Sweet, sweet failure.

I tried to make a berry banana bread today, but failed. Instead I got a delicious pudding-esque dessert. Here is my recipe for those who might be interested in replicating my failbread:

Spicy Berry Banana Pudding

2 medium bananas (close to overripe)
1/2 c buttermilk
1 egg
1 t vanilla essence
1/2 c applesauce
1 1/2c wholemeal self raising flour
1 t mixed spice (nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves, etc)
1 c mixed frozen berries (or fresh if you have them)
brown sugar for sprinkling

Preheat oven to 180C. Grease some kind of baking dish or cake tin, loaf tin, whatevs.

Mix all wet ingredients. Add flour and mixed spice, mix well. Stir through berries. Pour into prepared cooking implement and sprinkle with brown sugar. Bake until it looks done, or about 30 minutes.

I expected bread, but it was a lot more moist than bread should be, and was utterly delicious with greek honeyed yogurt. Om nom nom.

And now, in case you’re not interested in delicious desserts, I leave you with a photo of a super-hot guy in a kilt. No need to thank me.

OMG I has baby!

Ok, so like, I had this baby about 4 months ago. Cute, huh?

We have… cat vomit.

Ok, so I mentioned in the previous post that I wanted to start playing with my spindle again. Well, I got all excited and decided to have a go without getting any hands-on instruction.

Allow me to introduce you to Cat Vomit, the ugliest handspun yarn, EVAR.

This was the fibre provided with the el cheapo spindle I bought off eBay a while back. As you can see, it’s not exactly even, lovely yarn. I’m not even sure if you can call that yarn.

I read somewhere that you’re supposed to wash or wet it, then whack it against the sink or tub so the twist sets. I did that… and it’s still pretty crappy looking.

That being said… it is my very first handspun, and I lurve it. I think.

I might ask P to drive me to the guild on Wednesday night… I think I need a few pointers

The Great Knitting BBQ!

Yesterday was a bag full o fun, and more.

We had a good handful of knitters from Ravelry descend upon the house, with brownies and salads and slices and dips and mini-cupcakes and more! That’s right folks, P and I lifted the usual anti-social blanket which tends to cover our lives, and we had a great big BBQ party.

Hooboy, what fun. The knitters played outside, the non-knitters played inside. Some of us had spinning and weaving and knitting and crochet and… others played Illuminati and Fluxx and seemed to have a great time with fibre related pursuits (I can’t imagine that there are pursuits out there which don’t involve fibre, but hey – it takes all types to make a world, right? ) I am now inspired to tag along to the Queensland Spinners Weavers and Fibre Artists group to learn to spin too – just gotta get some supplies organised!

Tessawoof has made a friend for life with six-year-old Grace who kept feeding her mini-cupcakes. I wish I could have caught a photo of that, so darn adorable.

To those who came round yesterday – thanks so much for your company, we had a great time and we really appreciated it. Hope to see you all again soon!

Facebook is a trip.

Facebook is so wacky.

I have found some folks I haven’t seen or spoken to in almost 15 years, living their lives and doing stuff and things.

Why is it so odd to me that people I used to know would have gone their own ways? One dude lives in China and does film production or something over there. Someone from a little nuthin town in Texas, doing totally neato and unexpected stuff in unexpected places.

I just spent 30 minutes chatting with someone I haven’t seen or spoken to for more than 10 years.

The world is getting smaller by the day. I think I like it

Blather…

Finally recovering from that mutant flu. Turns out that because I was so wiped from the flu and being up the duff, that a lovely secondary infection set in and I had to be treated with antibiotics. I’m not a huge fan of antibiotics at the best of times, let alone when I’m responsible for what enters the bloodstream of another person, but at least I’m on the mend and can finally get a bit of rest.

I’ve also started maternity leave (WOOOOOOHOOOOO!!!!!) which I’m totally excited about, although I start it on my own because P has gone on the Cycle Queensland tour without me I’m jealous. This year it’s Bundaberg to Brisbane, which would have allowed for some gorgeous seaside scenery, but I can’t even reach the handlebars on a bike, let alone ride one for more than 500km So I’m slobbing around the house on my own this week. Didn’t do much of anything useful today except a couple loads of laundry, but considering how tired I am, I consider that a win.

In an update to the last post about my Ravelympics sweater… I washed her today in Soak and some pretty warm water, hoping to shrink her down a little. BZZZZT! Wrong! She’s grown. A lot. I mean a lot lot. I’m thinking that I will probably have to either A. give her away as a gift to someone a hell of a lot bigger than me or B. actually attempt to shrink her in the washing machine. She’s still gorgeous, and I love the pattern and the yarn, but I don’t think they were a good match.

I’m now working on the pattern for the cabled gauntlets I knitted for my sister-in-law. I didn’t take any notes when I knitted them, and I wrote the pattern out from memory – funnily enough, there were errors! I can hardly believe it. But this time around they’re coming up nicely, and my girl K is test knitting them as well. I hope to add the pattern as a free Ravelry download at some point. I’ve also got the second sock of a pair and some almost finished baby pants to do, then I think I am actually down to zero works in progress! I had never been a monogamous knitter before, but I’m enjoying the fact that by only working on one project at a time to completion, I actually complete stuff. Who knew?

Ravelympics, baybee!

I can hardly believe it, but I actually finished my Ravelympics project with about three hours to spare

The deets:

Pattern – Juliet
Yarn – Lincraft Prism (70% wool, 30% soybean)
Needles – 6mm
Time it took – pretty much the whole time the Olympics were going. I cast on at 8pm on the 8th, and sewed on the last button loop at 8:37pm on the 24th.

I haven’t decided if/how I’m going to block this… it’s a bit too big, but reasonably wearably as it is. I might try felting it down a little, but I think that will obscure the lace portion so I’m still undecided about that.

Now all I want to knit is wittle ickle baby stuff, and socks. I have no interest in doing another cardigan for a while… I want small, quick, instant gratification thankyouverymuchindeed.

Oh, and for anyone interested… I finish work on Friday this week, WOOFRICKENHOO!!!!

ZOMG Dying.

So… sick… horrible head/chest cold, and of course I can’t take a damn thing for it.

Hopefully the quack will be able to help with SOMETHING other than “gee, looks like you got quite a sniffle there.” No shit, Dr. Sherlock

Furniture!

So I took some photos of the furniture, and the assembly process. I think P had heaps of fun building all this stuff.

He hates my pram though… I think it’s a rather fetching shade of green, but I don’t think he likes it much

Give me strength…

We bought some baby furniture today. We got a crib, change table and chest of drawers. All of it is second hand, but it’s very good quality and we got it for about half retail.

Now I just need somewhere to put the damn stuff.

We haven’t finished clearing out the guest room yet, which is what I’m supposed to be doing right now, but while P is taking apart the guest bed, I’m having a break.

This is truly harrowing stuff! Like, I have to get rid of things. Things that I’ve liked, at one time or another, for one reason or another. Things I bought, things I was given, treasures and trinkets.

Really, it’s just stuff… but it’s stuff with which I’ve somehow forged an emotional connection. I know I have to clear the old to make way for the new… but it’s just so hard.

Today’s casualties were handbags – almost half my handbag collection has been purged. I’ve still got way more handbags than anyone really needs, but it’s fewer than before and I will store them properly and tidily and try to be more sensible about what I keep. I guess that’s the name of the game – have some stuff, but be sensible about it and USE the stuff you have.