Productivity

 Nearly the end of January, and I don't know where the month has gone. 

I'm working on the second sock of a pair in an Aran design, so I'll wait till I've got the second one finished. I took a break because C wanted a new hat, having left his warmest one somewhere in Maine or New Hampshire. He fusses about his ears so I spent a while choosing a pattern on Ravelry that had earflaps, and then he decided he didn't want them. By the time I'd lined the first one with fleece (which he was adamant he did want, it no longer fit him, so I had to knit another. It was a pattern that was easy to adjust, the coloured strip ran over multiples of 4, and the diamond pattern over multiples of 10, so to adjust the original 100 stitches up to 112 and down to 110 was easy. So, very unusual for us, we have a his 'n' hers. 

In the kitchen - C came across a recipe in Ottolenghi's "Ottolenghi" for a crusty Italian loaf, and he has fallen in love with the end result. It is, apparently, the sort of bread he dreams of buying when we are on holidays in Greece and France. It's a two-day affair, starting with a biga the day before, so it has required a bit of adjusting to my Sunday morning housework routine to ensure that it's not ready to go into the oven at the same time that I am trying to get the kitchen floor washed. I think we had the book out because I had been trying his double lemon chicken recipe, printed in our national paper and originally appearing in the New York Times, I think. Anyway, by now I have typed the recipe out and laminated it, to save having to hoist the book out every week. So far I have been using pasta flour as what I had on hand, but when C went to lodge a cheque at a bank in the town centre yesterday, I went along with him because I had a pretty good idea I would find 00 bread flour in the supermarket there, and indeed I did - the one specially for long slow ferments, so it will be interesting to see if it makes a difference. 

It is also marmalade orange season here. So I looked up various pressure cooker recipes, chose one and was delighted with the end result. It called for cooking the oranges whole for about 15 minutes first. Then they were wonderfully soft and it was easy to scrape most of the white off leaving the peel to cut finely. I used jam sugar so as not to have to boil it for too long, and we ended up with ten tangy jars. C was horrified when I said there was 6 lb of sugar in there, but he did his mathematics and realised that it was actually much cheaper than quality bought marmalade. I used this recipe here, and it was easy to scale up to 3lb fruit. I did move to a larger pot for the last boil with the sugar, having a larger quantity. 

I would make more before the season is over, but I only have one jam jar left! And, truthfully, there is so much blackberry jam in the cupboard from our September expedition that we are set for the year. I don't eat much of either of them. 

The mornings are already brighter - I'm going in to work a little later on Mondays, so while it's still dark I see the sunrise. I stopped the other morning to take this photo - I should probably have stopped about five minutes earlier, but on the bicycle, the tendency is just to keep going. The photo is from last week. It was just as beautiful the other morning - a dense mist rising and swirling under the trees, the sun just starting to show, and the contrails in the sky a deep orange. 

I got a new computer, which arrived earlier than expected (I wanted one with more RAM, and the advised arrival for that was March, so it was a surprise when it showed up in January, even before I had got around to getting an external DVD drive for it. I absolutely love the quietness of the solid state drive, but because I was unable to restore from my backup, I had to copy everything across manually from the backup, which resulted in every file having a timestamp attached to it. Thank goodness for bulk rename utilities! I upgraded to Windows 11 - the only casualty was the scanner which isn't recognised by it but can still be used downstairs. 

December Favourites

 Happy New Year. Not something we tend to celebrate despite Scottish ancestry only two generations back, and I expect to be in bed and asleep before the clock strikes 12. 

I have a few favourite cards from December. The first was for my brother's anniversary.  The third was primarily to use up the selfie frame which I had backed with embossed vellum and it just didn't work for whatever I expected it to at the time. 

The busker with his dog was cut from gorgeous black velvet, and in looking for a simple background, I thought that particular gel print looked a little longer a swirling  pavement.

