Alien Spouse

The Previous Shop Me and Resuming Knitting.

Last week I popped into the coffee shop next to my (heheheh!) shop, and got chatting with the very nice girl behind the counter.  When I mentioned that I was working two days a week next door, she said "Oh! You replaced me when I left!"

I had heard a lot about her, all glowing, so it was nice to finally put a face to the name and she was just as lovely as I'd heard.  I asked what she was doing now, and it turns out that her main focus is knitting - She's writing patterns and teaching people to knit.  Naturally I was intrigued, and friended her on Facebook the moment I got to a computer!

That conversation has also inspired me to get out my knitting needles again, especially since I retrieved my stash of craft supplies from storage at the weekend.  I have just cast on a lace scarf from a pattern on Ravelry, and I'm going to use up some half-skein remnants I have on an extended swatch before starting on the scarf proper.  I'm doing that because so far I have yet to succesfully knit any lace, and I want to iron out the technique before applying it to the actual project.  I'm really enjoying this already!

 

Molasses Cookies.

The Christmas before last (I think) I saw a recipe for gingerbread houses that looked really fun because they were designed to sit on the rim of a mug.  I had everything I needed to make them; except for molasses, so I bought that, and then totally didn't make them.

When we moved house the molasses moved with us, and I kept looking at it and feeling guilty.  This Christmas I looked at it again and realised that a) it needed to be used and b) it was not going to end up being gingerbread houses because Eva was not going to give me enough time for that!

I started looking for a molasses cookie recipe, and nothing in our small library of recipe books really seemed quite right.  So I used the one on the label of the bottle.

The batch I made this evening is the third time I've baked these in the past month.  They are delicious.

Molasses cookies.  Think about them.

Driftwood for Christmas.

I mis-spoke when I said that Eva hadn't had a Christmas gift from my Father-in-Law - He actually sent her a lovely illustrated book of fairy tales last week.  I regret the error (Additionally I note that my own Dad has yet to acknowledge her existence, much less sent her anything for Christmas. So. Father-in-Law is ahead on points here.)

Doc C and I got our presents yesterday:

That's one rather nice piece of driftwood, and a bit of palm tree that has had a glittery green pompom and a pipe cleaner glued to it.  Both of these were given to us along with very specific details of where they were found.  I think we're going to keep the driftwood but maybe we can return the bit of palm tree.  Of course we don't have a receipt for that, so maybe we can get credit instead of a refund.

Father-in-Law Christmas.

Ah, Christmas -  It's just not the same unless there is some sort of family drama, is it?

Doc C told me that his Dad had mentioned that he might visit sometime between Christmas and New Year's Eve... By which he clearly meant he'd be arriving on the 23rd!  Otherwise unannounced! Ta-Dah!

I'll be honest, we really didn't have anything particular planned, but it's still thrown me off my holiday stride.  I've been assured by Doc that his Dad won't expect us to do anything special like cook a turkey, and it's not like he brought presents for anyone (*cough* Brand new grand-daughter *cough*) so maybe I should try to relax.

After all, as I said, he arrived yesterday and has so far actually only visited us for about an hour this afternoon.  I had just started making molasses cookies when he arrived, and I was pulling them out of the oven when he left for the day.  He said he'd be back tomorrow, but who knows when?

Cubes of Milk.

In preperation for going back to work at some point (Hello employers of Asheville! Call me! I'm still looking!), I've been pumping milk and freezing it, so that Doc C can feed Eva whilst I'm out of the house.

It is so weird to be storing my own bodily secretions.  I mean that is usually serial killer territory, isn't it?

 

Costumes.

With ten days to go until Halloween I still have no idea what I'm going to be this year; I was a "Suburban 50's Witch" last year, so I'd like to do something different this year but I'm not sure I'm actually going to have time to pull anything decent together.  I do have an unworn purple wig that I bought two years ago as a back up option for my Coraline costume, just in case the blue wool wig I was making didn't work, so I might wear that this year.  If I whip up a witch's hat fascinator and sew it at jaunty angle to the purple wig, then I could easily just throw on something black and be a "Punk Rock Witch" this year.  Actually, I quite like that idea!

The reason I am so behind on my own costume is because I've been much more focussed on Evalyn's first Halloween costume, because clearly that is a defining moment in a child's life.  

Eva is going to be a Flying Monkey!  

Moth bought her an adorable brown hoodie with little round ears, so I've made a tiny blue-and-red fez, and all I have to do now is make some wings; seeing as they are integral to the whole "flying" aspect of the costume (not that I'm expecting her to actually fly, obviously.  She's a baby, she can't even walk yet, flying is just far too ambitious).  It's going to be very simple, but hopefully still rather cute.

