Knitting Update - Mittens & Hat!

Winter is nearly finished, so naturally I've finished a few knitting projects that would have aided me in the quest to keep warm over the last few months.

Actually, I finished these mittens a few weeks ago, but I thought I'd share them :)

Aren't they a lovely colour? It's Hedgehog Fibres Sock yarn in Pollen, which I knit held double

 I started knitting them before I actually chose a pattern to use, just using my wrist to guess how much ribbing to cast on. Once I finished the ribbing I found the Vintage Cable Mittens pattern, which conveniently had the same number of stitches, and used it for the cable pattern, and the thumb size... 

I also improvised the top flap, but I may have to add a crochet edge to the top flap's opening... We'll see! 

Aaand I also made a Hat!
I used The Chunky Feather and Fan pattern, and an Aran weight yarn held double, 6mm Needles... Knitted up so fast I didn't get a chance to take in progress photos! Seriously, two evenings in front of the TV. Boom. No more cold ears.
And it's loose enough that I can wear my hair up under it without it looking TOO strange!

Are you on Ravelry? If so, here are the project links for the Mittens and Hat. My user name is Hollytron, add me! I'd love to see what you've been making!
xx

Recipe! Roast Butternut and Lentil Soup

Autumn is here, and so squash and pumpkins have been in the shops for less than an arm and a leg. I had me a fancy for some lovely pumpkin soup, so after messing about in the kitchen for awhile, came up with this recipe. 

It's a lovely warming butternut soup with cumin, onion and garlic, and thickened with red lentils - because I can never cook them without them tuning to mush anyway.

Roast Butternut and Lentil Soup
Makes 4-6 portions
Ingredients:
1 kg Butternut squash (or pumpkin, if you prefer.)
1 Medium onion
1 Clove of garlic
1 tsp vegetable oil
1/2 Tbs Cumin
1 Litre of Vegetable Stock
1 Cup of red lentils.

Method
1) Roast your squash - I just chop the bottom off the butternut, halve it, scrape out the seeds and throw it into the oven at 200 C for about 40 minutes or so until soft, but you could make smaller pieces so it roasts faster. Once roasted, put it aside to cool, and scrape the cooked flesh from the skin
2) Sweat the onions and garlic - Roughly chop your onions and garlic and add to a large pan with the vegetable oil and cumin. Cook at a low temperature until the onions are translucent and soft. (Don't cook them too fast! If they brown it changes the entire flavour of the soup)
3) Bring it all together - Once the onions and garlic are nice and soft, add the lentils, pumpkin, and warm stock. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer until the lentils are soft.
4) Blend it up! - Once the lentils are soft and disintegrating, blend it until smooth.

Eat it with croutons, thicken with cream, or just guzzle it as it is. 

xx

Tutorial: Envelope Book

A long long time ago, way back in 2007, I made an envelope book for my Mum. A dear friend recently asked me how I made it, and even though I found the instructions I followed originally, I wanted to make a tutorial to show my own version, using materials I have lying around the house. 

If there's anything unclear in my descriptions, leave me a comment and I'll try and clarify. There are other really good tutorials out there on how to bind books, so maybe have a look on Youtube and see if you can pick up some extra tips.

But what shall we do with a book made from envelopes? My dear friend wants to use it as a recipe collection, and I think it would make a great thing to keep little paper keepsakes from a wedding, or a lovely travel journal. And you can use any size envelopes to make this too! Big envelopes make for big possibilities!  

So lets Begin!

You will need:

Envelopes (I suggest about 10, but as many as you want)

Stiff Cardboard (or book binder's board)

Patterned Paper

Coloured Paper

Fabric (or Binding Tape)

Cutting Tool (craft knife)

Metal Ruler

Scissors

Binder Clips

Tough Glue*

Strong Thread and Needle

 Small Nail (or something sharp to make small holes.)

Hammer 

*I used a glue gun for parts of this, but a tough craft glue should do the trick. Also, spray adhesive makes some parts easier, but it's not necessary. 

STEP 1

Measure your envelopes! Then take your Stiff Cardboard and cut 2 pieces the same size as your envelopes. Also, Take your coloured paper, and cut 2 pieces the same size as the envelopes, and 2 pieces the same height as your envelope, but twice as wide. For example, my envelopes were 11x16 cm, so I cut 2 pieces of coloured paper the same size, and 2 pieces 22x16 cm. 

STEP 2 

On one of your small pieces of coloured paper, mark a row of dots 5mm apart, 5mm in from the bottom end of the long edge. This are the marks for the stitching which will bind your envelope book together. Place a coloured page on either side of your envelope stack, making sure the dotted line on the CLOSED edge of the envelopes.This is really important, because if you stitch the top of the envelopes into the spine, your envelope book will be useless as an envelope book. (Ask me how I know...)

 Clip the envelope stack together with the binder clips.

