Ravelympics 2008

Next week brings the start of the Beijing Olympics, but for knitters it also means it's nearly time to kick off with projects for the Ravelympics! Ravelry has a rapidly growing olympic village which is hosting a version of the games for fibrecraft athletes. There are a whole host of events to participate in including the Afghan Marathon, Designers Discus, and the Laceweight Longjump, and loads of different teams to compete for.

The idea is that knitters cast on their ravelympics projects during the opening ceremony on Friday 8th August, and must finish by the time the flame goes out at the end of the games. I have been a little over-ambitious and have chosen two projects to enter, although I might not be able to finish both in the time. My main ravelympics project will be a shawl called Kevat, by Ziina. I'll be knitting it with Utiku merino possum yarn that Jane sent for my birthday. It's really really warm, my hands were feeling nice and toasty even after knitting a small swatch, and then I went to the website and discovered that it's the second warmest fibre on the planet apparently. Does anyone know what fibre wins the title of warmest?? Here's my 'training' for the project (which is permitted to be done before the opening ceremony), and an aftershot just to show you that I'm not cheating and I unwound it all!








Project: Kevat shawl
Yarn: Utiku merino possum (70% merino, 30% possum)
Event: Shawl Relay
Team: Scots can do it too

As a bit of a side project, I'm hoping to have a go at a crochet scarf with Gedifra Chandra yarn - the same stuff that I made the hemlock ring blanket with. It's quite a bulky yarn, and I'm planning to make a scarf by crocheting 2 alternating types of flower joined together at the petals to form a chain. With a bit of luck the colour changes in the yarn will make each of the flowers look different.





Project: Garden scarf
Yarn: Gedifra chandra (greens and purples)
Event: Scarf Stroke
Team: TeamGB

Endings

The last month has disappeared into a haze of cheese, steak and strawberries - I can't quite believe that Taste is all over so soon, but in other ways it seems like a hundred years since we started out in Edinburgh. I've been doing a fair bit of cooking, but have been totally useless at taking any pics so the blog has suffered. Sorry!

I did however bring home some lovely looking chillies that were left over, so I think it's time to make some more chilli jam. I'm also working my way through a new book: 'bread matters' by Andrew Whitley, so there will be lots of bread-related posts coming soon. My task for this week is to find somewhere in Dundee that sells fresh yeast. 24h bakery perhaps? hmm, they don't even sell bread...

One good thing on the knitting front is that I've FINALLY finished Oranjeanie (Keri Williams' Jeanie, from knitty winter 07/08). It's been a 6 month on and off kind of love/hate thing, and this project really suffered by me getting bored and starting lots of other things along the way, but here she is...

I never thought it would be such a slog when I embarked on this one, but I'm pleased with the final article. The slog is my fault for not being dedicated enough, the actual knitting time was not so great. I had an internet splurge on materials for a new project whilst separated from my stash in Birmingham - I'm making 'Iceland' from Rowan 42. Love the yarn (let's gloss over the price tag for now), v soft and hairy, love the leafy sideways pattern. It's going nice and quickly, I'm up to the split for the neck already.

Taste 08 is underway, and I've made a load of baby stuff

It's been a while since my last post, because I've been gadding about all over the place like a headless chicken .... Taste 2008 is well underway! We've done Edinburgh and Leeds so far, both of which were very tiring but a lot of fun. Tomorrow I'm off to London for the big one, so looking forward to that. Just in case you all thought the world of events was a non stop party, here's the kitchen area of my lovely studio apartment in Leeds - every night someone has to take home all the teatowels and make sure they're washed and dried ready to go again the following day!

A Taste colleague of mine is expecting a baby at the beginning of September, so I've been busy turning that Trekking sock yarn from Twist on Tour into a little cardi. I didn't know whether it's a boy or girl, so I thought the reds/greens/browns would be a good mix of colours for either and I'm really pleased with the way it has come out, especially with the fact that I managed to match the pattern of stripes on the two sides. I used a pattern from knitty called Devan, and 2mm needles. The original is in stockinette stitch but I decided to do garter instead, partly for speed and partly because it feels springier and thicker.

An unexpected train trip from Birmingham to Dundee and back meant that I had time to make a pair of matching booties as well, I hope they both fit at the same time! I had to buy a second ball of yarn to finish the cardi, so there's loads left over for other little projects. For the booties, I used an adaptation of the very popular Saartje's booties, and some 3mm needles. This version, by bockstark, is knit in the round to avoid a seam down the middle of the sole. Very clever.

Since my last post, I have also made a turtle from Laurence's book World of Knitted Toys by Kath Dalmeny. He will also go to the same baby, I'll be sad to send him on his way though because he's very cute! Putting him together reminded me how rubbish I am at sewing.

