New year, new look

Just for fun, I changed my template.
After 11 years, I figured it was time.

A brief word about knitting

I just went back to posts from January 2016 looking for my list of knitting goals and so on. I think my last such list was actually from January 2015, and there are still things on that list that I haven't looked at for ages.

I'll do a real knitting post some day soon, but I would like to say that although I only finished 15 knitted items in 2016, I did read 70 books, so I wasn't completely idle.

I have a few things on the go, but I hope that my first FO of 2017 will be a gossamer-light lacy bed-wrap!

A short history of my holiday

Seven days in London!

It costs a lot to travel at Christmas, and to stay in London, but amusement there is often free. We did our best to spend our time doing free things, and except for Westminster Abbey and a bookshop or two, we managed it.

We avoided the queue at the Abbey by booking our tickets in advance

It is so great having giant, top-rate, all-encompassing museums free to the public. We saw the British Museum, the Museum of London, the Tate Modern, National Gallery, Science Museum, V&A, Natural History Museum... I think that's it.

The Natural History Museum is a fantastic work of art itself

We also mostly had beautiful (but a tad cold) weather, so enjoyed the riverbanks and wandering about.

Late afternoon skyline, our first day there

There were some less-than-perfect days as well.

I would hate to have booked tickets for the London Eye in advance

It was definitely a museum-based holiday, perfect for wintertime.

I learned about Instagram on this trip. At the end of the day I could post pictures from our flat, where we had wi-fi, and share them to Facebook or Twitter via Instagram. Now, can I find you a link to my account.... Here you go, I think.

I also learned that my phone, though it is not great as a camera, is way more convenient than my actual camera. I took about 10 pictures on the camera, and leventy-million on the phone. Now I want a new phone with a better camera!

Those of you who have been around this blog since the beginning will know that I have a thing for British pillar boxes. I saw very few, and I'll show them to you later, I think. I didn't drag the kids to the far suburbs of London to find an Edward VIII box, nor did I even search out the Penfold in Kensington which seems to feature in a lot of movies. I did stumble across one anonymous box the night before we left, and this is the very last picture I took.

Why do I always find these things when the rest of the family is dashing across the street in the dark?

Now, just a few pictures, if I can edit ruthlessly!

Holding up a bench on the Embankment

We were amazed at the sumptuousness of the fabric, National Gallery

The "walk" lights at Trafalgar Square are inclusive of all

Lunchtime

So wonderful. 

Lion hunt, British Museum

Who wouldn't like to live in a chequered building?

The Barbican

Museum of London

Natural History Museum

A chicken dish in the V&A

Glaze samples for a potter, V&A

I'm glad we had this warning

Look, there really were pelicans!

On the Victoria Memorial

A jumble of styles at the Tower of London

Tower Bridge

Walkie-Talkie, Cheese-Grater, Gherkin and Tower

At the Tate Modern

And as the sun sets in the west, we say "Farewell" to Swinging London. I think we need another post about pillar boxes and the Tube, and maybe even some knitting, but that's it for now.

Happy Christmas and Happy 2017

Yesterday I finally got around to stringing up some of the shells we found on the coast this summer. All pretty things end up on the Christmas tree if there is nowhere else to put them! Like seashells with holes in, and even taps.

I think I won't be blogging till January. Arthur is back from university; Christmas dinner has been planned; flat in London booked and ready for us! I just need some knitting.

Ho ho ho, and all the best to all of you!

Baking for the holidays

Not much knitting going on, but I did get some sweet things baked. It's sort of silly, since Stephen and I are not really supposed to eat the stuff, but poor wee Arthur has been away from Mom's baking for months and Elaine has to have something in her lunch since she has to go to school till the 23rd... 

Chocolate thumbprint cookies with sprinkles and kisses

The kids always enjoyed making the pink and green cookies. You make dough, put green sugar in half and pink in the other half, make balls, squish them together, roll them in even more sugar and then flatten the balls with the bottom of a glass.

They use only egg yolks, so of course one has to make meringues with the whites.

We are not into piping bags around here 

Yum yum.

Pinky yarn becomes a hat

This is Odessa, by Grumperina, made with two strands of pink/orange sock yarn held together. One of the great pre-Ravelry popular patterns, as you can see from the gallery. We were show-offs before there was Rav.

Funny, in that gallery, my previous Odessa is very close to the top. That was made in the summer of 2007, and I joined Ravelry in October of that year. And so did everyone else, I guess, and we lost interest in things like designer-kept project galleries.

It is still a great hat pattern. I love the swirls, and looking back at that previous post I am reminded how great it looks with stripes. I wish I'd read that before embarking on this one; I would have contrived a stripe or two somehow! 

This will go to one of the Scrabble ladies for Christmas. Now I just need to think of something Arthur would like...

Got some new old magazines

Someone on Ravelry was getting rid of these old magazines, and wanted scraps of yarn to make cat-toy mice with in return, so, double win for me. I had a bag of small balls I had been keeping in case the kids wanted to do spool knitting, but since they hadn't, for several years, I gave her that and got a big bag of goodies. 

Lux, the soap, made super fashion-y knitting books. Love this outfit for watching the races. 

Even a pattern for a knitting bag! I doubt it would hold its shape in actual use, and it looks like it might get unbalanced and tip all your stuff out, but it's a nice idea.

Another book had these great kids' patterns: a little dress, a coat and a hockey uniform!

There were also several Vogue Knitting magazine and other things.

Sad news... The woman who makes toys for cats has cats, and all these gems were covered in cat dander; just flipping through them gives me sniffles and headaches. I might scan a few things, but I can't keep them.

At least I got rid of those little scraps...

Knitting news

I started a cowl with this orangey pinkish fingering wool. I think it's actually a wool/silk blend and it is very nice to work with. This is my second attempt because it turned out I didn't like the first thing I tried.

It is a lace pattern with yarnovers and knit-three-togethers, something on every row; no plain knitting. The pattern repeats every four rows, and it's not hard to visualize or remember, but on every row after the first two I found mistakes, and the final straw was when I came to a point where the whole K3tog had apparently not been done at all and the stitches had dropped down several rows. (I know, it's only a few rows, maybe six pattern rows, but still...) Some people can fix their lace without frogging*; I am not one, and if I'm going to rip out four or five rows, I might as well rip the whole thing and go back to my mitten... which is what I have done.



*There is a happy ending.
Thanks to someone on Ravelry who found that post when I asked about it. I thought it was in the last 5 years; it was 10 years ago!

What happened with the jelly

Jelly. In a mottled glass bowl. Well, you can see it is red, but that's about all...

You can't really see that there is a layer of horseradish on the bottom. I think this could have been avoided if I'd waited for the jelly to stiffen up a bit more before adding the other ingredients. I imagine that in a perfect jellied beet salad, the horseradish is evenly distributed, but what do I know?

Here it is on an orange plate.

There was a bit of an issue with the unmoulding. You have to warm it up a tiny bit to liquify the jelly on the outside so it slides out of the bowl nicely. You can get thin metal moulds to do this properly, but I don't have one, so used a glass bowl. So, we had to warm it quite a bit, got carried away and warmed it too much = a bit too much liquid jelly on the plate. 

I think the layer of horseradish is a bit off-putting. It doesn't glisten with lovely beet colour the way it should, I think. 

But people ate it, a bit. My neighbour had some of the leftovers today and said, "that taste was great and refreshing!!" And that's good enough for me!