Despite my best efforts and intentions, I will have no photos from December to use as a blog header when December 2022 rolls around. I've been keeping an eye out, but it's been a pretty grey and dull month, mostly.  And I forgot to update my header for Jan 22 before turning the PC off, so my second job tomorrow will be to see what photos I might have from January 2021 to use as a header. First job is to move my two-day Italian bread recipe from Yotam Ottolenghi onto the day two processes early enough to have it baked by lunchtime.  Right now the biga is rising. 

Christmas wishes

I was given a kit with felt animal ornaments last year, and have slowly been making them. This polar bear was my first attempt. There was a deer and a penguin which have both found homes elsewhere, and a less successful fox who looks as if he is wearing black wellington boots, a bit odd.

The snowman was also a kit for needlefelting on a form. The instructions required a lot of hot-glue gun work, which I did without altogether, managing to felt the nose onto the head and the head onto the body, and using black roving instead of sticking buttons on. I also wasn't very taken with the enormously thick brown felt supplied for the hat and scarf, and thought I would rather knit the little bobble hat from Arne and Carlos's Field Guide to Knitted Birds - having knit one for Lorraine I had an idea the size was probably about right. But those tiny pompoms aren't easy.

 

November favourites

...are very thin on the ground, but as we have reached December I'll include a couple of Christmas cards I was particularly happy with.

The blog header is some borage flowers on a frosty morning last December. I was interested to find it in my December folder, as it's in full bloom at the moment. And yet it feels very late to me - I'm sure we saw it in borders in the gardens in Fota when we were there in July. Maybe mine is late because I sowed it too late and it was so dry. Surely a flower used as the traditional garnish for Pimms should be a summer flower. I planted it for the bees, but by the time it finally flowerd there weren't many around. 

Work Commute

 I count myself blessed that half my cycle ride to work is through the Phoenix Park. I don't carry a camera, but I did absolutely have to stop on Monday morning to snap the deer on our first really frosty morning. I was an hour later than usual on Monday because I knew I'd be on-site on Tuesday too, so for once it was lightening instead of still dark.

This was earlier in the year -actually back in September, so it was sunrise around 7 in the morning, and it was a beautiful foggy morning with the sun just breaking through.

And, not on the way to work but the route I usually take to the library, which runs parallel to the main road and is slightly farther, but has a cycle track - I thought the leaf fall pattern on this tree was very unusual.

October Favourites

 October felt like a very busy month, and I didn't feel I got a lot made. I did have a couple of Christmas cards I really liked, but have only included one here.

It took me a lot of experimentation to find photo paper which worked well with smooshed DOX backgrounds, but in the end I got lucky in Dealz (like a dollar store)

The card above was for a "spooky" challenge. I don't really do the spooky side of Halloween, but took my inspiration from these lilies I had seen in the Botanic Gardens, which instantly made me think "ghost flowers".

A long-ago leftover background and some leftover tinted paste gave me this

Sentiment to be added when I send it. The textured background had been in my box for quite some time - hot glue on card, with stamped and coloured tissue paper over it

This one I was very happy with - the challenge was to use a stamp or die in a manner other than that for which it was originally intended, and after a LOT of looking through my stamps, I thought I could turn this umbrella into a passable butterfly. 

Autumn fades

 I took a trip to Farmleigh one morning last week when it was bright and sunny - and on the chillier side. Most of the colour from my previous visit had gone, and the herbaceous borders had pretty much been cleared out. 

I really liked the decaying hosta leaf, and in the walled garden, a rose petal had fallen onto a leaf. 

Better late...

 All month I have been meaning to get back and add some photos from the Sculpture in Context exhibition. Life just seems too busy - but a singularly wet morning and a day off are a good combination.

All 74 photos I uploaded from my visit are HERE, but for anyone like me with less time, here's my quick pick of some favourites.

This was a whole array of raised dishes in a circle under some trees. The fallen leaves were a great addition

There was a companion hare to go with the fox

I'm pretty sure I remember a chickenwire sculpture from another year, a fox perhaps. I must look back. 

I can't remember the title of this, I think it had Spring in it. I would have called it Bird Brain.