a stitch of a different kind

No, I'm still not back on the knitting yet. So now you can see why I am having such trouble getting through that huge stash of yarn. Today my craft ADD is taking us to the land of sewing. Specifically, sewing an apron in which to cook cupcakes and other Rather Nice Things.

A little while back I found this old sewing book in a groovy bookstore in Newtown:

It was aimed at teachers of primary school age girls to help with their lessons and published in 1913, so there are some doozies of pattern instructions in there. The following is a perfect example. Here you see a delightful illustration of some nice and proper young ladies' undergarments, introduced as "The Drawers".

But the page I like best is this one:

You've got to love that matching mob cap and the demure, ladylike stirring action (dab, dab - is it done yet?)! Unfortunately the book didn't have the pattern sheets when I bought it - only the instructions - and there are no clues in it as to whether they were originally included and have just been lost. And so the search for the perfect apron pattern continues...

request for extension

I got memed by Meg of Days Full on Monday (thanks for the meme, darl), and have been thinking what to do since then. The main problem is it requires me to find some people who won't mind being tagged and aren't so famous that they don't need tagging by some unknown struggling blog newbie!

With that in mind, I request a one week extension. I promise to research my heart out and find five lucky people out there who haven't already been memed to death.

In the meantime, here is the challenge:

1. Go into your archive.
2. Find your 23rd post (or closest to).
3. Find the fifth sentence (or closest to).
4. Post the text of the sentence in your blog along with these instructions.
5. Tag five people to do the same.

For me this was changed a bit, so my personal meme was:
"give us the 13th sentence of your 5th post".

And the resulting sentence, you ask? (drumroll, maestro...)

"Have a look at some of the gorgeous newly made aprons fitting that style on the Tie One On site."

And what a fine piece of advice that is. I must say.

cupcakes, cupcakes, cupcakes

I am obsessed with cupcakes, but i didn't realise that other people are too!

Check this out:

A new store in Sydney CBD that sells nothing but, you guessed it, cupcakes. It's called Cupcakes on Pitt.

and this:

A couple of blogs completely devoted to cupcakes where other cupcake-o-philes can gather together and celebrate all things tiny, tasty, and decorated with little teeny flowers and things, called Cupcakes take the Cake (note their Aussie fans section) and 52 Cupcakes.

My colleague and I plan to take a trip down to the new store in our lunchtime sometime very soon.

I am too excited!

a fruitful weekend

Well, the baking went very nicely...very nicely indeed. The juggish bowl was perfect for pouring:

and the finished product was Oh So Devine. Please meet The Espresso Cupcake:



Thank you, Nigella. How I love your chocolatey high-fat-content ways. Seriously, if you are on some crazy kind of weight loss diet (and, if you ask me, any kind of weight loss diet is the crazy kind), do not eat this cupcake. This one single cupcake will bring you down, my friend. The icing is amaaazing - real butter icing - nothing but fat, chocolate, and a nice bit o' coffee. Mmmmm....

But I have decided that my next obsession needs to be the making/acquiring of a Very Nice Apron. I need an apron as I seem to be limb-control challenged, but had to resort to wearing an ugly old butcher style apron of Hubby's - it's a great bloke's BBQ apron, but I like the frilly, frippy style of aprons you see in old 50s mags. How am I supposed to feel like a domestic goddess wearing the garb of an old man who hacks the hocks off heiffers for a living? Have a look at some of the gorgeous newly made aprons fitting that style on the Tie One On site. Must look into this one. Will tell more on this more recent obsession soon.....

it's time for fairy cakes, people!

Another thing apart from knitting that I crave to do more of is cooking. I got this great retro mixing bowl with spout and handle just recently from David Jones (complete with pink silicone spatula). I love the idea of the bowl that becomes a jug - mixing up a pancake batter and being able to just pour it right out into the pan, or pouring cupcake mix straight into little patty pans - how wonderfully kitsch.



Since I'm not much of a cook (or used to be OK but haven't been into it for ages) I thought I'd get some tips from Nigella on how to become a Domestic Goddess. Then I discovered something else closeby that looked interesting...notice anything similar between the two in the following pic?


It seems the fairy cake is rather popular with the food stylists at the moment. I've always loved little old ladies and the food that little old ladies make, so I think it's all good. This weekend's goal is to whip up somethin' wonderful out of one of these books. I collect little old lady tea cups (with the tea cups, the yarn, endless recipe books I've used maybe once or twice, and countless other collections, you can probably understand why the hubby and I are buying a house) so I reckon one of these dainty little cup cakes with the flower on top are the go. But rest assured, there are so many completely-decadent-and-in-no-way-dainty things in these books. Nigella has some gorgeous sweet and sticky stuff like the burnt-butter brown-sugar cupcakes, molten chocolate babycakes (enough with the teeny tiny cakes already - *drool*), and gooey chocolate stack.....mmmmm! The other book picked up has some great old fashioned stuff like hearty casseroles and chunky soups - things my mum used to make when I was a kid. Food was more comforting back then. (Can you tell I'm a wee bit jaded about trendy cafe food and "nouveau cuisine"?) There are also some traditional multicultural recipes I'd like to try like moussaka.

