Christmas preparations

This year, with working part-time and the bank holidays, I've ended up with a 3.5 week Christmas holiday whilst only using up 4 days of annual leave. This is the longest break I've had since I was an undergraduate, and I've had a great time getting things sorted out for Christmas, oh and getting a new shed, but more about that in a later post.

Back in November I made the Christmas cake. This is the dried fruit and brandy soaking overnight.

And the cake when it came out of the oven.

Then I poured brandy over it every week until last week, when I added the marzipan to it. Which I forgot to photograph.
Then today I iced it, using the cop-out ready-made fondant icing instead of royal icing.

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This is batch of mince pies number three.

I also made stollen for the first time ever, and it was surprisingly easy, just time consuming because of having to leave it to rise for a while. I made one batch using the Delia recipe, but that is actually much more complicated than the Paul Hollywood recipe I used for the second batch, which also has more dried fruit it so it a lot tastier too.

As you do, a week before Christmas, I finally got the curtains altered that I've been meaning to do for nearly four years now...

I had these up in my old house, and the windows here are smaller, so the curtains were covering the top of the radiators - not ideal in the winter, so I've shortened them (there's a second pair too) to a more sensible length. This is one of the spare bedrooms ready for Christmas guests!

Think that's all for now. Another post to follow shortly with my finished projects on!
I hope you all have a fantastic Christmas!

Between jobs

I had some annual leave to use up from my old job so I've had a few days at home between jobs, which has been fun, especially as the OH took a week off work as well. I've caught up with some knitting:

I finished off some sleepy socks for my nephew to wear in bed. These have taken about a fortnight, which I thought was pretty good going as I only really knitted them at knitting group and in front of Downton Abbey! They are just plain vanilla socks from the Ann Budd multiple pattern book, using a 52 stitch cast on and took exactly one 50g ball of Regia 4ply tweed sock yarn. It was pretty close as I only had about 10 inches left when I cast off. I have got another ball of this but it seemed a shame to break into it at that point.

It's also fun looking back at my Ravelry stash entry, apparently I bought the yarn in Cambridge in February 2009 when I stayed with Greensideknits and went to the Cambridge ktog one Saturday. Which I seem to recall was around about the time of my first date with the OH!

I've also finished the first of a pair of gloves for the OH, again using the Ann Budd pattern book. Although I've still got to sort all the ends out. This is a boring grey yarn (he didn't want anything remotely interesting) by Rico which I bought last year in Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

I have made the Christmas cake, having found the kit I used last year from Waitrose was back again and on sale last week!

And we had a day out to Cliveden, to have a wander around,

 admire the views, marvel at how deep the Thames is at the moment,

 and look at all the pretty leaves in various colours.

Catching up on some knitting

As promised, I have been busily knitting away, trying to get caught up with things that were meant to happen ages ago. This is the January square from the knit-a-block-a-month group. So only about 6 weeks late... This is almost exactly 50g of aran weight Pure Hebridean wool from my stash.

And I finally finished my Out of Town in London Fog socks, from Iron Knitter, which were meant to be finished in, er, September. So that's only 6 months late...
The yarn is Trekking Pro Natura, which is 25% bamboo, 75% wool. It's quite harsh to knit with, which I think is partly why it took me so long to get on with it, but I've worn the socks once and washed them and am pleasantly surprised by how soft they feel now. They were comfy to wear too. I also like the longer legs, done for the competition, but actually very useful when wearing them at work as they come up well above the top of my work boots!

The reason why I haven't had as much time to blog last week, apart from the usual inconveniences of going to work/creating meals/attempting to grow plants etc etc was my church's Read-the-whole-Bible-in-a-week week. Reading from the King James version (more usually known as the Authorised Version over here, except everyone seems to have adopted "King James" this year) as it's the 400th anniversary of its publication this year (and don't I know it, not only am I doing it at church, it's also taking over my life at work at the moment too).

So, yes, we (well, about 200 people) read the Bible in a week:

I did the material for the display screen on the right. It's about the history of the KJV translation and Bibles in general. The two chunks I read out were Galatians and John 1. This isn't my actual church - I'm in a three church parish so the event was at one of the other churches.

It was kind of fun, a different sort of listening, where the sound just washes over you. Very peaceful and meditative. I got a lot of knitting done at the same time. And having people there all day every day with the heating on meant that, for once, it was nice and warm at church.

And, it was combined with Fairtrade Fortnight, so on the last day we had a Big Brew coffee morning day, with CAKE and a Fairtrade stall. And then at the end of the Bible reading champagne to celebrate finishing.

As all of this was also combined with five days at work, producing CAKE for the CAKE stall, and all the normal life stuff by the end of the week I was absolutely exhausted and totally ready to collapse in a heap.
Except I couldn't because by then it was Monday and time to go back to work again for more King James Bible stuff...