(This isn't pictured here, because I forgot to include the coloured paper in my stack. I glued it in later, but this way works better)

Once the envelopes are secure, take your sharp pointy object and make a hole through the pile of envelopes on each dot. I held my nail in place with the Pliers and then Hammered it in, which did the job, but I'm sure there is a more elegant way of doing this part! 

STEP 3 

Thread your needle with your thread - Waxed thread is supposed to be good for this, and I seem to recall someone recommending dental floss (Minty!) Then stitch up your book through the holes you have drilled. There are several stitches you can use for this, you can use a basic back stitch,  blanket stitch, or check out this tutorial on Japanese Stab Binding on Design Sponge. 

Take off the clips, your envelopes are all nicely stitched up and ready to be popped into their cover.

STEP 4

Measure how deep your envelope bundle is across the stitching where the spine will be, and cut a piece from your stiff card this wide, and as long as the envelope. (In my case, this piece was a handy 5mm wide) This will be the Spine.

Also, cut a 5mm piece from the edge of the two envelope sized cards, and keep the trimming! 

Cover the two remaining pieces, the covers, with your patterned paper, making sure that it overlaps on the back a bit, and you glue it down well. 

STEP 5

Cut your fabric so that it's a bit longer than the cover boards, and wide enough to overlap onto the front of the cover boards when folded in half lengthways. Iron the edges so there's no raw edges showing, and lay your Spine, the two 5mm trim pieces and the covers onto the fabric as shown in the picture. Glue in place, fold over the top fabric and glue down also. Your cover is now pretty much finished, we just have to put the two together.

STEP 6

More Glue! This time, make a line of glue down the spine of the envelope bundle and place on spine on the cover. Spread Glue over each stitched side of the envelope stack and stick to the 5mm pieces of card either side of the spine. Leave to Dry. 

 After the glue has dried, take one of the long pieces of coloured paper. Cover with glue, line up one end with the corners of the small coloured page, and the other a couple of millimeters from the edge of the inside cover. Smooth out and close the book, making sure the long page creases smoothly and doesn't poke out anywhere. Leave to dry, and I do believe it's done! 

I think you deserve a cookie after all that. Or a cool Dinosaur sticker at least. 

Maybe you could keep them in your shiny new Envelope book? 

xx

Hollytron

Picking Favourites.

I've been (slowly...) chugging away at this 30 Day Drawing Project for the last few months. (At this rate it's going to be a 30 week Drawing Project... or maybe even 30 Years?) The first few ideas were easy enough to deal with, but then came the business of picking a FAVORITE animal. Then a favorite food, film, T.V. program, book, sweet...

Day 9, Favorite TV show (The I.T. Crowd!)

I must confess, I'm not entirely comfortable with this whole "favorite" lark. It smacks of favoritism! (see what I did there?) How can I just choose one favorite book or film? Besides, I don't really have things that are my favorite for any length of time. My favorites change over time and vary according to my mood, so the idea of immortalizing my current favorite anything makes me a bit squirmy. I mean, what if my favorite food is something really embarrassing in 10 years time?

Left: Day 6, Favorite Book (The Ordinary Princess)   Right: Day 4 Favorite Place 

 But, a drawing challenge has been embarked upon. Drawings must be made. 

Day 3, Favorite Food (Asian Spiced Salmon with noodles and sauce)

 And if choosing one is too hard, who is to say I can't draw two? (or more?)

Day 8, Favorite Animated Character(s!) Spike Speigel and Sailor Jupiter

 So am I the only person who resists choosing favorites? Also, if you have any favorite books, films to TV shows to share I'd love to hear it - Who knows, maybe it'll be my new favorite too!

xx

P.S. About the knitting in the last post? It got Frogged. Lesson: I hate Nupps. 

Crotchety Auld Thing

I have finally taught myself to Crochet! My poor mother tried to teach me when I was in that awful, stroppy early teen stage, (Sorry mum. Also: looking forward to it, kids.) and so I not only didn't learn much, but I also held an aversion to doing so for quite some time. 

But no more! And I am embarking on my first blanket project! So many firsts! 

This is also one of the rare occasions that I actually made something that I pinned on pinterest. How did I save patterns and webpages before pinterest?  My memory is fuzzy. ANYWAY, the pattern is Something Pretty and I found it over at Millie Makes and it was nice and easy. I say was: I'm not finished it yet, because I keep deciding that I want a bigger blanket. Which was fine while my acrylic yarn supply was holding out, but now I have to pop down the shop and pick out another colour... Maybe a blanket isn't the best thing for a first crochet project! 

I've also been working on other bits and bobs, in between pretty much everyone in the family being sick. Having three people in the family in three different schools means an interesting cocktail of bugs makes it's way home. Joy. I also finished the robot jumper (Yay!) but then it got put in the wash was ruined. (Boo!) But the robots themselves are still intact, so I may have to find some way of salvaging them... It's like the project that keeps on giving!

x

New Toys!