Twist on Tour

Yesterday we had a bbq with the borders knitting group people - lots and lots and lots of cakes and a few sausages! I didn't get a good pic of them all together but check out Laurence's post to get an idea of things. I sort of had an idea that doing 3 desserts myself would end up being too much but I was in the mood to cook so never mind. I made a rhubarb trifle (thanks again to Dave for the excellent rhubarb), some lemon tarts, and choux. Being English, I call anything made out of choux pastry and in a small blob shape a profiterole, but I know they should actually have ice cream inside to be proper ones. Mine had a lightly coffee flavoured pastry cream inside (made with cornflour, sugar, eggs and milk), then chocolate on top. Laurence arrived at just the right time to give some much needed French input on the state of the pastry dough, and then she did a great job of stuffing them too.

At the same time, Diane got busy with an old fork to tackle the weeds on the patio - look, no weeds or moss! Andrea also joined in later on and between them they've made such a huge difference to it, it looks miles better, thanks guys. I also have a fab new patio pot which was a pressie from Sheila, and in the team colour of the knitting group too, everyone's very into nice springy green things. Thankyou!

Lots of people went to great efforts in the kitchen - we didn't put much on the bbq but instead enjoyed a huge selection of lovely bread, cakes and hand made chocolates. A big thankyou to all for the contributions. Next time we'll drop the bbq and go straight to dessert maybe :)

The highlight of the afternoon was having Laura and Peter's van parked on my drive full of lovely stuff from Twist Fibre Craft Studio. My own personal knitting shop right outside the house, very exciting! They had a test run at setting up a mini shop in the van, and we all very much enjoyed looking at what they brought.

My stash has grown quite a bit this weekend. I bought some nice soft dk (I'm not sure what for yet) and also some sock yarn. All of it's very colourful, I must have been in a bright mood. I think maybe I'll have a go at making some socks while I'm travelling about this summer...

PS the recipe I used for soda bread a few posts ago can be found here. It's an oaty one, so the texture is quite interesting.

Hey, it' asparagus season!

yum yum, tasty tart with british asparagus and goats cheese :)

I had some chargrilled on the griddle today too which is one of my favourite ways of eating it. And the first batch of jersey new potatoes went into my shopping basket.

I've also been enjoying kilos of rhubarb from Dave at work. I'm filling up the freezer with stewed rhubarb and apple for breakfasts, I made a rhubarb tart at the same time as the asparagus one, and tomorrow we're having rhubarb and orange trifle. Such a great time of year!

Buttons and beads

I've had a bit of a jewellery making phase recently, sparked off by discovering a basket full of lovely bright buttons at Twist. Mum and I bought 3 packs each and spent an evening turning them into necklaces.

I suppose there are only so many button necklaces a girl needs, so I then moved onto my box of beads and jewellery bits and pieces and made a few other things as well. I like anything requiring a pair of pliers!

End of an era

Just a quick post to record the end of an era in foody terms. We had built up a great tradition of pizza nights in a particular flat that once was home to Fabrizio and Silvia, and was then passed on to Elton. He decided to take on the mantle of pizza chef from Fabrizio and after a good aprenticeship, he was suitably qualified to carry on the tradition when Fabrizio left for Milan.

Recently we had the last ever pizza night there, since Elton will be moving out in a couple of weeks, very sad! Anyway, he did a fine job of feeding everyone as usual, and the boys made a day of it to produce enough pizza bases to cover every surface in the flat (it's a strictly men only ritual!!). We decided to bring forward the start of Summer by enjoying the first jug of pimms and lemonade of the season, yum. Here's hoping that the pizza tradition will evolve into a new form, and we won't loose the chance to enjoy the pizzas in a new home sometime soon :)

Distractions

I've got a few things in the queue to be blogged about, but work is pretty mad at the moment, so apologies if the blogging slows down. There's been way too much of all 3 of these things in my life recently...

I confess, Laurence was right, I broke my own rule about not starting another scarfy project until Jeanie was finished. I'm blaming the work for that one too! My brain has been too frazzled to comprehend reversible cables and dropped stitches so I've been spending some quality zoned-out time with my new project from Twist. I finished it yesterday and an quite pleased with the result. It was all squashed up on normal straight needles so I didn't realise just how long it actually was until I bound off and released it from the squeeze.

Being at home writing for the last week or so, I've been getting a new insight into the life of a cat. Dilly is very noisy and keen to get the humans out of bed in the morning so she can have breakfast, but then at around 9am she takes on the pose in the pic and remains absolutely still, fully unconscious for a full 6 hours. It can be quite hard to tell which end is which when she turns her head upside down and puts her tail over her face. She wakes at 3, and begins the food acquisition routine - galloping up and down the stairs, walking all over my desk/keyboard, biting my pen and trying to knock my work onto the floor. She also miows very loudly from the lounge to try to get me to come downstairs and see what's going on, hoping that I might just feed her while I'm down there. It's a tough life being a cat!

