Baking 101

You know those cookies that are really chewy and crunchy, but also soft and vanilla-y? 

Finally, after years of trying, I found it.

It's embarrassingly simple.

100g  butter (I used stork, because that's what I always bake with)

100g caster sugar )
A tiny bit of vanilla essence
1 tablespoon of golden syrup
150g self raising flour
Galaxy Minstrels/Smarties/Chocolate chips

Beat together your butter and sugar with the vanilla til its all mixed and soft. Add the golden syrup and mix again. Add half the flour. Keep mixing! Add your chosen confectionery (I had minstrels left over from an easter egg, and I don't really like giant chunks of chocolate so I bashed them with a rolling pin). Fold in the rest of the flour until your mixture is firm and unsticky, but not dry. If it gets dry - I guess you could add more syrup? but try not to do that.
Then roll into little balls and place on a sheet, far apart so they don't form one giant cookie (unless that's what you want!).
Bake for 10 mins at 180 degrees Celsius, but keep an eye on them! If they get brown quick, take them out. Then leave them to cool and turn into delicious cookies.
Make tea, eat.

I cunningly put mine in on 220 and then had to squish them flat myself because they baked too fast. This made 12 not huge cookies for me. I'm trying not to eat them all now.  

Let know if you try it. Or let me know your own magic cookie recipe.

(more knitting and bird based posts soon! probably...)

Birds and fishes

I've been meaning to post for ages (ever since I last posted, ironically), but I was kind of determined to finish something so I could look like a successful knitter instead of a person with a lot of project bags and an unnecessary amount of yarn. Finishing things is a lot harder than I thought, I slaved away for a full weekend on my Victory Jumper but need to re-do about 12 rows of shoulder shaping so naturally I stopped and started something else. I lost a mitten so Muckle Mitts were an obvious choice until I needed to change needles and didn't have the right size, so I started knitting a shawl (we aren't talking about my Owls jumper okay!).

I got half way, or probably more than that before I decided against this. You have to try these things, and I doubt I'll ever buy Colourscape Chunky again so I wanted something nice that made the most of the colour changes. Instead this looked a bit like something I wore aged 14 when I at least had the excuse that I was a teenager. Eventually I knit what I should have in the first place and it's pretty good.
Orca tails was designed for Noro but it lends itself to this yarn nicely. I knew I'd want it wider, and that meant not as long so I made an infinity scarf with one skein which pleasingly blocks a lot longer than you think! I'd love to know why Kaffe Fassett opted to call this colourway 'ghost' though, nothing ghosty about it in my view. This yarn is a horrible texture to knit with and rather irratic with its width so occasionally I'd be knitting with a really thin bit that I was worried might snap. But you buy colourscape for the colours, and it doesn't disappoint on those.

I'm trying to suppress the irratic need to knit ALL of my wool immediately, because in June I'm going to Ecuador for 6 months where knitting is both impractical and impossible (I doubt I'm going to have space in what I consider to be a tiny backpack for 6 months of clothes, let alone wool for something it's too hot to wear). Leaving behind all these potential jumpers and cardigans is hard, although I imagine I won't miss knitting as much as I'm going to miss food. And being clean. I'm trying to link these in but I can't, so, here are some pictures of birds from Cotswold Wildlife Park earlier today!

It's okay if you didn't notice I was gone

Remember me? No? Oh well... here's some knitting anyway!

I've been making these gloves (free pattern!) like nobodies business since November, and I'm still not done. These ones are for my sister, who probably has a sneaking suspicion they're for her since she says how much she likes the colour every time she see's them. Now they're finally blocked and buttoned she can have them... if I can give them up.





The other two pairs (gifted before I could get pictures since I was sewing on buttons Christmas eve!) I made in the suggested Cascade 220, which makes a much warmer and more substantial mitten. My sister is much more girly though, and Kid Classic makes a nice luxury mitten, with extra extra girly shell buttons to finish them off.





I also made my sister Kat by Kim Hargreaves because I wouldn't let her spend £12 on a hat from Accessorize that wasn't.even.wool. Honestly, I don't love this. I'm not sure its going to be my sisters fav either. Why is it so huge Kim! Why!

I have made myself something too. I've been really in need of a new scarf since I got myself a (very expensive but 100% wool 100% British) new coat. My favourite scarf is the Vanilla I made myself a few years ago that has been abused to the point its now about 7 meters long and an inch wide and goes round my neck three (hundred) times. I contemplated all manner of scarf patters before I realised it's okay to keep it simple. Its so easy to forget once you learn new knitting techniques that sometimes you can just make something easy if you want.



Old Vanilla hiding under expensive coat of wonder at Waddesdon Manor





New Vanilla on a tree at a quarry

I did make a few mods because I couldn't help myself, so cast on with waste yarn and grafted the ends together so I could use all of the wool since I only had two balls of this colour. I also threw a felted join in so nothing was wasted. I love it, maybe even more than the old one. It's made in Ribbon Twist by Rowan, which is really just Big Wool with some ribbon on it. I have LOADS of the stuff because it was less than £2 a ball a while ago on various websites and I have no idea what to do with the rest of it all, since I'm no longer a fan of super chunky garments.

I'll end this post with a few other pictures from the quarry because I like them.

Jane Marple - fashion trailblazer

I have stuff to post, I just don't have pictures of them to post with. Which is no excuse.

Anyway the other day I was flicking through ASOS and caught sight of a pattern I've been queuing for a while -

Source: asos.com via Lois on Pinterest

Miss Marple is pretty much a staple heroin in my house, so I can recognise a Marple inspired knit anywhere and this scarf is definitely that. I'm not sure why ASOS opted for such a hideous colour combination, orangey brown and navy blue should never be combined into one garment. I'm all for contrasting colours but really?! Not exactly something you can throw on with anything - Jane would not approve!

Here's my homegirl Jane, working the keyhole scarf in neutrals like a winner.

There are tonnes of these scarf patterns on ravelry, but here's a shortlist of free patterns because I'm cheap.

Source: ravelry.com via Lois on Pinterest

Source: ravelry.com via Lois on Pinterest

Source: ravelry.com via Lois on Pinterest

These combine elements I like, slightly softer and a little bit more interesting. The last one is my favourite, as it has a vintage feel without being too old fashioned. And the cabled one has well... cables, which I just really like knitting. The first one is frighteningly large, but with a bit of reshaping or different yarn it could be a more human size. But none are dead on so it might be a case of mixing and matching to make my own version, and then solving a few murders in it when I'm finished.

(I'm using pinterest because it links to everything without my wanting to kill myself rehosting and linking, but if its irritating I'll stop!)