I want to show you something handmade that's exquisitely beautiful, even though it has nothing to do with yarn. It's a perfect replica of our brewery home, made with paper by the artist-craftswoman, Silvina De Vita, aka My Papercut Forest. There's even a light inside, too! How stunningly beautiful is this piece? I'll scatter photos of it lit and unlit throughout this post, but first, a bit of backstory... A year(ish) ago, I went to London to be filmed for an episode of the BBC television Continue Reading
The Easiest, Tastiest, Cake Recipe Ever, Or My Name’s Not Hieronymus Winklebottom
A knitter's gotta eat, yeah? You need fuel in order to retain your grip on sanity when you get to that part of the pattern. You know, the part that the designer wrote when they were having a really bad day because they'd just accidentally boil-washed their cashmere, so they decided to give free rein to their inner sadist because if they were suffering, then you should sure-as-eggs be suffering too. So instead of the easy, restful garter stitch they'd been suggesting for the body of this Continue Reading
And Then Suddenly, Dinner Was Ready.
Gosh, thank you for your kind words on the crocheted garden. I'd best get on with the next section, then... Meanwhile, let's talk about food. Way back in April, I promised you dinner. Yeah, yeah, you've probably worked up quite some appetite by now: sorry for the delay. Well the good news is that dinner has finally finished growing, muchly helped by this mad sun-rain-sun-hail-sun-apocalypse-sun weather we've been a-having. Even the clouds have been a little crazy. Here's a few I snapped during Continue Reading
Let Them Eat Cake. (And Chocolate).
Chocolaty felicitations to those amongst you of an Eastery inclination. And even if Easter isn't your thing, I hope you have some cocoa solids handy anyway. Because, well, chocolate. Given the ongoing grey/damp outside, I've been creating colour in the indoor flowerbeds. This. Project. Is. Going. To. Be. Finished. Very. Soon. Or. I. Will. Scream. The plants/foliage are aggressively crocheted, and then I'm embroidering on the flowers. But never mind that, it's Easter. Despite the fact that Continue Reading
Easter. Chocolate. Home-Brew.
Typical. You put out a blog post about how cold and grey it is, and barely have the pixels dried on the screen (my understanding of technological hardware may be imperfect) when the sun leaps out from behind a cloud, yelling "TA-DA!" and makes everything springlike. That said, by the time you read this, it's due to be dull and damp again. This blog post is brought to you courtesy of the Stoic Spouse's homebrew (which is actually rather tasty), so don't be surprised if the final few paragraphs Continue Reading
Family Stuff
So I tidied my study. Can you tell that this is going to be an edge-of-your-seat blog post, a white knuckle ride of dastardly deeds and derring-do? Well if you'd seen the state of the room beforehand, you might feel that you weren't too far awry in that opinion. (There was going to be knitting in this post, too, but quirky study stuff took over, so the knitted pretties are reserved for next time. Please do stick around, my fine fibrous friends.) Anyway, would you like to take a look around, Continue Reading
Something’s Brewing At The Brewery
It's been many decades since beer was last made here in our converted brewery home, although walking around the oldest part of the house, you can still see plenty of signs of what went on where. The Stoic Spouse made a token effort at authenticity last year when he bought an old wooden barrel to convert into a water butt, but we later discovered that it was actually a red wine barrel. Man, that barrel smelled good. Anyway, sometimes a lass needs peace and quiet, so last weekend I sent the Continue Reading
A Ludicrously Easy Bread Recipe (Before I Get Back To The Knitting)
OK, this post isn't strictly knitting, but... This bread recipe is so easy that it ought to be illegal, because such an extreme level of gorgeousness will make folk assume that you slaved over it for hours, and it's surely wrong to be the source of such deception. When I say that it takes two minutes* to put together, I'm not joking, and I say that as the person who looks at most recipes and thinks, "Yeah right is that gonna take a mere half hour to make: two hours, more like." So in case Continue Reading
Christmas
So for those of you of a Christmassy persuasion, how was your festive season? As usual we hosted here at the brewery, but I confess that I wasn't really feeling it after the fire (and some further sad events) at work. Instead, I had an urge to creep away to a quiet corner and think about stuff, which obviously wasn't going to happen with small, excited twins in tow. Fortunately the Stoic Spouse did a sterling job of feeding us all to the point of near-bursting, whilst I was in charge of Continue Reading
The Week My Knitting Needles Fell Silent For A While
It began with a birthday: mine, as it so happens. A few days ago. How old? Let's just say that my age is a number that provides the twinnage with the impression that they're geniuses for having successfully counted so very high. Yeah, thanks boys. In my head, I'm still down wiv da kidz. But then, my 96-year-old grandmother said to me the other week that she still feels young until she remembers that her own daughter is now a grandmother. That fact makes her feel very old indeed. (None of us were Continue Reading