for about a week before I wrapped it up and posted it off, which gave me time to make a few adjustments in positioning, and add a few more white dots to some of the toadstools. I missed it when it was gone!

Bare wreath

plain leaf garland

Oak leaves and acorns

Ivy garland

Holly leaves and berries

Mistletoe

Pine cones

Toadstools

Hedgehogs

Owls

Bluebells and flowers

Warm Off the Needles

I've done a bit of knitting for Christmas this year - scarves for both my nieces, one on the needles currently for C, and this tea-cosy, which was a pattern I saw on Ravelry and really wanted to make - it was called a "Victorian Garden tea-cosy".

Just a couple of other photos - the stone carving was down at UCC (University College, Cork), at the entrance to the quadrangle, and the tree with berries is on one of the routes I take to work.

Hot off the Needles

It's my nephew's birthday this week, so this has just gone off in the post to him. I'd originally bought the cotton to knit something for C, but after knitting the gender-neutral top for his colleague who was expecting a baby back in January, there wasn't enough left for him any more. So George gets the benefit.
I've been loving knitting in the round and top down - no sewing up at the end is a winner in my book. I even treated myself to a book on knitting in the round, I just need to find time to read it properly.

Warm off the needles...

I've been busy knitting recently; this little pink cotton jacket went postal last week, and I'm currently knitting it in a small size in a different colour for a colleague of C's who is due to go on maternity leave over Christmas. Actually, I'd got the cotton to knit a sweater for him, so I hope there'll still be enough left after finishing the jacket. It had to be gender-neutral, which narrowed the choices. Of course he wants a card to go with it - that's finished, while the jacket is still on the needles! I hope to get it finished in work tomorrow. The buttons were on the expensive side but were too perfect too pass up, and work perfectly with both the pink and the green/yellow.

I bought a couple of packs of the felt ornament kits to send to a friend in Greece who likes doing crafts with her two daughters. And I bought a couple for myself to play around with. The lower ornament is pretty much as pictured on the pack, although I added a few seed beads in. It seemed a bit plain, so for the second one I cut some felt poinsettias with a Spellbinders die, and stitched them on with gold thread, using seed beads for the centre. I was happy with how this turned out, and might see if I have time to make a couple more for gifts. The only problem I had was that if I wasn't very careful it was easy to tear one of the bracts off the poinsettia - cut that fine the felt was a bit fragile. In fact, my white felt was too thin altogether and just pulled apart in my hands, so I had to settle for cream.

Knitting in the Round

My sister-in-law had bought a large (1kg) ball of wall and a pattern that came with it, to knit something for one of my nieces. Whether it was that she didn't really like the pattern (she did suggest I could try something else if I wanted), or that it was tricky to knit with, she passed it on to me - and now it's ready to head back down to her again. I put the wool brand into the search in Ravelry, and a Pinwheel Sweater was one of the hits.
I had to use different needles to get the right tension, but I really enjoyed knitting this. It was a bit bulky for carrying to work, but I got it done; and one of the best things is that there was no sewing up to do - just darning in the ends. The picot edging took a while, but I think that if I wants to add a couple of big buttons, the loops in the picot will serve as button loops. Essentially it's just a circle with sleeves set into it and knit down from the top, and the smaller part becomes a loose shawl-type collar. The front is more like an extended bolero - it's longer and swings loose at the back. I really like how it turned out! The pattern says that for a baby it can be worn the other way, with the longer part as a hood. It certainly did remind me of my favourite ever coat that I bought in Paris, which had a sort of cape edged with fur which could be left at the back as a cape over the coat, used as a hood, or draped across the front like a loose shawl. I wore it till the wool was getting bare!

Gujarati Style Aubergine  (Eggplant) and Potato (serves 4)

5 tblsp oil
large pinch asafoetida (but then do NOT reheat this in the microwave!!)
1/2 tsp each mustard and fenugreek seeds
2 cloves garlic, crushed,
1/2" ginger root peeled and grated
1 small onion, finely chopped
8 oz potato, peeled and diced
1 tblsp desiccated coconut
8 oz aubergine/eggplant diced the same size as the potato (about 1")
1 tsp each ground coriander/cilantro and ground roasted cumin seeds
1/2 tsp each garam masala, ground red chilli / cayenne, turmeric
salt
8 oz chopped tomatoes (fresh or tinned)
1 tblsp each sugar and lemon juice.

Heat the oil, fry the asafoetida with the mustard and fenugreek seeds till the mustard starts popping. Add the garlic, ginger and onion and fry till lightly browned.
Add the potato and fry till golden brown.
Add the coconut and aubergine and fry for one minute.
Stir in all the dry spices, then the tomatoes. Reduce the heat, cover and simmer for twenty minutes till the vegetables are tender. I think I may have added a little water at this stage - the recipe says to add water if it gets too thick.
Add the sugar and lemon juice, then increase the heat till the liquid has reduced.
Sprinkle with garam masala and chopped fresh coriander/cilantro and green chilli to serve.

As I said, I made this purely because I had already set aubergines ready before work on the day our guests had to cancel, and since we'd just had a large dish of ratatouille and C is not over-fond of aubergines, I thought I'd try something other than the pasta dish with grilled vegetables that I had been going to do. This was more work than I would have chosen in a busy week, but he liked it and it's certainly something I'll be making again. The sweetness of the coconut went remarkably well with the aubergine.

