Muffin Monday: Double Chocolate Blueberry

Today I made muffins for the first time in a while.

I think this recipe might have been a "reader favourite," suggested by one of you!

Cocoa powder, chocolate chips, blueberries!

Be careful to mix your brown sugar in properly or you might get a blob!

It's a darn lie about the 14 muffins, I must say. I could have got 12 big ones, but the recipe said 14 so I got out a tiny loaf pan for the rest, and had about half the batter I needed for that. Twelve gigantic muffins, I'd say.

But, delicious! Arthur was not entirely convinced by the chocolate/blueberry combo, but the rest of us are quite pleased indeed.

Eye Candy Friday

I've seen more butterflies than usual this year, I think. 

It's hard to get them to pose in the sunshine.

Just a quick hat set

I've just got to stop putting my hand in the air when people offer up free yarn for charity knitting. I got myself another bagful the other day.

There was one skein of Lorna's Laces Swirl Chunky, a wool and silk blend, soft, warm, bright!

In the skein, which of course I forgot to photograph, the yarn looked like I could make a regular stripe pattern, like this. But alas, I think you need a yarn that is machine-dyed. My colour pattern soon slipped a few stitches out of sync, no matter what I tried.

So I just made a hat. It is knit flat on the number of stitches I was using for my last attempt at lining things up, I think 49. It is not quite big enough for me; great for a 10-year-old or so.

But that didn't take all the yarn, so then I knit a teeny tiny scarf.

I will have to find a nice button or two and then a child can make a tight or loose cowl/collar/scarflette.

Perhaps I could have knit a less pointy hat and had more yarn left for a bigger scarf. Next time.

We are ready for our close-ups...

Went to the beach

The last couple of days I have been in London, Ontario, visiting my brother who has been away for a year.

We went to Grand Bend for an afternoon, looking at the beach and the lake and the sailboats and the ice cream stores.

lifeguard chair

How many colours!? 

As far as the eye can see, it's blue (and green and white and...)

At his house, we were awash in wildlife. First a woodpecker, then a shrew, a gopher, and finally this lovely deer, right outside the kitchen window! 

Apparently the neighbours have an attractive apple tree. She did like munching on some of John's flowers, too.

I got some knitting done, but will have to show you another day. (I took three projects, of course, and finished one.)