Baking with a Baby in the House - Achievement Unlocked!

Today I have been SO productive, mostly it was boring stuff like sweeping the hallway, kitchen and bathroom floors and doing the washing up; but I also got out the mixer and made both butter cookies AND oatcakes from scratch (Nigella's recipe for both).

Yes!  Yes, I managed to bake something today!  That makes me unreasonably happy and somehow helps me to feel more on top of everything.

Of course I realise that this was only possible because Eva was happily relaxed today and mostly because she slept for a few hours in the afternoon.  Every day there is something new going on with her, and she is definitely getting more alert and lively; she's recently started cooing a lot, which is adorable, particularly when combined with a gummy smile.  

Eva is also very very close to laughing. Doc C and I may be feeling a little bit competitive about which of us gets that coveted first giggle out of her, and as I'm the one at home with her at the moment I currently have the edge on this one.  On the other hand, Doc C will be looking after her when she's a bit older, so probably get her to say her first word or take her first step, so I think that's pretty fair, don't you?

Five Days Until Due Date.

Doc C is back after the first day of teaching and he brought me a sticky bun!  That man knows me so well!

Today he made a point to warn his students that he'll likely be cancelling a class either this week or next because of the baby, so they are forewarned.  Usually Doc leaves his phone in his office whilst he's teaching, but for the time being he'll be taking it with him into the classroom; and I have been told I am only to call in the event of waters breaking.  It is obviously extremely tempting to call and just be like "Hi!  I'm bored!  How are you?", because that would be funny.  I'm not going to do that though, because Doc would have a heart attack and then be really really unamused.

To stop myself pulling hilarious prank calls on my poor husband, I have been reading a lot today and I think tomorrow I might even crack open the yarn stash and start making something for Eva.  I'm thinking booties that look like black mary-janes with socks, but I might start her first Halloween costume.  Decisions, decisions.

Technical iSsues.

For the past few days I've been coming home, writing a blog post on the iPad, hitting publish and watching as absolutely nothing happens.  It doesn't save the post, it doesn't publish the post and the rest is silence (or blank screen to be more accurate). Inevitably I forget that until the next time I sit down to write a blog post and... Nothing happens... I think it must be something to do with the iPad's Typepad app since I can publish from other computers, but I don't know what that problem might be or how to fix it.

Not to worry, you haven't missed anything earth shattering - Last night's lost blog post was all about FINALLY finding a book of knitting instructions that could coherently explain Kitchener Stitch (why is this so difficult? Mostly the other instructions I found never mentioned when I was supposed to drop the damn stitch I was working on and move onto the next.  ugh.) and I know how desperate you must be to read all about that!

Still, it's annoying.  After sitting at my desk all day, I don't want to go into the study to turn on the desktop and sit in there - I want to be blogging whilst I recline on the sofa with at least one cat settled on me and a police procedural on the television.  That is how you are supposed to blog. It is the industry standard, damn it!

Ask An Atheist!

Doc C spent most of this afternoon making this large sign for the (self-explanatory) "Ask an Atheist" event at the university tomorrow. I like the sign a lot, and hope they get asked some good questions!

Nancy's question is when she's likely to be fed, with a follow up question about getting rid of Edith.

I Loaf Scones!

Doc C is baking scones!

And he remembered to put on his apron! Which he gave me permission to post a (lightly disguised) photo of!

It's a good day!

Warm scones with jam and a nice mug of tea!

Paper Cherry Wreath.

Occasionally I get an attack of the Marthas and feel the need to decorate the house in some crafty seasonal way (this is one of the reasons I am only permitted a special dispensation to buy Martha Stewart Living Magazine at Halloween - Otherwise the inspiration would be too much for me and we would be knee deep in nick-nacks and bunting for the entire year). So long as I don't start spending a lot of money on any of these projects, Doc C has discovered it's best to just get the hell out of the way and let the crafting fever run it's course, because it's usually not a prolonged bout and the results are usually not so bad.

An excellent example of this would be my brilliant idea to make tons of strands of origami cherry blossoms to decorate the living room with, remember that? Fortunately this was pretty cheap, it only required three or four sheets of paper and some fishing line, I even gave myself plenty of time to actually implement the idea properly instead of rushing to get things together and it was going to be so epic!  Actually I think the very epicness is what killed it, because I ended up making only half a dozen strands, which frankly looked a bit sad all by themselves on the vase of twigs.

Still, six strands of paper flowers are better than none at all, and I had a spare vine wreath left over from Halloween, so I combined those together, threw in a glitter hummingbird and I am quite pleased with the end product. If only because of the angle of the hummingbirds wings, the whole thing perhaps looks a little like an overly cheerful reference to the "Hunger Games", but not too much, right?

