what i did on my summer vacation day two: lumber & cookies

the lumberyard wasn't open on the holiday monday, so it was back to town to pick up supplies for a raft and anchors.

i also had to pick up additional chocolate chips - the ones we got at the country cupboard tasted worse than a brown crayon! the yeast we got there was deader than a doornail, too - so i baked a loaf of bread and hamburger buns that we could have used as paperweights! my plan had been to bake more later in the week for the fair, but that flew out the window.

and unfortunately i made a tactical error with my anchors - i thought i needed 3 bags cement total, but i needed 3 per tire! whoops. i was a bit bummed, as the concrete needs 3 days to cure before you can use the anchors, and by the time i realised it, it was too late to get more. sigh. at least i got one done.

and of course there is always time for knitting on the dock!

what i did on my summer vacation day one: mighty oaks & pancakes

just back from the cottage! where we had a lovely time indeed, cooking, crafting, and just relaxing.

i'm always the first up, so i got in the habit of sitting on the porch, watching the sun rise over the lake, and knitting. i started a hooded baby cardigan before we left the city, hoping to get it done in time for the fair. here's how it looked monday morning:

you can see the pattern taking shape! then the troops roused themselves, and it was time to make pancakes.

we made a quick trip to the farm stalls to pick up food for the week, and then a trip into town to get some baking supplies - for bread, pie, cakes, cookies... you name it! peaches are in season here, so we got a basket to make pie. yum. after a big roast chicken dinner though, we were too full for dessert.

summertime

and the living is busy! i have been completely ignoring this blog basically since i took on a new project at work. suddenly there is no time for anything!

but since we have entered the season of wonderful fresh local produce, i have found time for things like making cherry pie and lemonade for lunch:

also, our cottage week is coming up soon, and that means the fenelon fair! and that means, get crafting.

i have a couple of things that i got done over the course of the year that just need tagging. unfortunately, i also need to find sample materials (scraps of yarn or fabric) to attach to the tags. i feel like i am swimming in scraps, but do you think i can find a scrap of scissors fabric? grr.

i do have a back-up "any clothing article (sewn)" to submit - this pencil skirt i am working on:

just needs to be hemmed and pressed. but i feel like a shirt is more impressive (it's certainly more work!)

i'm also working on a hooded baby cardigan, but i needed to order needles for it, and then this happened:

sad! fortunately i ordered from webs, and they said they'd send out a new set right away! just hope they arrive before we leave for the cottage.

i've also used the fair as a good excuse to get the kid's traditional xmas eve pyjamas done:

well, almost done, i need to do button holes and some top-stitching. i also made some pyjama bottoms for me:

i love this fabric! only problem is, the fair category is "ladies sleep pants," which is great because the bottoms are much less work than the tops, but it also means i have the top half of the pyjamas i started last year, still pinned but not sewn. i think the top half of the pyjama bottoms from 2013 haven't even been cut yet. oops.

wondering what i should bring along with me to work on at the cottage. mittens for the kid's teacher? a tea towel to embroider? the big project i'll be working on is this raft, so i may not have time for much else.

happy birthday victoria!

the holiday was last monday, but officially today was queen victoria's birthday. we had two kinds of cake. this kind:

a lovely present from our visiting friend jenr8, and especially welcome when i am officially not allowing myself to buy any yarn except for charity knitting! jen got it from the loving path in london.

we also had this kind:

a victoria sandwich! i had a moment of worry since we were out of jam, but luckily we had strawberries on hand.

i just ignored them on the stove for a while, during which i mixed up the batter, and they turned out delicious.

and the best most important ingredient:

yum.

victoria sandwich

filling:
1/2 lb strawberries
1/2 cup sugar
1 jar devon cream

cake:
1 cup butter
1 cup sugar
2 tsp vanilla
4 eggs
1 1/2 cup cake flour
2 tsp baking powder

combine strawberries and sugar over low heat. boil gently until it gels - you can test by leaving a saucer in the freezer to get cold, and putting a drop of jam on to see if it runs or sits. let cool.

cream together butter and sugar. beat in vanilla and eggs.

sift together flour and baking powder. fold thoroughly into butter mixture.

pour into two 7" or 8" round cake tins, greased, floured, and lined with waxed paper in the bottom.

bake 25 minutes at 350f, or until they spring back when lightly touched, and just start pulling away from the sides of the pan. let cool briefly in tins before unmolding on racks to cool thoroughly.

spread bottom layer of cake thickly with devon cream, then with strawberry jam. top with second layer.

to catch a thief: the pursuit continues

okay, i am a bit blah on the summer knitting, what with it getting cold again.

but, as a relief from the horrors of endless navy blue linen stockinette, i am tackling the charts for the to catch a thief top.

i started from a photo of the top - the biggest, most hi-res one i could find - blown up and printed out. notice that the pattern is basically symmetrical, so i'm just working with half of it.

i've gone over the outlines of the individual paisley motifs (or "paisles" as my sister and i called them when we were kids) in pencil, and then drew a rough graph over the printout to guide placement.

then i printed out a chart of the basic shell, and sketched the paisles on it roughly. once i had them in approximately the right place, i started converting the outline to "stitches" following the chart lines.

you'll notice some of those are half-wide stitches: you can do that with duplicate stitch! you get a slightly "higher resolution" pattern that way. next step is transferring it back to the chart file.

i will need to tweak the placement of a few of the paisles i think, but that's easy enough to do by simply copy-pasting. the whole process does feel like it will last well into next summer though!

sick day knitting

ugh. i am blaming the current round of ugh on the swims i took in the lake over the weekend. there was a dead fish in the water and i guess i didn't stay far enough away? i don't know.

worse luck, it didn't occur to me until too late in the afternoon that this would have been a perfect opportunity to watch the final episodes of mad men! sigh.

anyway, i have been plugging away at the dreaded fine-gauge splitty dark linen middy top, reading brideshead revisited and imagining myself in a more glamorous past.

this thing is taking forever. i joined the second ball at the cottage yesterday:

dark colours are so hard to photograph! it is producing a nice fabric though, you can see a bit better in this one how the linen and cotton contrast softly against one another:

this project will kill me, i swear!

that's the way it crumbles, rhubarb-wise

i had to make a dessert for the kid's school's teacher appreciation luncheon the other day, so i thought - why not make dessert for us as well?

this isn't really a proper crumble, it's more in between a coffee cake and a square (the version for the teachers was done in a round springform, so more on the cake end of things). in any case, it contains the best things in the world: butter, flour, and sugar. the three ingredients can be combined in so many different delicious ways. yum.

the teachers' version got filled with applesauce and topped with cinnamon; ours got orangette's roasted rhubarb and topped with a bit of nutmeg and ginger.

so good! it was gone in no time!

coffee cake crumble

dough:
1 cup sugar
1 cup soft butter
2 1/2 cups flour
2 1/2 tsp baking powder

filling:
2 cups applesauce, roasted rhubarb, or similar cooked fruit concoction

topping:
2 tbs sugar
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon (or other spices)

cream butter and sugar.

sift together flour and baking powder; mix into butter. use your hands.

press half the dough into the bottom of a baking dish (if using a springform to make it cake-like, press it up the sides to prevent leakage).

fill with fruit filling.

crumble remaining dough over top.

combine sugar and spice, sprinkle over top.

bake 30 minutes at 350f.