The daffs are still out at the bottom of the road by the way...

Food and flowers (and knitting of course)

Life rarely seems to fit into neat categories to make a themed post about, so here's another mixture of bits and pieces that have been going on lately. Jeanie is coming along well, I'm nearly ready to start the third and final ball. It's long enough for Dilly to sit on one end while I'm working on the other end now.


We had a lovely trip to Twist yesterday for knitting group. There weren't many of us so we sat upstairs around the table in the shop. I started off well, and only bought some felting needles and the new Vogue Knitting. Then I went for another fatal wander and tripped over a box full of lovely colourful skeins of hand dyed yarn from a local Wensleydale flock. They were packaged up with a little instruction card for a shawl, and a nice pin. Local produce and yarn all in one? Yes please!

The two skeins are a little different, so after the first few rows I decided to alternate 2 rows of one then 2 rows of the other to mix them in. Going well (and quickly) so far, although it's a bit squashed because I'm trying to keep 187 st on a normal needle.

The green at the bottom of my road is looking spectacular at the moment, as is a lot of Dundee, because all the daffodils are out in force. They're looking the wrong way to see their faces and the view of the Tay all in the same shot, but who can blame them for wanting to face south?

Here's some Soad Bread I've just made, using the Town Bakery recipe. Super quick.

And finally for today, look what we've got in the office! It's great! Bea was missing proper coffee so she bought an electric moka...

Jeanie progress

You may remember right back at the beginning of the year that I showed a picture of Jeanie - a wrap from knitty with reversible cables and dropped stitches in between. I bought some trekking sock yarn from Twist and made a start on in when travelling over Christmas.

Since then it's been somewhat neglected while I worked on other things, but I've picked up the pace again recently, and am just about to finish the first ball of 3. I've got a lot of other scarfs/shawls/wraps in my mind that I'd like to try, but I've made a rule that I have to finish this one before casting on a project that fills the same niche!

This weekend I had a go at putting the edging around the bottom of the wrap. It was cast on with waste yarn while the main part of the wrap is knitted. I started off by unpicking the waste yarn (which took AGES) and placing the live stitches back onto a needle. The next stage involves taking the 8 st that form the cable edge up the sides of the wrap, bending it around the corner and knitting it across the bottom, incorporating the cast on stitches where appropriate.

The whole process took quite a bit longer than I'd expected, and a few tries to get started, but it worked out ok in the end. A bit of a challenge anyway, and it has motivated me to get on with the rest of the project because I've got a better feel for how it will look when finished.

Two FOs

I haven't been very good at keeping up to date with the knitting posts recently. Last week I said I was on the verge of finishing Ophelia. She then sat for a week waiting to have hooks and eyes sewn on. I finally got around to taking some pictures yesterday, but before I did the sewing. I'm rubbish at sewing, I don't know why. I turn into a bumbling fool when I pick up a needle and thread. It wasn't so bad as I was thinking though, and it didn't take long at all to sew 5 pairs of hooks and eyes down the front. I'm wearing it today and quite pleased with the results.

Pattern: Ophelia (free)

Yarn: 2.5 skeins Blue Sky Alpacas dyed cotton (LOVE IT)

Needles: 5mm

Mods: I bound off some st at the armholes and made the shoulder sections narrower.

The second FO for Easter weekend is Stardust, from Winter knitty. I love this, and it was really quick and easy to make. I think there's a bit of a problem though. When I started sewing the pieces together on Friday my nose began to run. And then stream. And then the sneezing and coughing started. It seems that angora and I do not get along! I finished it off on Sunday and wore it for a few hours, during which time I got through about one and a half rolls of kitchen paper. I felt like it got better when I took off the cardi, but maybe it's psychological or a coincidence or something. Plan is to give it a rest for a few days, and I'll try wearing it to knitting group on Wednesday to see if the nose starts up again. I'll be really sad if I can't wear it because it's great, I really like the pattern and I'm quite proud of my seaming job - look out for future posts, I may be trying to find a new home for it!

Pattern: Stardust (free from Knitty)
Yarn: Just over 4.5 balls Louisa Harding Kimono Angora

Needles: 4.5mm
Mods: 3 needle bind off on the shoulders. Ties are 16st wide instead of 20. I picked up and knitted the collar into the back neck as I went along rather than sewing it down later.

28th March: I've worn the cardi twice this week, and have survived. It wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it might be so looks like the project is safe. Phew!