Fly My Pretties!

On the way home this evening we saw a bumper sticker that read "Protected by Flying Monkeys", which is a great bumper sticker.

It immediately started me thinking about making a Flying Monkey mobile to hang in a baby's bedroom, I have an Amigurumi pattern for a monkey in a waistcoat with a fez already. All I'd have to add would be a pair of wings, possibly the ones from the Cthulu pattern!

Doc C liked that idea, and noted that Flying Monkey would be a great Halloween costume for a toddler. I could make a balaclava with monkey ears, and sew the fez straight onto it!

I think I've found our nursery theme (not that we are likely to have an actual nursery, but you know what I mean).

Blossoming Paper.

It's snowing quite hard, and my office is practically empty (Doc says we should leave at lunchtime) - So, naturally, I'm sitting at my desk learning how to make origami cherry blossom.

2012.

Happy New Year!

We spent yesterday evening at Randy and Laura's house with a small grop of friends. It was a very nice way to end 2011, and start 2012.

Today I slept late; finished playing "Arkham Asylum"; got half-way through "Genius Wars" and had a most satisfactory afternoon nap.

Doc started playing "Arkham City" (Catwoman! Squee!); made vegetable stock form the HF-W cookbook; looked on-line at houses for sale and has now settled in for a "Star Wars" marathon.

2012 is off to a cracking start!

Coffee Morning.

There must be something about me that suggests that I enjoy home-made baking, because for Christmas I was given a dozen banana cherry chocolate chip muffins and a gift basket of assorted cookies. We finished off the last of the biscotti this morning, so I'm going to have to try out a recipe so we can make more of them.

Tasty little devils!

Happy Martini Haze.

Well personally I like keeping the gin in the freezer, it produces a perfectly chilled martini that definitely softens in flavour as you drink it and I rather liked that. This has a dash of Angostura Bitters in it, and that is just delicious.

Doc C made this for me, because I was covered in sleeping cats and he then brought it to me in the living room. This then presented somewhat of a problem; how to get a decent photo of the drink with out distracting background clutter and with out leaving my station as comfy cat bed. Fortunately one of the pieces of clutter on the coffee table next to me was a sheet of crumpled red tissue paper.  I put the glass on the paper and held that up as a backdrop with my left hand whilst taking the pictures with my right hand.

I'm just as pleased with the photos as I was with the chilled gin. A successful set of experiments all around!

Halloween 2012 - More Photos!

 Halloween may be over for another year, but I still have photos to show you!

Bwa-ha-ha!

The Dessert Buffet of Halloween! Quake with fear at the coconut macaroons, almond cupcakes with chocolate icing, pumpkin tarlets, spiced butter cookies and chocolate frogs!

The Flamingoes of Halloween! In plastic champagne glasses no less!

The Dozen Battery Powered Candles of Halloween!

Sweet Amphibians.

It turns out that 1 bar of Cadbury's Dairy Milk makes 15 frogs, and I had four bars of dairy milk; so now I have 60 frogs. I also hand-painted markings on all 60 in two shades of green.

So for each batch I melted the dark green candy melts and painted that on to the moulds, then melted the light green candy melts and painted that on. Before I could temper the chocolate I had to wash the double-boiler thoroughly and dry it super carefully to make sure there was not a drop of water left, because that would ruin the whole batch. All of the chocolate had to be finely chopped to make sure it melted uniformly, then stirred until it was cool enough to pour into the frog moulds.

To get the bubbles out you have to whack it down on to the worksurface, before putting it into the freezer for quarter of an hour. Once set you flip the mould over and whack it the other way up on a chopping board, and the frogs hop out. Making chocolates is a surprisingly noisy endeavour.

So yeah, I spent the whole day making chocolate frogs and now I'm exhausted.

Making Halloween, Making Halloween - La, la, la It's almost here!

Last week I bought some very elegant willow branches to arrange in a vase with a few whisps of cobweb, but it really didn't have much of a visual impact. Yesterday it occured to me that I wanted to make it a much bigger, and wilder.

 So I went outside to collect small fallen branches from the maple tree at the front of our house, and added those to my arrangement. It looks as though I have a winter tree growing out of my bookcase now.

That's much more what I was hoping for!

Chocolate Frogs and Fat Little Chipmunks.

It's Fall Break, and my Department Chair said I could close the office! So I did and I have had a really fun day!

