Mooncalf made me do it…

I used to be a fairly prolific cross stitcher when I was a child, but I stopped because I didn’t know what to do with all the finished pieces that were accumulating in my bedroom drawers (plus there’s only so many times you can cross stitch Forever Friends kits before getting bored!).  I vividly remember the last thing I stitched; a panda that I’d designed and charted myself. I probably still have it shut up in a box somewhere since I never throw anything away.

But seeing all of Mooncalf’s beautiful makes over the past few months has inspired me to pick it up again. I stitched this last night whilst watching the first couple of episodes of Fringe (I’m a little late to it, but totally my new favourite show!). I think this is going to be addictive…

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eat, drink and be merry

I’m currently loving bright nails in winter. Greige is by far my favourite nail colour, but I was starting to feel a little stuck in a rut. This coral is the perfect antidote!

Saturday was spent deliciously snuggled up and reading, but on Sunday the Boy and I ventured out to the Christmas market. (this is going to be pic heavy – sorry! Got carried away with the camera :))

I absolutely love the Christmas market, and even though it’s pretty much the same thing every year I get ridiculously excited every time market time rolls around. We’ve got a little routine going on now: every year we go and get German sausages and Dutch pancakes. Winter would be wrong without that combo.

Yum. I definitely recommend the krakauer.

Stacks of stroopwafels in the background! (Can you tell I’m obsessed yet?)

Dutch pancakes. Dutch syrup. Green fork for the Boy, pink fork for me. Heaven.

We went for a wander around the other stalls after eating. I never seem to buy anything, I just like to ogle!

The smell of this sausage was amazing. We’re heading back to the market tomorrow and it is definitely on the cards for lunch.

Urban Outfitters coming to Newcastle. I’m excited!

We finished off the market by sharing some churros and chocolate. I’ve been wanting to try this for a while; it’s delicious, but quite sickly. I’m glad I tried it, but I don’t think I’ll get it again. Once is quite enough!

Speaking of sickly, the Boy was freezing (I was wearing my handknits so I was happy and snug!) so we ducked into Starbucks so that he could defrost and I could enjoy my beloved Eggnog Latte.

Bunnies spotted on the way back to the car! There were loads of them, but the light was too low for me to get a decent picture. This was the best of the lot!

And just to keep this blog knitting related, a quick snap of the latest project on the needles; Eskimimi’s Flutter Butterfly Mittens. I’ve loved this pattern since it was released, and it’s actually working up faster than I expected, if a little on the small side.

They’re far too small for my oafish, large hands, but the intended recipient is much tinier than I so I’m hoping that they’ll be a perfect fit for her.

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Homemade Vanilla Extract

I love vanilla. I use it in so many things, in baking, in porridge, in drinks. I just love it.

Sadly, it can be pretty pricey stuff, and in the UK we only ever seem to get those little tiny bottles of extract, and I would go through those far too quickly. For a while I was super happy to find big bottles of vanilla extract in Costco, but for some reason or other they seem to have disappeared recently, so I went investigating how to make my own.

It turns out, vanilla extract is stupidly easy to make. Take some high grade vanilla beans bought cheaply on eBay, a bottle of bog standard vodka, slit the beans, stick them in the vodka, shake every so often and wait.

In fact, the waiting is the hardest part.

I started this batch back in late September I think, and initially added 12 vanilla beans to 700ml of vodka. I waited and waited for that beautiful deep rich amber colour, but it didn’t seem to be darkening up much so last week I whacked in another 4 beans and it now seems to be on it’s way. It smells heavenly already, and the best thing about this is that the longer you leave it, the stronger and richer it gets. And when you start running low, just top up with more vodka!

I think this would make a such a lovely gift, and that is exactly my plan. All I need to do is find a pretty little bottle to decant the extract in to, push a couple of vanilla beans inside for continued flavour and added prettiness, and tie a ribbon around it. Perfect for Christmas!

