Crafty is as Crafty does

I'm plotting some more crafty adventures.

last week I picked 450g of elderberries. My Mum has also picked me about a pound, so if I pick just two more pounds of elderberries, I can make wine to my Dad's recipe. He's bringing me some demi-johns for doing that with. I also hope to make some plum wine, as the neighbours gave us a bucket full of plums!

Well, as you can imagine, there are more plums than I need for the wine. I'm also going to make some jam. The trouble is that I don't have any jam jars!
I do have about 600g of raspberries which are also lined up to be jam, but I've frozen those. I bet I can pick another punnet of them tonight too.
So, I think I'll need to buy myself some jam jars. (Though my Mother-in-Law has offered that I could have some of hers, which might be a cheaper solution!)

So, wine, jam - how cool! Anyway, we also identified that the tree/bush behind the shed is not, in fact, a blackthorn bush. Therefore it doesn't have sloes on it. It's a damson tree, and so I have also picked 450g (about a pound) of damsons. I'm going to make damson gin with some of them, and I might make damson rum with the other half if I can find a small (35cl) bottle of cheap white rum.

We're also making a scarecrow for the Bugthorpe Scarecrow trail. I'll post pictures once he's up. We're starting tonight by making a papier-mâché head.

On the fibre craft front, I am still working on the hoody, but I confess it's not really appealing to me at the moment. I just need to get to the top of the arms and it will be interesting again! I guess it's all down to my orangutan-like proportions - or so it seems! I've rarely met a jumper (hand knit or bought) which has sleeves the right length. Most often they are too short - the cuff leaves my wrist bone exposed, or in some cases they look like 3/4 sleeves even if they're not meant to be! Sometimes they are silly long though, but that's less of a problem!


I did cast on something new, a cowl. The pattern is Lava Flow Cowl (Rav Link) although I have made some amendments because of my yarn choice.



The yarn is actually much lighter than in that picture, it's the Llama yarn that my parents brought back from America when they went.

This arrived in the post this morning



It's greener than that (the joy of taking photos when it's rainy and miserable!) but really nice. It's 30% cashmere 70% merino from Colourmart. It's going to be something for Hubby for Christmas. He has seen the yarn (I had to check when it arrived, I was a bit worried about the green-ness) but that's all he's going to know about it! It's lovely stuff, I've already skeined it and I plan to wash it tonight. This is because Colourmart yarn is usually weaving or machine knitting yarn and as such is usually oiled. I want to make the most of the 150g I have, so I'm going to want to pick the most appropriate needle, and not have to make a swatch. (That and I hate swatching)
Then I want to re-skein and wash the bargain red yarn from the British Wool Weekend because it smells a bit fusty. Trouble is that it's probably twice as heavy as the Colourmart yarn, and it's laceweight. So re-skeining that could be a bit of a nightmare! I may have to do it into 100g skeins! That's going to have to be a project for when I'm a bit less busy. This week in my evenings I have to:

1. help with the scarecrow
2. pick elderberries
3. pick courgette
4. pick raspberries
5. pack for visiting my sister (and travel there on Friday)
6. organise present for upcoming birthday
7. go to Slimming World

I think that's all. But that's a lot to fit in to the next three evenings! I guess it's better than vegetating in front of the telly though, right?

Christmas

I hope that you all had a pleasant Christmas, if you celebrate it.
I had a nice three days with my sister, her fella, my parents, and my OH.
The picture above is us when we arrived next to the very tasteful Christmas Tree (really, my trees are always examples of the tree that taste forgot...)
We had a really nice curry made by notBIL (That's not Brother in Law) and my sister sorted out bits to go with, like naan bread and the like. Oh, and drinks, very important that. I had an organic fruit beer, which was very pleasant and went well with curry. We played silly games on the wii and had a pub quiz.
I was sleeping in the lounge on an air mattress, which was not as bad as you might think. We were up at a reasonable hour to open prezzies, after a cup of tea. I received some very thoughtful gifts, not limited to but including a one-person tea-pot-tea-cup from sis & notBIL, a sheep buff from OH, Shaun the sheep from my parents, and a secret santa prezzie from one of the Ravelry groups I'm in.
There is some really nice stuff in the box. There's a chocolate and cinnamon stick (eaten, sorry) some kool-aid (for dying yarn), an aromatherapy stick, some ribbon yarn, some cotton yarn, and a cup-holder. Really nice, and I have no idea who my santa is!
On Boxing day, keeping with tradition, we hit the sales. I didn't buy much, a couple of organic t-shirts from New Look, and a bread-maker.
Yes, you read that right - a bread-maker.
We've just finished our first (wholemeal) loaf, so I'll leave you with a picture of it. I hope it tastes as nice as it looks (and smells!)

Of Bread, Hats and Winding

Well, I finished the François hat for OH. It's pretty cool (well, warm...)
We've got some time off work at the moment. Partly to recharge, it's been a long couple of months with all the restructure and such at work. Partly to get some things done around the house that we've been meaning to do for a while (some of them for 3 years!)
One of these is to finish the curtains. I did the cream ones a while ago, and yesterday I finished the nets. Now I only have to make the outer drapes and the liners. (Only!)
Well, otherwise we've mostly been tidying up and that sort of thing. You know, the stuff you don't do because you're just tired and want to veg out after work. (Even despite my sore throat! How motivated am I?)
But, I got a little side tracked today when I realised that we had nearly run out of the nice organic loaf that we bought at the Farm Shop, and that the bought loaf just isn't the same level of niceness. So I've made some bread. Doesn't it look scrummy? The loaf on the left is wholemeal with pumpkin, sesame and linseed. The right hand loaf is plain wholemeal. I used dried yeast, and I used about double what they suggested in the recipe so it should be light. The recipe came on the back of the bread packet, which is useful.

So, other than the make-the-house-nice tasks, which we're doing a reasonable number of each day, I'm hoping to have a pretty relaxing week in the run up to the stitch and craft show on Friday. Minniemoll has kindly offered to drive a small group of us there and back. I'll make sure to charge the camera and take some photos of the prettiness I'm hoping will be there.
I have already received my show guide, and I have highlighted and named all of the stands of interest. I'm not sure what I'm most excited to see yet. I'm looking forwards to the Habu stand, though I don't know if I'll be able to afford anything there! I'm also keen to see the Wensleydale Longwool Sheepshop after my lovely visit to their farm. I'm thinking of picking up some 4ply from there for some cosy socks or perhaps for a shawl. I quite like working with 4ply, though I don't know if I could ever manage a sweater from it. One day. There must be patterns for sweaters that are as addictive as Monkey - Which reminds me...
I'm sure you remember this: Well, I wound it into a ball, which looks like this: And now I'm making "No Purl Monkeys" with it. Well, mostly no purl. There are purls in the ribbed cuff, and there will be purls in the heel. Another variation would be to really avoid the purls and have say a picot cuff and a garter stitch heel. Maybe next time. Anyway, the colour is Wrath of Kool Aid, and I can't believe how pretty it looks when rewound. I want to wind all of the hand dyed yarn I made, at least into new skeins!
Must do house chores first. And I like to think that there's a hope that I might be able to wear my Clapotis for the Stitch and Craft, though it's only a shade over half completed and I've been knitting it for two months now...