First of all I woke up really late because I'd turned off my alarm, then Doc C made pancakes. After that I had a shower and got dressed, before spending what was left of the morning making chocolate frogs and spiders. I am very pleased with how they look, I hand-painted the molds with different colours of candy melt to get the markings; the problem is that we only had chocolate chips in the house, so the texture is wrong. As everything I read about molding chocolate had predicted, the chocolates are just too soft and melt to easily. Well, I've bought some different chocolate to experiment with, so suppose that means I'll have to taste test chocolate all over again. Deep sigh.

After that I practised applying my new mineral make-up, watched the first episode in the new "Psych" season and finished making the party invitations.

We also spent a fair amount of time today watching the chipmunk that lives under our house. It discovered the bird seed that Doc C had left on the porch for it (the man is such a softy, but don't tell him I said that), the chipmunk had to make two trips and ludicrously overstuff it's cheeks to transport all the food back to it's nest, but that is a very determined little rodent. Edith was fascinated, and very excited.
Later I looked out if the kitchen window to see (probably the same) chipmunk swinging from the bird feeder. Again it did this a few times, so I got to watch it shimmy up the feeder's metal stand and then leap across to the feeder. It was pretty impressive.

Now I'm watching "Alien" (1979), eating smoked salmon pizza and drinking pumpkin beer.

It's been a bloody nice day.

You are Invited to a Suburban Nightmare.

This is one of our Halloween Party invitations, in fact I do believe this was the first card off the production line.

Let me walk you through my process.

Step One) I hand coloured the flamingo, because I didn't have any card in the right shade of pink; so I used a sickly shade of lilac and cross-hatched it with a hot pink gel pen. Then I used my iPod to find an image of a plastic flamingo, and traced the outline onto greaseproof paper; I used that tracing to make a template which I drew around. Finally I cut out ten flamingoes, by hand, from the now pink card and hot-glued cocktail sticks onto the back of them. 

Step Two) I used a round cookie cutter as a template to draw ten circles of the same diameter onto the mottled grey card stock, and then I hand-cut those out too. They were then stuck onto the invitations, trying to get them all in roughly the same position.

Step Three) I cut out ten strips of white card, and used a Martha Stewart paper punch to get the fence cut-outs. I folded the strips in half and stuck the back half onto the card so that the fence folded around to the front of the invitation.

Step Four) Having not found any suitable grass (I was really hoping to find bento grass food dividers, but then I remembered I live in a tiny town on top of a mountain in North Carolina), I was going to cut it out of green card. Then I found a packet of acid green shredded paper which I bought at Easter to pack cupcakes in boxes with and then never used - It's the perfect colour, and, hello, it says "Easter Grass" right there on the bag! Perfect! So then I had to pull out individual clumps from the tangle inside the bag and comb it out using my fingers, line it up and cut it in half before hot-gluing it to the card. Once in place I trimmed the grass, so it wasn't covering the moon.

Step Five) I hot-glued the flamingo to the card so it was silhouetted by the moon.

Step Six) I folded the fence up over the bottom of the grass and the base of the flamingo's stick, and hot-glued it into place.

Step Seven) Place in a row on the mantel piece to check quality control and uniformity across the production line.

Step Eight) Force husband to admire the damn invitations you've spent hours making.

And I still have four to finish.

Baking for Disbelievers.

This evening I'm cooking for the University's fledgling band of heathens - The Atheists and Agnostics will be getting almond mini cupcakes with a raspberry compote, and a deconstructed pumpkin cheesecake (spiced pumpkin creamcheese piped onto a graham cracker (English Translation - A square biscuit that is sort of like a slightly less crisp digestive)).

It's rather convenient that these are two of the items on my Halloween buffet menu, isn't it? But I'm sure the students won't mind being culinary guinea pigs.

The Crack in the Wall - Now With TARDIS!

This weekend I made art - Well, I cut up a t-shirt with a print I really liked, stapled bits of it to canvases of various different sizes, and then hung them on the wall. That's art, right? Sort of?

Eh, whatever! I now have a panel of the TARDamask Threadless t-shirt hanging up on our bedroom wall right underneath a largish crack in the plaster. It couldn't be much better really could it? (Don't worry Moth, I darkened the crack in this photo to make it a bit more prominent.)

As you can see I also made some mini panels with just one TARDIS on them, this portrait one is ok, but I really like the square minis better because the whole design will fit diagonally rather neatly. I put one of those up too, on the other side of the bathroom door, so we have TARDIS whizzing off all over the place. That seems much more appropriate than them being entirely confined to nice neat rows, don't you think?

I still have half of the t-shirt left, it was a front and back all-over print, so I could make a larger panel, or a cushion maybe.

 

The First of October.

It being the first day of October Doc C has allowed me to kick off the Halloween decorating - It also helps that we got paid yesterday, because I needed one or two things to get this party started!