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fuelled by sugar

I’d intended this post to be published on Monday, but my attempt at installing a portable Live Writer app on my USB stick failed miserably, and although I could have used blogger to post, I just don’t like the way it publishes my pictures. I can be incredibly fussy about some things!

So here it is, 4 days late. A Sunday fuelled by sugar!

Stroopkoeken and tea. Always a good combo, especially when there’s a bit of knitting action going on too!

We brought these back from Amsterdam with us, and they are delicious! They’re almost like rich tea biscuits sandwiched with caramel. Perfect for dunking. We did bring stroopwafels back as well, but since we can get those easily in the UK we didn’t bring back as many as we did stroopkoeken. That sounds like we did a massive import, but in fact it was only one packet of stroopwafels and two of stroopkoeken.

I even managed to fit some knitting in, when I wasn’t stuffing my face with deliciousness.

The cowl has come on leaps and bounds. Not that it’s hard, it’s a very straight forward pattern. I did feel like I was in a black hole of knitting for a while, and then all of a sudden looked down and realised that I’m nearly finished! I think I’ll carry on with the spirals for another inch or two, and then finish off with the garter border. I should still have a bit of yarn left over, so I’m plotting what I can make with it already! I’m a little tempted to buy a second skein of it and make a luscious thick shawl.

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There will be stripes

Last night I went to see Mark Kermode at the Tyneside Cinema. I spent the entire day at work before the show fretting, for the simple reason that I didn’t have any projects on the go that were simple enough for me to knit in a darkened theatre.

So what’s a knitter to do? In the five minutes I had at home before having to rush off to the show, I ran straight up to my stash to have a frantic rummage around, grabbed some of the first yarn I saw, snatched up some needles, and cast on in the car. (FYI, I don’t recommend casting on in a moving vehicle at 6:30pm in November in the UK; very dark, very difficult to count…) By the time the show had ended I’d managed a 2 inch cuff, which isn’t bad going! The show itself was short, but great, and Kermode was his usual entertaining self. The Tyneside even snapped a twitpic of the audience before the show (click on it to enbiggen). You can just about spot me in one of the back rows, knitting away with only the Boy for company because apparently I smell and no one wanted to sit next to me!

So anyway, olfactory rants aside, that’s how these socks (or rather, sock; there’s only one at present.) came to be. Truth be told, I had no idea what kind of socks I was going to make when I started them. Since I’d just finished a pair of plain stocking stitch socks it felt a little boring to make another pair straight away. I dithered with ideas of cables and ribbing, but then somewhere in the night my brain seems to have decided on stripes. I’ve always wanted a pair of stripey socks, so in the face of all the Christmas knitting (39 days. Eeeeek!) that I have yet to finish (or even start) I’m distracting myself with glorious stripes.

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Home again.

Just a quick post before I head out for a cheeky Starbucks eggnog latte (YUM!).

We’re back home again in cold, sunny Blighty. My little Dutch mini break was over far far too quickly (I don’t think any holiday can be too long!), but I had an absolute blast.

We walked ‘til our feet ached, ate lots of delicious Dutch pancakes, stocked up on stroopwafels and pancake syrup and took hundreds of photos. The picture above is one of my favourites, but there are a few more for a future blog post. And there was knitting…

There hasn’t been a huge amount of cowl progress because the Cinema Socks ended up being the project of choice on this trip. I managed to complete the heel turn and the gusset decreases on the crossing to Amsterdam…

And on the way back I knit a little further up the foot.

I think I’ve got about 2 or 3 more inches of foot left before I can start the toe decreases, and then these will be ready for the Boy’s Christmas box. We’re having Chinese take out round at the Boy’s parent’s house tonight, but after that I’m looking forward to hunkering down with some hot chocolate, snuggly pjs and the dulcet tones of Stephen Fry reading Harry Potter to me whilst I power on with these socks.

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