More holidays

 After our week in Cornwall, we all headed off to Lucca, in Tuscany, for a week. Lucca is a walled medieval city, and the walls are incredibly thick and fortified. You can walk or cycle around the top of the wall around the entire city (4km). Or you can take a horse and carriage. And stop the bicycle-gelati guy for a gelati on the way.

 The Guinigi tower is a bit of an icon of Italy, and it is a spectacular view. The trees that grow on the top are really quite large.

 

 The garden at Palazzo Pfanner. We really enjoyed both the garden and the palazzo, well worth the visit.

This walled garden was just around the corner from our apartment. It was lovely and private, with its windows looking out to the street. From the street, it just looked like any other building.
Lucca was a fabulous place to spend a week. Our apartment was expansive and lovely, there were playgrounds nearby, the kids had a great time and were fussed over everywhere, the food was spectacular (as always). I learned more about the intricacies of ordering coffee by visiting the local cafe every day, and indulged in a holiday favourite of cakes for breakfast. When can I go again?!

On holiday

We've been on holiday. The first week was spent at Tintagel, exploring some of the nearby Cornish villages.

Highlights for adults - seafood, local pubs, coast walks.

Highlights for kids - tractors towing boats, crab pots and dragon poo (don't ask).

Visually, the place was inspiring: herringbone stone walls, tapestried wildflower cliffs, monochrome quilted beaches.

Zoo Pants

We've had warm weather here in the UK, which highlighted a distinct lack of suitable attire for a trip to the zoo for a friend's 2nd birthday party. However, this significant problem was soon remedied thanks to my generic (but rapidly becoming too small) pants pattern and some lovely fabric from Laurie Wisbrun Urban Circus (Giraffe's Earth and Pachyderm Dot Earth on the trim).
And yes, we saw giraffes.

Cabbages

Spiral Cabbage fabric by Helen Klebesadel on Spoonflower. Check out her spectacular botanical paintings here.

Aiming to eat seasonally where possible is all well and good, but if you live in England it can be a bit dull for some of the year. Our veg boxes to date have very often included cabbages. Its not that I don't like cabbage...but I'm not sure I really like it. I guess I have eaten so little of it I'm not really sure of what to do with it. But I've had to try harder in recent weeks, and we now have two favourite cabbage-inclusive meals added to our repertoire.
The first is like a winter coleslaw-type salad. Just shred cabbage, carrots, celery and apple. You can include most anything you like, but those basics are good. Then top with smoked mackerel, torn into chunks. The dressing is some creme fraiche and lemon juice with a good dollop of horseradish, but you can't add it until the last minute as the salad just drinks it up. I make twice as much as I think I'll need, and we always use it up. This isn't a very kid-friendly salad (except for the mackerel, which our kid likes), but it is yummy and light and at least makes a stab at looking forward to spring.
The second is Jamie Oliver's Italian Bread and Cabbage Soup with Sage Butter. Really, the name says it all, except it is only just a soup. I have made it with too-fresh shop bread, and its ok, but it really shines with stale, crusty, ciabatta-style bread, which in this house means planning an extra loaf earlier in the week (I can't get fontina cheese at my local supermarket, so I used gouda and it was fine). But it is worth it, and the left-overs are even more delicious so make heaps. And its kid-accessible.
So for those heading into more wintery months, I would highly recommend both meals (although I can understand that the mackerel salad might be an acquired taste). And it looks like, on this side of the planet, that the cabbage experiments are giving way to asparagus adventures...how I love an early spring!

On my mantel this week...

Blues.

Spring greens

I started this top at the start of spring in 2010. It always seemed slightly too big, and I was worried. So when I became a bit too pregnant to try it on properly, I stopped knitting. I picked it up again at the end of this winter, when it is so grey and dull outside that the only sensible thing to do is knit in the brightest, best green you can find. I finished it in a week or two. While it is a bit larger than I would like, I still really love it. The cotton is a bit heavy, and it pulls down over my shoulders a bit, but I adore the colour and the pattern is very sweet. I would definately knit this again, although maybe in something a bit lighter.

Pattern: Peasy
Yarn: RYC Luxury Cotton DK in Cabbage.

Please forgive the not-so-brilliant pictures. I'll try to get a few that give a better idea of the yarn and colour, but this is probably all you'll see of it on me.

Charmer

 In the wild

In my garden.
Snakes head fritillary

Growth

The garden is just bursting into life. There are a few flowers scattered around, but most of the drama is coming from the leaves. The rhubarb astonishes me daily; obviously neglected when we moved in, with the most cursory care it has made a triumphant comeback.