I'd already arranged the dried rosebuds, assorted foliage and ribbon (which all came from the lovely bunch of flowers I was given by a colleague who does weddings - So this is a recycled bridesmaid's bouquet!) onto the vine wreath, but it needed more. Specifically it needed moss, fake cobwebs and plastic spiders. The plastic spiders are rings that come in packs of 50 from the dollar store, but I had to get 2 packs because they ar a mix of the black spiders that I wanted and bright orange spiders which did not really work for this particular project. I wanted to make this look like a really lush wreath had been left on the door for years and was disentegrating, but was still just about being held together by the cobwebs -Actually the rosebuds kept falling out when left to their own devices, so the cobweb really is integral to this project.

With Edith's help (how do people manage to do any sort of DIY craft project without a cat around to helpfully try and eat everything?), it took me about forty minutes to get the whole thing finished and now it's on our front door.

I then spent a couple of hours watching old episodes of "CSI" and cutting the rings off the backs of the orange plastic spiders that I deemed totally unrealistic for the wreath. I then poked a whole in the back with my handy bradle and then stuck a cocktail stick in each one. I now have orange spider cocktail sticks, perfect for my Halloween party snacks and drinks! Thanks Martha!

Mmm... Garlicky...

I have finally got the hang of baked aubergine (it's a very American dish, so it's usually called "eggplant parmesan" - I just can't do it myself), thanks to Sophie Dahl's first cookbook, and Doc C even likes this version where as he could never see the point of this particular meal before.

One of the best parts of making this is that it's really delicious with home-made garlic bread, and that's a treat we've not had for a while. It isn't that we're totally eschewing carbs, but equally we aren't training for any marathons in the near future, so there's absolutely no need to carb-load on pasta AND bread.

So garlick bread is back in the meal plan! Hoorah! I use a loaf of fresh French bread baked that morning at our amazing local bakery, and that bread is delicious in itself, so it's hugely tempting to eat the whole baguette in one meal - but I've been freezing half, which is hugely restrained, don't you think?

Ooh! Shiny!

I have had a scathingly good idea for Halloween party invitations. It will require a specialist paper stamp, two different colours of card, swizzle sticks and, possibly, faux pearls. I'm still thinking about that.

This calls for a trip to the craft store, as soon as possible. Which would be after work tomorrow evening, and tomorrow being Wednesday, this means a detour on the way home from the pub; this may result in some interesting impulse purchases. Glitter-rama!

White (Chocolate) Bones.

Today's plans to stay in my pajamas and play "Portal 2" all day were modified slightly when it became clear that I needed to get more baking soda and vinegar to unclog the drain in the bath, so I got dressed and we went into town. Now if we were forced to go into town for boring things, then we were also going to look at Halloween stuff. I know it's barely even September, but the Halloween goods are on display already and I need to get the good stuff before it runs out. I've learnt from previous years that leaving the Halloween shopping until the day before results in a disappointing amount of orange plastic junk, and none of the good chocolate.

This year we are having a cocktail party with the theme of Suburban Nightmare, this only requires a very simple costume for me which I already have pretty much got together, and so now I'm focusing on the menu. I definitely want to make cupcakes with something poking out of them, and I think that something is going to be a miniature bone or two. I bought the mold this afternoon, and have successfully made two white chocolate skeletons.

I also got mini-cookie cutters to make hors d'oeuvres of grave stones crackers and cheese slice ghosts; as well as a baking tray which is supposed to make molded bone-shaped cookies, although I'm thinking of using that to make bone-shaped cheese straws.

Doc C is also getting into our theme, and has had some really good ideas for the decorations and ambiance of the house. This is going to be such a fun project to work on with him!

Pre-Halloween Jitters.

I'm already thinking about Halloween, as ever; particularly this year thought because we are seriously considering having a cocktail party. I already have a theme in mind, so I've pulled out my Martha Stewart Halloween specials to find suitably spooky nibbles and drinks that would work with that.

First and foremost we are going to need black vodka to make all the drinks look inky and forbidding, and there are so many cookie cutters and cake trays available that my head is already spinning from all of the options.

That's just the refreshments, we also need to decorate the house and come up with co-ordinating costumes. Now I'm starting to worry that I've let this too late, and two months just won't be enough time!

Tiny Tasty Tartlets.

Doc C's department had a party this afternoon, which everyone brings some food too. This year Doc had checked ahead and ascertained that the main courses and side dishes would be fully covered, so that meant he felt honour bound to make two kinds of dessert. Damn.

He made coconut and almond maracoons, which were and will always be damn delicious; then he extended his baking repetoire to lemon meringue tartlets.