I made myself a lightbox today! I came across this tutorial and thought I'd give it a go... Seems to have worked okay! Since it was such a nice day I thought I'd try and make good use of the sunlight and take some photos of my new toys....

The new toys are - Shrink plastic, new mini-business cards (which are going to multi-task as labels)  from Moo...

And I found a little craft shop in town that sells daylight bulbs! So now I can take nice photos at night time too! (Do you like my shrinky-tea lady? I think she's destined for the shop, once I find a nice brooch back for her.)

The main reason for wanting a working lightbox is that I'm gearing up to add these customisable  invitations to my shop.... I'm still mulling over the wording of the etsy listing, but it should be ready to go in a couple of days! I know that this one isn't particularly wedding-ish, but I thought it would be nice to design an invitation that could be used for any event - wedding or otherwise!

Hooray for productivity! 

x

Sketchbook Collection

Hello! 

Lets start off the new year with some pictures, shall we? 

I like to dig through my old notebooks and have a look at what I was drawing this time last year...

See how things have changed over time...

and how some things stay the same. 

So all the best to you, may your year be filled to the brim with good things, and oddly lacking in the rubbish things. 

x

HollyTron

P.S. In the long, three month gap between posts, I updated my Portfolio Website. I'm pretty pleased with it! You also may have noticed the slight change in arrangements around here - It feels good to have a fresh look for a fresh year! 

Echo!

I haven't blogged for awhile because I have been busy... usually doing things I want to blog about. 

I've been doing a little bit of this:

A little bit of that: 

with a sprinkling of the other:

I'm also in the process of making the Halloween costumes for the kids - They're dressing up as Link and Zelda this year (Their request - Nerdy Parenting WIN) and I found a handy guide for making medieval dresses Here which I'm going to modify. Should be fun, right?

So that's what I've been doing. What are you up to? 

xx

Knit Happens

I've been knitting again. 

Top Picture is before blocking, bottom two are during and after. 

It's the Holden Shawlette, (Ravelry link Here!) using Hedgehog Fibres Silk Merino seconds and I love it to pieces! It was my first lace project, and thus riddled with mistakes, but the shape is about right, and only I know where the mistakes are, so not too much harm done. 

The best part is the colour - as you can see, it is Brown, Purple and Grey, depending on the light (as Illustrated by the photographs) and thus goes with EVERYTHING.  

So yes, I knitted it and blocked it all by myself and I feel really clever. 

On to the Robot Jumper!!

P.S. I'm also working on a new Etsy shop project which will hopefully be launched on Thursday the 23th of August. I'm slightly terrified*, but also hopeful... and really looking forward to sharing pictures! 

*Okay, change that to plain old terrified! AHHH!

Positive Procrastination

Everybody procrastinates, right? Well, there must be some people out there who don't, otherwise nobody would get anything done, and we wouldn't have cool stuff like Robots and Video Phones. (We're living in the future baby!)

But I digress. The point is that sometimes, those things we do to procrastinate aren't all bad. For example, I was all fired up about getting a new project underway. I had allotted myself an hour* to sit down and do some sketches. But did I do that which I set out to do? No. I cleaned my desk.

In fact, I sorted the entire workroom, but I only have photographic evidence of the desk. This took about 45 minutes, which left me 15 minutes for sketching before I had to stop and take care of boring stuff like laundry and cleaning.** I could have just shoved all the crap out of the way and got on with what I was supposed to do but I'm glad I didn't, because now I have a well sorted workroom, and when I allocate an hour to work on things I know that I can just sit down and start working.

So tell me, dear readers, how does procrastination manifest itself in your day to day doings, and what do you do with it! Or are you proof of my theory that there are, in fact, people who don't have this problem? (In which case, TEACH ME YOUR SECRETS!!)

*Time management: that's a whole blog post in itself...
** don't worry, the irony is not lost on me.

Redcurrant Jelly and the Art of Failure

Is a failure still a failure if you don't achieve what you set out to do, but you're still happy with the results?

My vintage copy of the Edmonds Cookery book (mine is the edition at the bottom!) tells me that "A perfect jelly is clear, bright and tender, and when cut with a spoon has a clean surface." Yes well, mine is bright.... and it hasn't set at all.

I think I know where I went wrong.

I was supposed to be following this recipe. It's Delia, and nothing could go wrong with Delia, right? Well, that only applies if you actually follow the instructions. Which I did until I got to this point:

"...add the sugar, stir until absolutely dissolved, then bring the mixture up to a rapid boil, and boil for 8 minutes."

 After 5 minutes of rapid boiling the mixture was pretty think, and I got scared. "What if I over boil it? What if it gets too thick, and it won't strain? I am using a smaller quantity that it says here..." and so, with visions of a muslin cloth ball of congealed fruit weighing on my judgement, I took it off the heat and began to strain it.

So I don't have a jelly. But I do have a syrup, and a pretty delicious one, if I do say so myself. Which counts as a success as far as I'm concerned. 

And how can you possibly fail at preserving fruit when you have a dinosaur "helping?"