Happy weekends everyone - hopefully I'll have photographic evidence of little tiny cakes at the end of it.

Mutual Appreciation Society or Shameless Blog Plugging

I think it's amazing that my sweet friend Meg of And So the Days Are Filled... managed to write almost more about my blog than I have so far written in my blog!! Meg is far and away the fastest knitter I have ever seen. Not because the needles are flying when she's going at it, but because she just keeps chuggin' along. There is absolutely nothing that stops her and no pattern that truly intimidates her. And that is why she is my Knitting Nanny! Everyone should have one. When I faced (what I thought at the time to be) my darkest hour with Rogue (little did I know there were going to be so many more dark hours with that one!) she sent me this fabulous piece of knitting motivation:

Just look at the knitting and think of Aragorn's speech as the warriors of Middle Earth prepare for their final battle: their against-all-odds attack on the gates of Mordor in a last-ditch attempt to distract the Eye of Sauran away from Frodo and his all-important quest. Are you remembering it?

Aragorn, armed with Isildur, carrying that kingly glint in his eye as, for the first time in his life, he leads his men knowing he is the rightful heir to the thone of Gondor. Do you have it?

The wind is whipping in the banners. A trumpet sounds. Aragorn's mighty steed proudly bears Aragorn at the helm of his army, battleworn but invigorated by the spirit of justice and good. What does he say? Can you hear him? He says:

"There may come a time when men of the world will lay down their arms and give up the fight against evil. BUT THAT IS NOT THIS DAY! TODAY WE RIDE INTO BATTLE!"

OK? Fired up? Now, look at the knitting. Aragorn says:

"There may come a day when knitters will give up in the face of a mistake. When they will put that knitting away forever in a dark drawer, never to be worked on again. BUT THAT IS NOT TODAY! TODAY WE KNIT!!!"

Phew! How can you not want to tackle that nasty cable after this!!!

Very Important Knitting

In the interests of sticking to my goal of avoiding silly purchases of novelty yarns called things like Twizzle and Frizzee, I decided to knit something really really serious. Something I really had to commit to and carry through on. And, thus, my version of the Rogue was born...a serious jumper which has won blue ribbons in local fairs. Now that's something to try and live up to.

I started on Winter Solstice (June 21 Aussie time), thinking that was a pretty good time to start a new project. Clearly I was wrong as over the next month I ripped the whole thing up about 3 times. But I decided the universe was teaching me patience and persevered:

And this is where I am now (note to self: try using a FLASH next time, eh?). You can't see a damn thing in this pic, but the yarn is the very lovely Jo Sharp Silkroad Aran in Quartz - 85% wool, 10% silk, 5% cashmere. Absolute luxury. Makes you want to keep knitting just so you can TOUCH it (*drool*).

The back is done and I just picked up the stitches on the front (after this pic was taken) and started the cables on the throat. Reversing the knit-side charts for the purl-side is giving me some grief, but thankfully I have my buddy Meg to drag me through it kicking and whining. Meg and I started the Rogue together as a pact (suicide pact?) but of course she finished hers millenia ago! That's OK - I'll have mine ready in time for the blistering heat of another Aussie summer - handy!

step one is admitting you have a problem

So I thought I'd get all my yarn together to see just how bad my yarn hoarding problem is. Here's my stash, in all it's Lincraft-lovin' glory. Things is, after I took this photo I found another small bag behind the couch so the situation is actually worse than it looks here. Shame on me :(

There's a lot of great stuff here - some yummy hand-dyed mohairs and an embarrassingly large stack of Gedifra Fashion Trend in a nice raspberry red (see colour 01 here) that I want to make a jumper out of. Things that I've picked up for each of my obsessions as they come along (and then stuffed into these bags when I realise I haven't got the motivation to carry through).

My Big Fat New Goal is to knit this pile up into useful stuff that people will want. NO MORE WILL I GIVE IN TO THE IMPULSE PURCHASE OF FROU-FROU NOVELTY YARNS. From now on, I will knit with yarn I already have, and any yarn I buy has to be for a pattern I have and will actually complete! Sorry Lincraft you'll have to find someone else to keep you afloat.