From the pastry cases to the lemon curd to the meringue, all you see was made from scratch in out little kitchen this morning by Doc C on a baking kick. My only note would be that the pastry could have been a touch thinner, but certainly not at all bad, particularly not for a first go.

Maude in Progress.

I don't generally post pictures of works in progress on-line, but I offered to make a pair of "Harold and Maude" (1971) amigurumis for Megg back in freaking NOVEMBER, so, you know, I thought I'd make an exception. 

This is Maude, I actually made her head when I was in England, so she's been percolating for a while now, and, after seriously months of internal debate, I finally decided to dress her in the outfit she wears to the second (I think?) funeral; so a classic trench coat with a pink silk scarf (not made yet) and a big yellow umbrella.

I still haven't quite decided how to dress Harold, should he wear the clothes he is in for the second funeral, or should I go for one of his more colourful and therefore fun outfits? He has a particularly great pinkish tweed suit that keeps jumping up and down in my mind, but I have no earthly clue how I would do that. Maybe baker's twine? I don't know. Fortunately I do know for definite that Harold will have very long legs, and they will definitely be clad in flares.

Door-to-Door Letter Opener.

I love this! It's another gem from the retiring professor's office, and it's a plastic letter opener with a molded decoration on both sides of the handle. One side is a travelling saleswoman and the other is a travelling salesman, and just underneath both is the logo for Fuller's Brush Co. I adore the "Mad Men" vibe on this, but I especially love the travelling saleswoman and her fabulous outfit. I want that dress, and those gloves. Gorgeous.

Naturally I did a little google research, and I discovered that these letter openers were promotional freebies from Fuller's, which is just delightful. These letter openers aren't terribly collectible and they are easy to buy cheaply on ebay, so I'm thinking I might turn it into a piece of jewellery somehow. I think it's too big for a necklace, but maybe a brooch or a bracelet.

A Bouquet of Pipecleaners.

One of our longest serving faculty is retiring, so he is clearing out his office and gifting the treasures he finds to his friends and colleagues.

Yesterday I was given this bunch of pipecleaners, which I'm sure have a future as skelatal structures of amigurumi, but for now are impersonating impressionistic flowers on my desk.

I also got several different types of card index, a beer mat and an elephant trunk mask; whilst Doc has scored a giant pair of chalk compasses for drawing accurate circles on blackboard. 

I Dream of Germs.

Last night I dreamt that I felt really ill, and was trying to decide if I felt well enough to go into the office. It was very confusing to wake up feeling totally healthy.

Anticipating warm weather I got dressed in capris, a t-shirt and a thin cardigan; I was just putting on my shoes when Doc C told me it was actually going quite chilly. So then I had to get changed in about thirty seconds flat before we left the house.

That was still the best way round for doing things, I'd much rather be healthy and somewhat warmly dressed in jeans, a long sleeved t-shirt and a cotton blazer.

However, I didn't know the central heating was turned off over the weekend, so it was bloody freezing. Hopefully tonight I will dream a pattern for really warm socks that can be knitted up very quickly.

Seis De Mayo.

Yesterday after work we went to our friend David's house for an end of Semester slash day after cinco de mayo party. Everyone was bringing south western food with them, so sort of, kind of, mexican-ish.

I made tequila lime cupcakes with a lime and sour cream frosting, and Doc C made chilli chocolate fudge. Doc very much liked my cupcakes, but thought the fudge was too spicy so he almost didn't bring it with us; I however thought it was delicious so the fudge came too. David had invited everyone for six, so I thought I'd be home by ten and planned to post then. Isn't it funny how after three beers and two margaritas you suddenly realise it's midnight, and you've been giggling like a loon at YouTube videos for at least an hour?

It was a very fun Friday evening.

Fractal Chicks

I love packaging. If something comes in a particularly nice box, well I may covet the box more than the content and I'm sure that my love of some brands is purely down to being swept away by their design aesthetic.

This may explain why I spent quite some time on Sunday choosing just the right cardboard cartons to package the cupcakes I intend to take to my hairdresser. I went with classic Chinese takeaway boxes with the little wire handle, except these are tastefully glossy pastel shades of pink, blue and green. I also found some Easter themed cartons, which were for the most part completely hideous, but I did buy one that had rows and rows of yellow chicks, with an occasional hot pink chick facing in the other direction. So cute! So impossible to get a good photo of!

I really tried to get something a little more representational out of the shots I took, and of course I really really wanted one of the hot pink chicks to be prominently featured, but it was not to be. Even with all of those caveats I'm still pleased with how this image turned out, I imagine this is, like, the cutest bad acid trip ever!