Knitting and baking, a bit of reading and some TV

I finally finished Thermal last month, but haven't blogged about it yet. This was my long term project intended to keep me going through house-building-work, moving house and wedding preparations, and it certainly did the trick!

The yarn is unknown 4ply probably wool that I bought way back on Skip North. There's still loads left, so I could have made it longer - I didn't dare when I started off as I thought I might run out as I had no idea of the yardage! I'm really pleased with how it's turned out (ignore dreadful photo of me above with the usual wonky shoulders) and think it will be a useful top.

I have started a couple of new projects. I had this overwhelming urge to get knitting and felt all inspired - which I hadn't felt for ages, probably as a result of just having one project on the go for so long! This yarn was given to us as part of a wedding present, it's Five Moons Selene in the "it's a jungle" colourway and it's gorgeous and soft as it's a merino and bamboo mixture.

And I've got a bit of a thing about cables going at the moment (my other project is the cabled jumper for a nephew) so I chose Tabitha's Owen sock pattern. The cables are big enough to show up well with a variegated yarn, as you can see below. And I love the way the pooling gets broken up by the cables. It's been a while since I did toe-up socks but I wanted to get the most out of this gorgeous yarn so it seemed sensible! It's also a great pattern for in front of the TV or on a train as there is one round where you have to be careful for the cable, but the rest is very easy to remember.

Otherwise I've been busy gardening, baking and reading. I've made a couple of cakes for colleagues' birthdays, the Victoria sponge nearly didn't last much longer after the OH spotted it through the hatch between the kitchen and the living room!

Reading-wise I read Edith Wharton's The house of mirth for reading group in July, which proved to be an interesting choice, especially immediately after getting married! After spending most of the book being puzzled about what it's got to do with mirth (it's not exactly, erm, mirthful), and not doing something sensible like looking it up on Librarything, I discovered that everyone else at reading group had a different edition, and that edition included an helpful introduction which included an explanation of the title! It comes from the Bible - Ecclesiastes 7: 4 - "The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning; but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth." That makes a whole lot more sense! The book follows Lily, who is basically on the shelf at the age of 29 and becoming increasingly desperate to assure her place in society by getting married to some suitable man. Whereas she was once at the centre of society she is now heading to its outer edges. She does love a man, but he isn't really in the right class so not an option. The society revolves around the social niceties and not putting a foot wrong. Lily slowly sinks further and further. At times I got very frustrated with her - why didn't she just get a job and support herself? - kept creeping into my mind. But it does become clear that she was never brought up with any idea of having to do that and has no skills or talents other than being an ornament. It is hard to identify with her as she is SO far removed from the world we're in now, but it's only 100 or so years ago (first published in 1905)! It also made me very glad that I do live now, especially with the life parallels, having just got married!

And, as there isn't anything at all on TV worth watching at the moment (other than the rather good Rev, which I've really enjoyed), we've been working our way through some DVDs of Rome, which I managed to miss when it was broadcast on TV. What exactly was I doing between 2005 and 2007 to miss it?!

Wedding

Well, where should I start?! The wedding was truly awesome. The service and reception went even better than we had hoped for and we've had so many lovely comments since from people who clearly enjoyed it nearly as much as we did.

The service was in my church, with plenty of friends involved - we were married by one of my former housemates and another, Farli, preached a fantastic sermon (she preached on one of our readings, Ecclesiastes 4, 9-12 and even included some knitting references too) and also did the blessing. Yet another friend did the prayers, and another the Ecclesiastes reading. The friend who was meant to do the second reading had transport problems, so my Mum had to step in to read 1 Corinthians 13, 1-13!

We didn't realise at the time, but the organist on the day, who normally plays at my church, had injured his right arm, so another organist singing in the men's row of the choir kept turning round to play the right hand organ parts for him, whilst he did the left hand and the pedals! You would never have guessed!

It was, for the UK, a baking hot day - up to 29 degrees, which is a little too hot for me and the OH to be totally comfortable! It also meant that I couldn't wear my wedding shawl during the day and had to wait until the evening - who could have predicted that knowing what the weather is usually like here?!

This was designed and knitted for me (initially as a surprise, then she told me when she realised I might try and make one myself!) by Tabitha. Isn't it great?

We had a smallish reception for 50 people (plus 14 children) at the pub near the church, which proved to be an excellent choice.

They laid us out a lavish "afternoon tea" with canapés and salads, and we used their function room and garden for everyone to mingle. And the children to run riot with paper aeroplanes. I was glad we didn't go for a more formal reception as this worked perfectly for us and gave us a chance to have a chat with everyone there.

The pub also didn't bat an eyelid (well, OK, maybe slightly) at being asked to provide a small table near the food for the knitted wedding cake.

