Sourdough lesson

I've been spreading the sourdough word and teaching one of my sisters how to make sourdough bread. We started on Friday with some of my Derbyshire/San Francisco starter, and mixed the loaf and shaped it ready for baking on Saturday. Well, what a success it was. It came out of the banneton with out any problems and into to the preheated oven with a tray of boiling water at the bottom for plenty of steam. We then sat in front of the oven window watching it rise whilst chatting and drinking coffee. We were so excited when it grew and grew - it's the simple things in life :D

Faux taxidermy

Finally, some pictures of knitting related taxidermy. Having made a Christmas deer head, I decided that I would like a bigger all year round one. I mean, why have one when you can have two?  Here is the Christmas deer, although it hasn't been packed away with the Xmas decorations, so I guess this is an all round deer as well.

Here is the every day deer head. Obviously, since this is in normal colours it looks so much more realistic. I did find that it was more difficult to mount onto the board because it is much heavier. In fact I had to take it down to redo the fixings because it was beginning to sag and peel away from the board when fastened with velcro, but I think that I've sussed it now with some screwed in eyelet hooks and picture wire.

Poncho Progress

You make something nice for one child, and it's like a fever going round, because you get a request for another. In this case it started with a pattern for a poncho from Simply Crochet magazine. It seems to take me about a year to get on trend, so you could argue that I'm decidedly untrendy. Anyway, the poncho thing started last year, maybe even the year before? but last year I thought it would be nice for our budding crochet beginner (a daughter) to have a go and she really liked the idea but was making all the usual excuses..... "too slow" and "hadn't got enough time" and "it would be quicker if you made it", and in truth I really thought it would suit her and would solve that perennial problem of the birthday present, so made use of all the spare time during the Christmas holiday and quickly made one up. I digress, however, and back to today's story, I inevitably was requested to make one for another daughter, it being another birthday present opportunity. As is the case amongst sisters, they have their own style and this poncho is as different to the other as night is to day. The first is an explosion of rainbow colour, and this is more 'grey is the new black'. It's coming along nicely, and should hopefully only take another week if I crack on with it. Just a quick note, for both poncho's I have used Drops 'Nepal' yarn which is a wool and alpaca blend. I didn't want to make so much effort with cheap acrylic and the Drops yarn is so reasonably priced, especially so if you can get it in the sale :)

After a day (yesterday) of the most appalling diet choices which included a bevy of biscuits and crisps and wine, today has been atonement day. Starting with a deliciously decadent smoothie of banana, avocado, blackberries, almond milk and apple, it was followed up with a fabulously fishy lunch which was surprisingly quick to do and was really, really tasty. It starred stuffed and baked rainbow trout with stir fry spiralised vegetables. The stuffing was a zesty sourdough and buckwheat concoction, whizzed in the blender with lemon zest, seasoning and lemon thyme, coated in olive oil to stick it together a bit. This was stuffed into the trout, placed on a foil lined baking tin and baked at 200C for 20 mins. Whilst this was cooking, the spiralised courgette, carrot and sweet potato was stir fried with some garlic and chilli. Super quick and surprisingly hearty (and I can wear my healthy diet halo with pride).

As an aside to all the making and baking, my Christmas cactus has again surpassed itself by flowering for a second time this winter, adding a bright splash of colour against the grey backdrop of the window.

Home made Christmas presents

At last the big Ta Dah for all the Christmas home made presents. This year's theme has been hats for the boys and headbands for the girls. All the headbands were crocheted from a great pattern by Rosedew from Etsy and have the appearance of aran knitting, but are actually crochet but  perhaps at an intermediate standard. It probably took a couple of evenings to suss out the pattern, but once I'd worked it out each headband only took two or three evenings including the flower. The especially speedy aspect was that the yarn used was a chunky weight and so the headbands grew very quickly despite the complexity of the pattern. I found another slightly easier pattern for headbands and with the chunkier yarn they were very quick so I made a number of these - see the cream headband below

The boys hats were two different styles. The quick and easy one was a Drops pattern for a slouchy beany in a 'Boshi' style. 'Boshi' hats were devised by couple of snowboarders and you can buy 'MyBoshi' designer style labels to attach to the hat's, which of course I did. The labels hopefully add a designer look rather than homemade or mumsy.  I think I made 6 hats in this style.

The second style of hat was also a slouchy beany but made with a Drops aran weight yarn and it was much more densely crocheted and consequently took a long longer. This is why I only made 2 of these!