Egg-Cup Cakes.

I made mini cupcakes last night to bring into the office to celebrate two birthdays I'd missed, and to start the week off on the right foot. How much melodrama can there be in a week that begins with titchy little cakes covered in sour cream icing and shredded coconut or sprinkles?

I made the cakes and the topping last night, but I didn't actually ice them until this morning. So, if you want a fun mental image to start the week, you can picture me in the kitchen at 6:30 this morning lovingly smearing buttercream onto little dollops of sponge whilst wearing my pyjamas with my Buckingham Palace pinny over the top.

And for a sense of the size of these little loves, here's another photo of one of them in my hand.

 

Rhubarb and Custard.

For dinner tonight I cooked brown rice with chickpeas, which Doc C wasn't wildly excited about last time I made it; but that was because I wanted something really easy to throw together for the main course whilst I concentrated on learning how to make rhubarb crumble from a Jamie Oliver recipe.

Mainly I really wanted to use the small enamel pie dishes that I bought from Utility in Brighton, and which are the perfect size for individual portions. I also made Bird's custard, which was just not thick enough in my opinion, so I'm clearly going to have to make this again and perfect my custard making techniques.

Sunday in Norfolk.

Today was a quiet Sunday at home, mainly because both Stu and Ruby were under the weather. Stu being human made it easier to ascertain his symptoms, and suggest that taking a paracetomol and resting were the best things to do. It's trickier with Ruby because she can't explain what's not feeling right, so it is purely our observing that she is off her food, not washing and very lethargic. Tomorrow morning we will take Ruby to the vets, so I'll hopefully know more then.

Mum and I are both feeling fine so far (knock on wood - because that would be bloody annoying wouldn't it?), so we baked cheese scones, lemon & poppyseed muffins and peanut butter biscuits. Then we played Scrabble, and I finished making Maude's hair.

 

Stop Motion Animation of Crochet. It's Very Sweet!

This charming stop motion video shows an Amigurumi being made and each shot is a new crochet stitch. This is pretty much exactly how I make my little manikens, but I don't have any of those handy looking clamps and stands. Also I am rarely listening to music this perky, it's far more likely to be the TV on in the background with a nice gory detective drama or, in the case of last night, an oddly predictable Oscars.

Felted Heart.

I needle felted my first three dimensional object last night, it's the small grey heart in the photo on the left. The stripy background is actually one of my favourite scarves.

I didn't really choose the heart shape, the materials did that for me. No, really! I was rolling the loose strands around in my hand and they started to ball up, but then spontaneously assumed the rudimentary shape of a love-heart. So I just worked with that, and refined the shape a bit.

The funny part is that this is actually made from the fur that came off Edith when I brushed her last night. It was just an experiment to see if cat fur could be felted, and it can! That is quite cool! Huh! This must be how furballs form! That is quite disgusting!

When I went to bed last night I imagined that if there is a market for taxidermy then there also might be a market for felted heart-shaped mementos of beloved pets, and, of course, there is. As it happens someone is already taking commissions to felt objects from pet fur on Etsy, but they make actual models of the animals from fur clippings. I'm not sure I can compete with that!

Heart of Marmite.

This is high romance in the Alien Spouse house - Marmite on toast with a heart cut-out and a cup of tea.

And I thought I was Looking Quite Slim.

Oh! I forgot to mention another reason for realising I really do need to work on toning or, at the very least, my posture!

When we were in Asheville I wanted to buy needle felting equipment, so I picked up a pack of needles, a pack of wool roving and a block of foam. To double check that was everything I asked the very nice woman in the craft shop if that was everything I needed.

She said yes, and then asked when my baby was due.

I had one of those moments of confusion where I thought maybe I'd picked up a felting kit for baby clothes or perhaps she'd found my blog somehow and therefore knew I'd literally just come off birth control. So I said "Not for a while...", at exactly that moment I realised that what she meant was I had a bit of a tummy, so I added "Well, you know, I'd have to get pregnant first!"

The poor lady was mortified, and I could not stop laughing.

Risotto Recipe.

I'm cooking risotto for dinner, and I'm sure at some stage I'll want to cook it when I'm away from home & I shall want the recipe.  It's basically Lindsey Bareham's "Cheat's Risotto", but scaled down for two people.

• Half an onion
• Unsalted Butter
• 2/3 cup of Arborio Rice
• 1/4 cup of white wine
• 2 cups of vegetable stock
• Italian 4 Cheese Blend

Soften the onion in the butter. Add the rice & stir to coat with the butter. Add the wine and stir until that has been absorbed. Add 1 1/2 cups of the stock, stir and bring to the simmer. Put the lid on the pan, turn off the heat and leave alone for half an hour. No peeking.