SHF41: Colomba Pasquale with Candied Peel

Happy Easter!

So here is the Columba Pasquale at last. I have some nice memories of eating this when we went to visit friends in Milan at Easter a couple of years ago, so this year I decided to have a go at making some at home. It's my entry for Sugar High Friday number 41, which is hosted by Habeas Brulee this month with the theme of sweet gifts.

Columba Pasquale (Easter Dove) is a lesser known relative of the Italian classic Panettone that is eaten around Christmas and New Year. It is said to have been made by the bakers of Milan since the twelfth centuary. Traditionally shaped like a dove, Colomba is a rich and soft bread packed with candied peel and topped with crunchy sugar and almonds. It's a typical dessert for Easter lunch, but makes a great gift as well.

The origins of Colomba are linked with an old story. When King Alboino of the Longobards conquered the city of Pavia on the eve of Easter Sunday, he requested that all the gold and treasures of the city should be given to him together with 12 virgins. The poor girls were sent to the castle to await their fate and they were all crying in despair. All, except for one, who asked to be given some honey, flour and dried fruits as she wanted to bake a cake. She prepared a dough and gave it the shape of a dove and asked her guardians to have it baked. When she was called to see Alboino, she carried the cake on a tray. The king was surprised and he asked her to taste the cake first in case she was trying to poison him. The girl ate a piece and Alboino, seeing that she looked so confident, did the same. He found the cake delicious, so as a reward he ordered his guards to free the baking girl.

Moral of the story? When in danger, bake! The colomba recipe I used is here. It's quite simple, but takes a long time becuase of the different rising stages, including one overnight.

The candied peel is a crucial part of this recipe, so I decided to start off my bake-fest last weekend by making my own. I described what I did in this post last week, but basically involved successive rounds of boiling the peel in fresh water, then for several hours in sugar syrup. As manoute pointed out, candied peel makes a lovely gift, and is especially delicious dipped in dark chocolate. I was really pleased with the home mande peel, it's got so much flavour compared to the bough stuff. It's a taste that really lingers for a long long time (possibly because it gets stuck in your teeth so much!), and is very refreshing. I'm surprised we had any left to make the Colomba with because we've been nibbling at it all week. Here's a picture of the peel as it was being candied, and then as it was drying before being tossed in sugar...

Last week I challenged everyone to make something foody for Easter. Manoute has just sent me some lovely pics of her Easter Pate that she made last year, and also a sweet version of the French flat bread fougasse. Yum! More pics of Easter baking to follow hopefully...

baking challenge for easter

It's Easter next weekend. Can you believe it?? The daffodils aren't even properly out yet, well not in Scotland at least. I heard somewhere that Easter hasn't been this early since the 1930s and won't be again for another 150 years or so.

I've been hatching a plan to make traditional bread from northern Italy called Colomba Pasquale (Easter Dove), and I thought why not throw an invite out there and try to get a bake-along going. It's similar to the more well known Panettone which is eaten at Christmas - quite rich and sweet bread with candied peel and almonds. The main difference as far as I can tell is the lack of raisins, and also the shape: colomba is dove shaped, although all the pictures look more like a cross to me.

The recipe I'll be using is here. It's a bit daunting at first becuase there are a lot of steps for rising (including an overnight one!!) but the actual amount of attention you need to give it is not so huge. Is anyone up for the challenge? Andy K - I know you can do it, cookies were good but time to take it to the next level :) Jane, yours would be more the size of an eagle than a dove thanks to the superhot incubation temperatures down there. Let's see it! What about our Italians? Anyone else?? It makes a great gift, which is a handy thing because that is the theme for this month's Sugar High Friday.

Send me pics of your easter baking before Tues 25th and I'll put them up next week. I'll also accept Easter-related baking from other nations if you don't fancy the colomba, I'm rather partial to a hot cross bun too!

If you want to do some home made candied peel, you'll need to get going this week so it has a few days to dry out before baking with it. Yesterday I juiced 6 oranges and 4 or 5 lemons, then put the skins in large pans of cold water and boiled for 10 mins. (I froze the juice and will probably use it to make sorbet next weekend with the spare eggwhites the colomba will create). They were drained, refilled with cold water then the process repeated 6 times in total. I then scooped out the mushy membranes from inside, sliced the peel and simmered it in a 2:1 water:sugar mixture for 2 - 2.5 hours until kind of translucent. The remaining liquid at this point is very thick and sticky, and there isn't much left. Allow to rest for a minute or two then quickly spread the peel onto cooling racks before the syrup gets too cool and gloopy. Air dry overnight, then toss in sugar and leave to try for several more days, turning occasionally. Store in an airtight jar in the fridge, lasts for months and months if you can resist eating it all.