happy valentines: a romantic dinner for 5 with black forest cake

we had family over for dinner for valentine's day, so since we have heart-shaped cake pans courtesy of a garage sale, of course we had cake for dessert! my father-in-law isn't a big fan of sweets, so i thought, what's not too sweet - maybe a bit tart? cherries. and chocolate. black forest cake!

cherries are not in season, so i bought a jar of sour cherries to start with. i used about half the jar, i think. i started by straining out the syrup, sweetening it a bit (they were very sour cherries), and thickening it with a bit of corn starch. i also added a bit of cognac (one of these days i will break down and buy a bottle of kirsch).

the cake itself was a half-recipe of david lebovitz's devil's food cake. it was absolutely perfect, the most even and lovely cake i have ever baked! i only did a half recipe because i foolishly worried we would have too much cake otherwise. does that even make sense?

i really wish i'd taken a picture of the putting-together process. i am generally bored to tears by blogs that have endless pictures of everything (look! an egg! look! a mixing bowl with some sugar in it!) but one pic could have been quite useful. i sliced the single heart-shaped layer horizontally to make two thin layers, coated the cut edges with a thin layer of cocoa buttercream, and then - here's the clever bit - piped a thick edge of buttercream around the edge of the bottom layer, and another thick heart outline in the middle. then i chilled both layers before assembling.

basically, i was trying to recreate what i remember of the swiss pastries black forest cake i remember from childhood. the idea is to use the butter cream to create a vessel for the cherry filling, so you can get more cherry goodness inside without it squooshing out the sides. you can sort of see what the edge-barrier looks like in this photo.

anyway, i did that, then filled it up with as many cherries as i could get inside without overflow (and saving some cherries for decoration), and filled any outside gaps with more cocoa butter cream. then i grated enough of a bar of bittersweet chocolate to sprinkle over the top, and melted the rest with some heavy cream to make a ganache (no measurements, just eyeballed it), and used that to cover the whole cake.

then the cream! i always get organic or small-dairy cream, or really any cream that doesn't have ingredients other than cream. lots of commercial cream now has sugar and thickeners added. meh. i will add my own stuff if i feel like it. (i added a bit of icing sugar and vanilla, actually.)

i spread the cake with whipped cream, sprinkled with grated chocolate, piped a few dollops for the cherries, and then because i still had some cream in the piping bag, did a heart/arrow on top as well.

it was delicious! but my father-in-law still wasn't interested. ah well, all the more for us! it didn't last long, really. next time, full recipe of cake, and more layers.

also, i finally took a picture of my january sewing project. pyjamas!

february challenge accomplished!

my big resolution this year is to work from my stash instead of buying new stuff that i really do not need. harder than it sounds! but i seriously have loads of fabric (and loads of yarn, and... and... and...) and i even have loads of fabric that has been cut and pinned and bundled neatly together with the required notions. all i need is time and motivation!

i had the day off work yesterday to do some volunteering at the kiddo's school, so i decided to spend the morning on something i'd wanted to do for ages. a couple of years ago i found a great deal on a lightweight wool in a classic prince-of-wales check. for only two dollars a yard! how to resist? i bought the six remaining yards they had in stock.

now, i had a lot of ideas for this fabric, and one of those ideas was to try my hand at dying, seeing as i had lots of fabric to play with, don't really need multiple identical skirts, and wool is an excellent fibre for dying.

so yesterday was the day. i followed all the instructions carefully. weigh the fabric, wash it, leave damp, dissolve dye in 500 ml warm water, dissolve salt in 6 litres warm water, stir dye into salt water. wearing rubber gloves, add fabric and stir for 15 minutes continually, then let steep for another 45 minutes stirring frequently.

what i didn't realise?

one of my rubber gloves had a hole in it.

i took that pic after washing and scrubbing my hand with a pumice. my son says it's great zombie makeup.

anyway, i got the fabric nicely dyed! in the past i've had issues with blotchiness when dying. it's a long long time since i've even tried, for that very reason. i think that this time worked better in part because, being cold water dye, i was able to work the fabric with my hands to make sure the dye was evenly distributed. also, i cut out the fabric before dying, so i didn't waste any dye on fabric that would just end up as scraps anyway.

here's a before pic to compare:

i also got skirts made! well, almost.

this one still needs to be hemmed:

but this one is done and i'm wearing it today!

it's fully faced in cotton voile, to give the fabric a bit more structure (i think a pencil skirt needs to look fairly "tailored") and so that i can wear it in the summer without a slip. love all-season wool! i tried (and failed repeatedly) to take a pic of the skirt in action; this, sadly, is the best i could do:

the february challenge on the ravelry vintage sewing machine group is to make something from scraps or stash. so excited to have completed the challenge before the month is even half over! maybe i'll get some shirts made, too.

resolution time: get organised

gah!!

today i started on a big task: organising the stash. i have way too much stuff. it's crazy. most of it tucks away in the bay window seat, which looks innocent enough when closed...