I need to do some more research into what makes Gujarati food so typical. Is it the asafoetida? I know that the two other dishes I use it in both say they are Gujarati. I just wish that the smell was a bit less lingering!

Hot off the needles

This is the jacket I knit for little George - the wool was left from one of C's sweaters, and it was great to be able to put it to good use. I enjoyed this because it was all knit in one piece - and sewing things together at the end is my least favourite part of knitting. I did have to learn not just one but two new casting on methods - amazing, after all these years of knitting.

His real present was two books which we had when we were kids, but I also had this altered project which got left out of the Christmas parcel for Waterford.

I spotted one of my orchid irises in bud this morning when I went out to re-pot some bamboo that I had been overwintering indoors, and the nigella is starting to blossom. But it feels cold for May except when the sun is out - I'm still wearing a hat most mornings, and there was one day last week when I'd have been happy to have my gloves, too.

More birds

I meant to have included these tufted ducks in the last bunch of birds. They were quite far off on the lake, but it's still probably the best picture I have for showing the tufts. There are a lot of them at Farmleigh at the moment.

This pair of greenfinches were gorging themselves on sunflower seeds today - and as luck would have it, just when the sun was out. I need to clean the glass in the back door, though.

This sheep tea-cosy is my latest completed knitting project. I'm currently working on an Aran tunic-style sweater for myself, but I think something for my nephew is going to have to take precedence.

Hot off the Needles

Very hot! V's birthday is tomorrow, and because the only flower pots I had were 1 1/2" bigger than the pattern (from one of Jean Greenhowe's booklets), I had to scale everything up. Scaling up the little cactus was easy, and goodness, and smaller and it would have been even more fiddly to turn the arms inside out and stuff them. But I miscalculated on the pot cover and had to go back and start it again without much time to spare. I also wasn't sure that several straws, even nested inside each other, would be strong enough for the stick, so I used an old, blunt, wooden knitting needle trimmed to size.

I'd hoped to have edited some photos from the park and Farmleigh this morning, but the day just disappeared. Instead, here are a couple of my favourite cards from January.

Seen around town

Haven't had time yet to upload any photos from our walk in the park last Monday, but at least there are so few of these snaps from around town that it didn't take any time to copy and edit them.
We have, to go with the rowing Santa from Christmas Eve, a biker Santa. Well, not what C would call a real biker, but he certainly caught my attention on the way to work the other morning.

As did a welcome ray of sunshine lighting up this building. It's been so, so grey these last couple of weeks.

On Thursday afternoon there was some respite from the gale-force winds, and the sky brightened up too around lunchtime, so I walked into town after work to get some wool for a couple of projects. This is the Christmas "tree" on O'Connell Street.

This scarf was a last-minute idea for a Christmas gift for my aunt. Had to phone the wool shop to make sure that they'd have two balls of any of the nice colourways in stock, so as not to waste a journey in to town if they didn't.

Red skies

On the days that haven't been overwhelmingly grey we've had some lovely sunrises and sunsets. The disadvantage of living in a built-up area is that you can't really see them that well - or get good photos.

The sky really was that pink for a brief while the other morning: I could see the glow when I went out to put a wash on, so I grabbed the camera and went out the front door, but within less than ten minutes it was all gone. That was also the morning I saw a heron fly over - but that was before I grabbed the camera.

In the night sky you can see the ivy flowering in the garden next door. I'd actually taken a photo of the ivy flowers when I walked along the canal last week.

Warm off the knitting needles, I posted this little jacket off on Monday morning. The little hood is detachable. I always wonder about long hair getting caught in the buttons, though! I'm currently knitting a neck-warmer to use instead of a scarf on the motorbike, and then I have a couple of projects for my nieces and nephews with some wool I got from my sister-in-law when we visited recently.

I

Hot off the needles

Latest knitting project; I had been hoping to make it in either yellow or green, but after trying several shops it seems that 3-ply only comes in white. Apparently there's not much demand for it at all, let alone in colours. I know I made one in yellow some years back, but that wool was mail order from the Shetlands, and I didn't think I'd have time for that this time round. And indeed, I finished the shawl on Monday and the baby arrived on Monday also, just a couple of days early. The centre of the shawl is easy, just time-consuming. The lace border requires more focussed attention. I got a lot done in the car on two trips up to the North with C, who was attending music rehearsals. I'll admit that trying to knit while listening to the music was less successful, and did call for a bit of ripping, but as the pattern becomes easy to remember after the first twenty repeats or so, that was not too big an issue.

Looking at the card now I should have switched the tree and the sun around, to have the sun in the opposite corner to the little chick, but it's too late now. Thanks for the inspiration to use this stamp after seeing your little duck, Lorraine.

I hope to go into town after work on Thursday and get some more wool for another baby project. It's hard to know when and where all the diversions are with the Queen's visit, but since I normally walk into town I don't think it will be a problem. C had no trouble at all this morning, but said he had to take a long detour on the way home.

These barriers were waiting to be set up on one of the Liffey bridges, along with a notice saying that any bicycles would be removed. They're making it very hard to cross the road anywhere other than at traffic lights! I'm pretty good about only crossing at lights anyway, but the one exception is this stretch of the quays where it's normally easy to cross, and much nicer to walk along the river side.