We put my bouquet and the bridesmaids' next to it and they all matched perfectly (take my word for it, the only photos we've got at the moment of the reception are the ones a friend took with my camera, which have all ended up in black and white!).

And then we went away on honeymoon for a week, but I will save that for a later post. We did manage to fit in three yarn shops whilst we were away...

Totally overwhelmed

Last Tuesday I had one of the more overwhelming evenings of my life. I already knew I'd got a special parcel on its way to me (it got as far as our front door on Monday and was retrieved from Staines post office on Saturday. No pics or further details yet as it is Something For Wearing At The Wedding and therefore cannot be revealed as the OH reads this blog). The others at knitting group had requested that I brought the OH along to last week's meeting, which I duly did, thinking that maybe they had a wedding card for us or something.

The "something" was right - look at this. A whole knitted wedding cake!! Isn't it cool?! The detail is absolutely amazing, right down to my hairdo and our wedding rings. And the flowers are in our wedding colour scheme. An enormous amount of work has gone into it as there are loads of little bits that had to be sewn together. So the OH makes his debut appearance on my blog in knitted format!

The pattern is apparently the Alan Dart wedding cake, but heavily adapted - look, ours has two tiers!

Then, just when I was getting totally overwhelmed and little over-emotional Wannaknit handed us a parcel passed on from Greensideknits in London.

Some members of the Archers Listeners group on Ravelry, had got in touch with each other and decided to form the "Ambridge Knitting Circle" (complete with its own secret Ravelry group!) and make us a wedding blanket! Each of the squares is something to do with the Archers, or related to us, and they have come from all over the place, been assembled by Greensideknits, who also knitted the borders using her own hand-dyed yarn (which, it turns out, is in the same colour as the bridesmaids dresses!), everyone supplied a postcard from where they live and there's also a little book with all the postcards in and an explanation of all the squares! Isn't it cool?!

So, again, totally overwhelming. I am planning to blog about all the squares properly and explain what they are, but I think that's going to have to wait until after the wedding now...

Thank you to everyone for the amazing gifts!

Oh, and in case anyone is wondering, the Archers is a totally addictive soap on radio 4. I've only been listening to it for five or so years, but it quickly became addictive.

Birthday

I am feeling spectacularly old and wrinkly (and don't mention the sagging bottom) today as I've just turned 30. The horrors of wrinkledom/sagginess etc were somewhat assuaged by a great day with the OH and some rather groovy presents! Although he did refuse my request to get cracking with the birthday cake at midnight last night (he seemed to think sleep was a better idea?!) I did get a chocolate cake with a candle for each decade!

And the best present! A digital camera! I'd been using the camera on my mobile until now. He took me out for lunch after church this morning and we went for a walk afterwards so I had a chance to experiment with some camera settings. Close up plant things:

It's got different aspect ratio settings - so I can take pictures of things and use them as my desktop background picture. So I had an experiment with some yarn pictures.

And played around with taking pictures of the water as we walked along the Thames.











And other presents? Well, a Mamma Mia DVD and Diarmaid MacCulloch's "A history of Christianity" were among them, both of which I'd been coveting! The OH must be able to read my mind. Actually, he wants to read the book too so we might need to take it in turns. It's got about 1300 pages so this might take a while.

Knitting pictures will resume shortly, once I've finished playing with the camera settings.

My birthday!

I am now so old my nephews can't count as far as my age (they did try). That is REALLY old. Fortunately they were on hand to help me blow out the candles on my (first) cake:

This year my birthday fell on a Saturday, so I hopped onto (several) trains and headed up to Nottingham for the weekend. On the Saturday we walked in Bramcote Hills Park where there were plenty of leaves to play with.

and some beautiful views.

Afterwards some of us may have been accidentally diverted into Yarn, where we bumped into a crowd from Knit Lincs on a shopping expedition. The nephews had gone home with my brother (for some reason they don't find yarn shopping an exciting prospect?!) so my SIL, Mum and I had plenty of mooching time.


I bought seven skeins of Mirasol Hacho, to make Suri, from the Mirasol Collection Book One. Yarn diets don't apply on your birthday, right?

And then, when I went into work this morning, one of my colleagues had made this:


Birthday cake no. 2!! This one is lemon (the first was chocolate). Between the two of them there were 16 candles so I have declared that I am 16 (again). And I'd booked the afternoon off work, so spent it having lunch with friends, then showing them round the area. Oh, and maybe eating some cake too.

I've been making impressively fast progress on my Irish Hiking Scarf:

I seem to be knitting much faster these days. I also seem to be developing a thing about cables as I've finished off Noah's tank top for his birthday in December.


Thank you for all the birthday greetings I've received - in the post, by email, on Facebook and on Ravelry. I've been a bit overwhelmed by the number but I *think* I've managed to reply to everyone. Apologies if not...