After letting the rice cook in the steam, return to a medium heat and add the rest of the stock. Stir in a knob of butter and a handful of cheese. Serve with more cheese on top.

At the moment my two favourite risottos are roasted butter nut squash (that's what we're having tonight. The squash is cubed and roasted whilst I'm cooking everything else, and then added at the end), and mushroom with lemon and tabasco. Yum!

Glazed Lemon Bundt Skull Cakes.

Oh poor skull-shaped baking tray!  Don't cry! We have eggs now, so I can bake something with you!

Instead of cupcakes, which I thought might be a bit too delicate, I whipped up some lemon bundt cakes based on Nigella Lawson's recipe.  They held the shape of the tin really well, and I drizelled them with a lemon syrup glaze rather than smother them in icing.  These would need to be very carefully decorated to really emphasize the skull's features, but with just a glaze it's actually quite subtle.  You know, for a skull.

Skull Cupcake Tray.

After breakfast this morning I washed up the skull-shaped cupcake baking sheet that I bought in Boston, so I could try it out.  I was hoping they would work out well enough to take to Randy and Laura's when we went over to play "Arkham Asylum".

The snow got worse and worse, so first of all our game day had to be postponed until next weekend, and then we started to think we were going to be snowed in for a while.  I thought I'd make the cupcakes anyway, but then Doc C told me we didn't have any eggs, so I couldn't.

Now this was a worry, because we then realised we didn't have a whole bunch of other stuff we might need if we did get stuck in the house; like toothpaste and cat litter.  Yikes.  Fortunately there was a break in the blizzard for about a couple of hours, and we were able to go shopping.  

Tomorrow there will be skull shaped cakes.

World History and It's Effects On Knitting.

As you may have gathered from the photo illustration for today, I've been doing some knitting over the holidays.  To be precise, I think I've added 4 diamonds in length to the scarf which I've been working on for... Oh... Three months now... To be fair to both the scarf itself and my own knitting ability, this hasn't been my primary project at any point over those months and it is the first intarsia pattern I've tried and, let's not forget it's double-sided, so really it's twice as long.  Sort of.

Anyway, the most exciting knitting development whilst in Boston was that I bought another knitting book, and was persuaded by it's glowing accounts of the high speeds that were achievable by knitting according to the Continental method. The main difference is you hold the yarn in your left hand instead of your right, so both hands do an equal amount of work and there are fewer steps involved in each stitch.

According to this entry on Wikipedia the Continental style fell out of popularity in the UK and America around World War II because of it's associations with Germany, which I find very odd.  I understand not wanting to look unpatriotic during a war, but why switch to a less efficient method of knitting just when it seems likely you'll have less time to waste when producing very necessary items of warm clothing?  It's most peculiar to think that a change in the way people knit was a lasting effect of the Second World War, but then this could easily be an urban knitting legend don't you think?  How on earth would one go about researching such a thing anyway?  Fascinating!

Pre-Christmas Monday.

Today I tidied the study and the cupboards whilst listening to Goldfrapp, and then I put together the dough for cookies whilst watching "Miss Marple" (Thanks Moth!) Now I'm baking the cookies whilst watching "Leverage".  There's just something about pastry made with a crime drama playing in the background, that's the secret to my butter cookies actually.

Tomorrow I'll probably do some laundry whilst making mince pies, and watching "Psych" or maybe "Cold Case".

It's all go!

 

Mackenzie.

This is the amigurumi I made for my work friend Amy's Christmas basket.  She's based on a particularly terrifying small girl featured in the reality television series "Toddlers and Tiaras", who has become something of a by-word in our office for the majestic power of a well timed strop.  It's worth pondering from time to time.

The Traditional Pie of Christmas.

The blizzard finally made it's appearance, and so the University was closed today - Snow Day!  Woo!

I'd made mincemeat yesterday, following a recipe in Nigella's "How to Be A Domestic Goddess" which is really easy to make and delicious.  It's cooking apples, raisins, currants, almonds, lemon juice, zest, mixed spices, sugar and cider.  Unless you forgot to buy cider, in which case why not improvise with that bottle of Chardonnay that's been lurking in the fridge?  Also don't forget the rum, but you can skip the suggested cherries if you like.  Basically you put everything in a large saucepan, simmer it until it goes pulpy and there you have it.

Today was clearly pastry making day, so we could have some mince pies and a nice cup of when Doc C had finished his grading quota for the day.  These were gone almost as soon as they were cool enough to eat, but I've still got half the dough left and two-thirds of the mincemeat so there will be more tomorrow!  YUM!