Some of the roses have joined in, opening beautifully coloured new leaves. And almost every day I find a new rose that has been strimmered to the ground, or buried under rotting apples or a mound of climber, and has sent out a few wobbly shoots. I'm sure some won't make it, but others look like they'll give it a go.

Yesterday's discovery: violets! Tiny, stunted, neglected things but now I know they are there I can help out a bit.

On my mantelpiece...

Are you sick of daffodils yet? Not me....

Tastes of times past

Nothing tastes to me more like childhood than pikelets. Our babysitters made pikelets for us after school. Later, I made pikelets for my brother after school. I entered them in the local show (I think I may have won the odd third prize. My pikelets were never perfectly oval, which I seem to remember was the goal. I did better with the miniature garden category). And now I get to make them for my hungry boys. Turns out they are a perfect pre- and post-swimming snack, and conveniently sized for a two year old. And a great excuse for a sit-down morning tea on a sunny spring day.

My pikelet recipe:

Beat an egg, 2oz sugar, 1/2 oz butter and 5 tblspn milk together. Stir in 4oz SR flour and some nutmeg (or not, if you have a nutmeg-hating family member). Drop spoonfuls into a hot pan (despite using nonstick pans I still use a smear of butter in the pan, or they don't taste quite right). Flip when they start to bubble, serve warm (with butter if you're feeling decadent). Delicious.

Beginnings

With all this spring in the air, I feel the need to get new projects started and to tidy up a bit. Using up some yarn in my stash seemed to fit both bills. The only jumper-quantity of yarn I had was some Jamieson and Smith 2-ply jumper weight yarn in the lovely colour of FC54. I love the colour, but the yarn put me off - a bit scratchy in that shetland way, and thin. But its all I had - so I swatched. And you know what? It is so beautiful. It is very hard to capture the colour - this picture is a bit light, but you get the idea - gorgeous heathered pinks and grey-blues. A bit crunchy, but it is softening as I knit. The swatch went so well that I cast on the next night for a cardigan. Now the big question - do I have enough yarn?

Mellow Yellow

Our garden is currently green (grass, weeds & moss pretending to be lawn), brown (trees and bushes about to have leaves) and yellow (daffodils and forsythia). I'm hoping that this trend won't last and that there will be a lot more green and additional colours in the coming months, but right now its kinda cool. It keeps drawing me outside, promising spring. And these duck bootees keep making me laugh (thanks mum!)

Later than belated

A friend and neighbour had a lovely little girl last year. Yep. Last year. And not even at the end of last year, like I did, but in the middle of last year. Which is fine, except about 3 months before she was born I said that I would make a quilt and cushion covers for her room. Her mother had chosen some fabric and had been quoted a totally outrageous amount of money to have them made (the quilt in particular was ludicrously priced - and it wasn't even a quilt, just a single piece of fabric, front and back, with a single quilted seam about 3 inches in from the edge as a border). So I finished the quilt a month or two after she was born, and felt guilty about the delay. But then I started on the cushion covers - and got the heebie jeebies about them. The ones that I was copying (made for her first child) had a zip closure at the side seam, and piping. How hard could it be? Well, I wasn't sure and I didn't want to find out! Despite buying plenty of fabric (it is Elephant and Castle Blossom and Lafayette Peony from Designers Guild), I had a paranoia about wasting any and not making them to a professional level (like I would ever be able to!). Finally, guilt overcame my paralysing self-doubt, and I got started. This is the first one, and the second one was finished yesterday. You know what? They look great!! They aren't perfect, but they are pretty good considering my sewing skills, and they are handmade with love and care. I'm now inspired to make some for me :)

(my apologies - for some unknown reason Blogger is rotating my pictures for me today. Just tip your head to the right for the time being)

Winnings

The other day I won a blog contest on Made by Rae's Celebrate the Boy month - 3 yards of fabric from Fabricworm, from the Circa 60 Beach Mod collection by Monaluna. And it has arrived already! It is organic cotton, and is a bit lighter and smoother than regular quilting weight cotton, but it is glorious and makes me think of sunny days and holidays and shorts. And even shirts (especially the caravan print) - I know I said I would never make another one, but it seems that sewing shirts for boys is something like labour - after a while you forget about the process and focus on the wonderful outcome :)

I thought I would order the spots and the ducks as contrast trim, but they aren't quite right. However they are gorgeous in their own right (although I wish I hadn't chosen the spots - I have so many already!) and I think I'll have enough in those half-yard sections to make something for the littlest boy. But there are a few other projects to finish before I can cut into these beauties.