but when opened, reveals a horrible mess!

i have a bad habit of starting projects and not finishing them. i cut and pin fabric, and then put it away. mostly this is because it is difficult to find the space & time to work with fabric and pins and scissors and machines with a 6-year-old boy in the house. i get as much done as i can, and then get interrupted and put it all away. because of this, i tend to cut out multiples, say, four shirts at once, and then get one sewn if i'm lucky. but with extras cut out, i am theoretically read to go at any time! theoretically. here we have four shirts, three or four skirts, and cushion covers.

ideally, by the end of this endeavour, all the uncut fabric will be measured, packed, and labelled like this:

instead of giant bags of mixed-up misery, like this yarn:

i got my "projects on the go" down to one bag from two. and i did manage to fill a whole bag of scraps and leftovers to get rid of. embarrasing, really.

and, i managed to cram it all back in - plus all my sewing patterns as well. i have another box of sewing notions that need sorting, and knitting patterns that need to get in there, too.

it all looks remarkably civilised when the lid is closed!

ringing in a sweet new year: honey cake + shelburne cowl

it's new year's day, and we decided to kick off the new year in the best way possible: with cake!

we were invited out to a new year's day brunch, and thought it would be a good occasion to try smitten kitchen's honey cake. it's a bit of a huge recipe but absolutely simple technique-wise, and i was looking forward to having three loaf cakes - one to take, one for home, and one to save for a rainy day (tomorrow, maybe?). and honey cake to guarantee a sweet new year is a lovely tradition.

i soon realised however that i only have two loaf pans! so i went with the two layer cakes opetion instead.

i read the notes, especially observing the update on leavening to solve the problem of the fallen middle. however:

wah.

i salvaged it by gamely chopping the fallen center out of the cake, slicing the remaining edge pieces into neat rectangles, and arranging them on a plate. i felt bad bringing it, but the reaction was overwhelmingly, "is that honey cake? yay!" so i guess it was all right.

next up was finishing my cable rib cowl.

i decided to go with the drawstring hat option, because why not?

then i tried to take a picture of what it looks like as a hat, indoors in poor light, with my own shaky hands holding the camera, with varying degrees of failure.

ah well.

shelburne cowl (inspired by shelburne mitts)

need: 2 skeins rowan big wool, and a 5mm circ

gauge: 14 sts = 4 inches in cable rib pattern, unstretched

cast on 60 sts using long tail technique, or other stretchy cast on of your choice. join to work in round.

row 1: (k2; p1) repeat till end of round.

row 2: (k into second stitch, then k into first stitch, then slide both off needle together; p1) repeat till end of round.

repeat these two rows until work measures 8 1/2" ending with row 2.

drawstring row: (k2; yo k2tog; k1; p1) repeat till end of round.

next row: as for row 2.

work 5 more rows in pattern, ending with row 1. bind off in pattern using stretchy bind off of your choice, such as yo; k1; slip first stitch and yo over last stitch. weave in ends.

cast on three sts for i-cord. k3, slip 3 purlwise to left needle, hold yarn behind. repeat till measures 34". weave in ends. thread through holes in cowl.

stash busting

finished the shelburne mittens today!

i still have close to three skeins of the rowan big wool left in my stash, too. i've had this for an embarrassing amount of time - nine or ten years? eek.

still, it's getting some love now. and based on the fact that the last, lost cowl i knit of this took two full skeins, i predict that the cowl i've just cast on will use up all of the rest.

i'm using the same stitch pattern as for the mitts - p1 k2, with the k2 doing a cable twist on every second row. it's super stretchy, with more character than a plain rib. i may do a drawstring to make it hat-able as well, i think there's a pattern in one of my vintage books for a hat that is basically a tube with a drawstring - maybe in the lux book? we'll see when i get there.

whether cowl or hat, it will be a great companion to these thick warm mitts!

sick day!

i have been trying to fight off a head cold for the better part of the week, and i think it has finally got me. so, to bed.

but the good thing about that is knitting! i've finished a mitten this morning, and right away seem to have lost the 5mm circ i knit it on, so can't start the second. back to the madtosh cardigan i suppose.

speaking of madtosh, i got a skein of sock in esoteric in my stocking! will need to hunt down another one (or two?) for a cardigan in that. i am all fingering-weight cardigan all the time right now.

but still sad that my zigzaggy cardigan in knitpicks stroll got felted a bit in the wash. sigh. still wearable, but just not the same...

more xmas presents!

another present has been delivered, so here it is!

my cousin had asked for a pair of convertible mittens, so that was a no-brainer for me! i had started these ages ago, but the first pair turned out on the small side. fortunately the kiddo's teacher has fairly small hands, so those went to her.

then i cast on again with a few extra stitches!

these are patons classic wool dk; i really like working with it. i made a little shell out of it for myself too, in a different colourway. i have a feeling i am going to end up with more of this stuff. but i reeeeally need to stash-bust first.