I'd like to report that all the headbands and hat's were an unqualified success, but I had to make a few adjustments to suit their recipients - the headbands were a bit big but fortunately, they are fastened at the back and so I just needed to move the buttons at the back, although I stitched a couple of them closed so that the button is just for show. The beanies above also needed adjustment - the slouchy one needed to be more slouchy so I added some more rows and the not so slouchy one needs a fleece lining around the forehead as apparently it's a bit itchy! Here's a pic of my homemades on holiday in Scotland.

A Christmas tree decoration was also part of the Christmas homemade bounty. Here are a couple of them, although it should be noted that the tree is a very, very small one and the heart shaped one is for a Hull City fan. The little bird is the Attic 24 bower bird pattern from a Simply Crochet kit.

Everyone also had a little pottery penguin from the penguin flock I made during the 2014 New Year holiday. 

Sourdough buckwheat loaf

sourdough buckwheat

Just a quick post as I'm so excited about my sourdough buckwheat loaf. It's a recipe I found on a really interesting blog at http://phickle.com/gluten-free-sourdough-buckwheat-bread-recipe . I don't usually bake on a school night (working day) but I was intrigued by the prospect of a gluten free sourdough loaf. It's made with just water, buckwheat, salt and sesame seeds and has taken 48 hours from start to finish. I've no idea if it tastes nice, but will let you know. Nb the picture above shows tomorrow's lunch -frittata and buckwheat bread - all part of the eat well and exercise more plan for life.

I'll also try and catch up with my latest crochet and sewing adventures (poncho, elf, quilt, hat) and New Year holiday in Kent.

Baby hat and bootees

I've ground to a halt with a couple of projects at the moment so obviously it's time to start something else.........This time I've run out of deer making wool. I was convinced that I had enough wool before I started but a ran out after finishing the first antler. I only have one more antler to do and then it's pretty much done apart from making the mount. I actually haven't done the mount for the Christmas deer yet, but I'm waiting for technical assistance with cutting out the plywood. That might have implied that I was going to cut out the plywood, but actually I'm just going to wait until it is done for me :). In the meantime, I've crocheted a newborn baby hat and bootee set for a colleague who is due to leave at Christmas. The hat and bootee were surprisingly quick to make so it means that I have started AND finished something. Hoorah. BTW the hat and bootee pattern can be found here. It's in american crochet terminology but once you have your head around that It's a nicely written pattern. It also has front and back post trebles so is probably an intermediate pattern, but it makes such a lovely stretchy bootee that it's worth it persevering to learn the technique.

Here's a preview of my Christmas deer. At the moment, it's just lying around waiting to be mounted. I have a couple of weeks to get it done in time for the festive season...... 

Here's a pretty doily beret style hat for a daughter. The finished hat has a little flower on the headband which I hadn't done when I took the photo. It was a nice quick little project using some left over wool from a previous hat and glove session, so fit the bill in a number of ways; quick, cheap and a happy daughter.

This was a finishing off job. The garland was made around last Christmas and I made the buttons whilst on the New Year holiday helped by our (mostly) tame and very talented potter friend Rob Rutterford. Anyway, the pottery was glazed and fired and returned in the summer and all I needed to do was to replace the buttons on the garland with the special pottery ones.  Well now it is done and it looks so much better. I only wish that I had done 11 instead of 9 buttons because I didn't have enough to replace the end buttons.

This is very much a started rather than finished project. I want to make a door garland for winter. So far I've only managed the covering for the wreath and a few leaves and things, but at least it's a start. The best thing about it so far is that it is again using left over bits and bobs of wool. The random colour change wool worked particularly well as it meant that there was not a lot of procrastination choosing the wool and colour scheme - it was very much a case of JFDI (just flipping do it - the polite version)

Faux taxidermy

A quick post about my recent knitting projects. I decided that is was really essential to have a knitted deer head for the wall. I found a fantastic free pattern  for a deer's head and it really does look as good as the pattern. I found the instructions really easy to follow, although there was quite a lot of counting so it meant that I couldn't knit and watch tv too! Fortunately our recent holiday in the Yorkshire Dales was so wet it was quite appropriate to be sitting knitting instead of out walking..........obviously.

I intend to mount my deer head on a sort of fabric padded plaque, so will update with a photo when it is finished. I've pretty much decided to use some Christmas coloured fabric so that my deer will just be a Christmas decoration. This is mainly because I've started making another one...........how could I resist? The second one will be bigger and deer coloured and will be an everyday, always on the wall piece of taxidermy.