Pink poppies

I love having two little boys, and sewing and knitting for them. But there are so many pretty girl patterns out there that sometimes I just have to have a go. And luckily I have friends and family with gorgeous little girls to be recipients. I found a ball of Sublime Yarns cashmere merino silk in my stash, in a pretty pink colourway and cast on for the sweet Poppy hat. And guess what? It was finished the next night! Its a lovely and interesting pattern that knits up quickly, and looks cute even on my two year old boy (he quite likes pink, so he was happy to model). This photo somehow shows up the short-row wraps more than in real life, but its still cute (and my girl-knitting urge has been temporarily sated).

Delicious deliveries

In my efforts to avoid going to the supermarket with two small children, we have begun ordering veg boxes. It has turned out to be good fun and definately perked up my interest in food. I don't know about anyone else, but I seem to get into ruts with cooking - I suddenly notice that I have cooked the same five meals with minor variations for months. Usually I've tried to deal with this by using new cookbooks, but this time the veg box has done it for me. We still struggle to use up a whole cabbage every week, and we clearly eat less carrots than other people, but surprises like the red kale above have been fun and usually delicious.

One of the side effects of having a box of fruit and veg delivered every week that you don't specifically choose is that meals need to be planned a bit more. I really dislike the idea of scheduling meals - what if I don't want to cook that thing on that day (or eat it)? So instead I have come up with a system where I write down at least eight meals that could be made with the ingredients I've bought for the week, and then we cook from that. I love this new system - so often, the major problem I have is deciding what to cook - now half the work is done for me, and I really enjoy the time when I sit and go through books and blogs deciding what to put on the list.

Good mornings

I love pancakes for breakfast, especially good, big, fluffy buttermilk pancakes. But recently, I had some buttermilk that needed to be used and no great desire to eat pancakes (I know, I must have been ill). However, in my favourite cookbook (this one by Rachel Allen), just a page or two on from the pancake recipe was one for rhubarb muffins with buttermilk. They were quick to whip up (with pear instead of rhubarb) and so delicious. And of course what boy doesn't love cake for breakfast?

Going Dotty

I finally finished the baby quilt I started sometime towards the end of last year. The front piecing only took an afternoon, as did the back. The binding took considerably longer as I decided I wanted thick binding with mitred corners, and of course I made every mistake I could. But it was finally finished, and I quilted using my new walking foot (which is sensational, by the way).

I'm really happy with how it turned out - its a very long time since I made a quilt, and the first time to make one only on the machine. We haven't stopped using it - as a blanket, toy, playmat and draught stopper. It has polyester batting (I had a piece this size in my stash, and only smaller pieces of cotton/bamboo), which is fine for this purpose as it is nice and light and squishy.

Top: Kaffe Fasset Spots (using this pack from Cotton Patch)

Bottom: Amy Butler Full Moon Polka Dot (from various sources, but binding in Tangerine is from Emma Garry Fabrics).

Quilting: purely for my own notes, I used Presencia Thread Finca 60/3 in light grey (352).

Yes Way!

Something unbelievable happened this morning. I opened my inbox, and there was an email from Made by Rae, saying I had won the fabricworm giveaway run on her blog the other week! It is a brilliant prize - 3 yards of fabric from one of two collections - I chose some from the Beach Mod collection (including the cute Ukeleles above), and I'm so excited! Summer clothes for the boys have been playing on the edges of my mind lately (although I'm still sewing winter weight trousers), and this has just inspired me even more to get thinking of shorts, shirts and shortalls! Woo hoo! Thanks Rae and Cynthia!

Delicious things

Over Christmas, I started making panettone in the bread machine, using this recipe. It is fantastic. While you do need to leave a good 4.5 hours or so from starting to eating, it is very minimally demanding during this time and makes your house smell gorgeous. It is now part of our regular 'cake' schedule, and is particularly good for when you really have eaten too many cakes and need something a little lighter, or that lasts a few more days, or for breakfast. It also makes wicked bread and butter pudding. The picture is a bit sad, but I never seem to remember to take photos whilst it is still around - somehow I get distracted by the eating :)

Rainy days

More than one rainy day requires a little thought and excitement. Turns out making playdough is a mornings worth of fun: cooking, playing then washing up. Most excellent.

Moving on (3)

And the snowdrops:

Moving on (2)

Flowers in the garden too.

Moving in to a new house has the added delight of discovering a new garden. In older UK houses this often means discovering just how many bulbs are in the garden. Luckily, this house is no exception - in addition to very old, established (and long-neglected) rose beds and a stonking rhubarb patch, there are huge swathes of bulbs now popping up. The garden is currently bisected with a great patch of crocuses and snowdrops under the central apple tree. Its hard to get a good shot of the thing in its entireity (maybe if the sun comes out this week), but here are some close-ups. Today, the crocuses.

Moving on (1)

Signs that we are steadily moving on through winter towards the glory of an English spring...I have been looking at these for a week, gradually changing from red buds to golden tipped goblets. I love their wayward leaves too. A beautiful surprise present - thanks S!

Joint efforts

So while my mum was here, we decided to knit B a new jumper, as he was rapidly growing out of his other handknits and it was freezing! I chose the Master Charles jumper (rav link), in most excellent red Rowan Pure Wool Aran.

We knit size two, with slightly longer sleeves, and it fits just fine. It looks 'very smart' (in B's words) and was a quick knit thanks to aran weight yarn (and two knitters!). And I love that front cable panel.

Gifted (1)

Baby F was lucky enough to receive some gorgeous gifts, includings some beautiful handmade things. This lovely jacket is from Esmerelda. The picture really doesn't do the colour justice - it is a lovely variegated forget-me-not blue. Thank you, E - it is truly gorgeous, and gets lots of comments when we go out! And thanks for coming to visit on your hectic UK visit :)

This baby is growing so fast, none of these baby handknits look like they will fit for long, but the weather is ensuring we are getting to make the most of them while we can!

Snuggypants

Speaking of sewing, I managed a little before F was born. These are some trousers for the new boy - snuggly and warm, made from a felted men's vest I got at the charity shop, using an Ottobre pattern. They were meant to have the intact bindings as cuffs, but I cut the pieces out wrongly. In the end they worked out fine though - they are a bit high-waisted, but that is useful for a cloth nappied baby in winter - everything is kept nice and warm. Also, the stripes in the gusset match at the back, but not the front. I still love them though - he feels a bit like a teddy bear in them!

Covetousness

If you sew, and you have little ones, you have probably heard of Oliver + S. They do lovely patterns. And now they have a book coming out - Oliver + S Little Things to Sew. I am very much coveting it...so much so, that I might just have to buy it! These things are almost always 'girl' pattern heavy, but even so, it looks very sweet. There is a trailer here and some info here

PS Happy Australia Day for yesterday - hope you saw some sunshine/ate some anzacs/drank some good Aussie red in celebration (or all three!)

Christmas update

I know, I'm miles behind the times, but I have an excuse! Anyway, this is a quick post mostly for myself to remind me about Christmas cake next year :) In 2010 I made a Christmas cake from Delia's recipe (see blog post here). I fed it and petted it and the day my mum turned up, we cut it (16th Dec). The three of us managed to eat it over almost exactly a month (S ate the last bit on 17th Jan). It was very nice - more boozy and a bit more crumbly than Mum's melt & mix fruit cake recipe (my usual). I would definately eat it again, and it was pretty easy to make - but not the pinnacle of Christmas cakes for me.

Made with real gorilla's chest

Before I went on maternity leave, I started B a vest. It was autumn, and I figured it would be useful. I used my standard vest pattern (Drops b17-9 sleeveless top, Ravelry link here), made up some colourwork and used some yarn I got on special (Sublime Organic Merino DK). The yarn is a single, very soft and in very pretty colours. Despite growing to hate knitting this (thus the looong time it took to finish it), it turned out pretty nicely, and fits B well. The picture above is after two washes and one de-pill. It has sort of become a tunic vest - it's grown widthways quite a bit (luckily it was already pretty long, so it will now fit next winter as well as this one!), and the yarn has felted somewhat. I wash the kid's woolens on a wool wash in my machine and then line dry - if they can't handle this then they tend not to get worn. I'm a bit miffed that I put so much time into knitting this with yarn that I wasn't sure about, because I don't feel this is going to wear very well at all. My verdict: as usual I love this pattern, and think vests are the bee's knees for keeping boys snug, but will probably get rid of the rest of this yarn now.

Christmas Dress

I didn't do much crafting for Christmas this year, what with babies and two year olds and work and most family being in hotter climes. I did make one dress, for my niece G. It was a crazy day, sitting and sewing a sundress in the freezing fog (you can see some of the fog on the bushes behind the dress). But it is a great pattern, super easy and quick, and if I could just get the tension right on my machine then the shirring would be excellent fun! I'm slightly tempted to make one for me for the summer...although I don't think I can pull off red gingham anymore.

Pattern: Heather Ross' Smocked Sundress (you can find it either in her Weekend Sewing book or at Martha Stewart's website ).

Fabric: I have no idea where this came from, but I obviously bought quite a bit of it - I've used it for lots of things now. The ric rac is from the V&A.

Gratuitous freezing fog picture from the same day.

New Year, New Things

So the new year bought us a new family member. He is wonderful and gorgeous, and I'm having a lovely time swapping him through the handknits both generously gifted by various talented folk and handed down from B.