Little M's Socks

So, you may remember back to Easter when J and E started out on their grand sock project? The idea was to finish the a joint pair of socks during the long Easter weekend. E managed it, although J took a little longer...

Here's how we started out - one ball of sock yarn, a basic pattern from the shop, and two sets of DPNs (one very beautiful! The other a bit boring.) It was pretty exciting, as neither of us have knitted socks before - and E had barely knitted on DPNs before (although she had made a sock not in the round - complete cheating!) We started by splitting the ball into two smaller balls...

 Have to say we were a little bit anal about this... we actually dug out the super-accurate weighing scales and weighed out each ball to see we had equally split it! We wanted nothing to go wrong for our first sock extranvangza.
We both worked on them diligently without the weekend...

 

 E managed to finish hers, although J spent a little longer. We both learnt a few things through the sock-making process: mostly to do with reading the pattern accurately! (ie. if it says to use stitch markers, actually pay attention and leave them there, rather than think you'll be able to tell!) They aren't perfect (the toes are the wrong way up (!), a few loose stitches around the heel, and you can see the gaps between the needles at some points) but definitely a big achievement for a first pair of socks! The self-patterning yarn was also really fun - it looked a bit insipid when we bought it, but knitted up the pattern looked great!

Here they are finished:

We then hurried to the post office when J came to visit in order to get them off to Little M in time for exam season! I did take a photo of the parcel all wrapped up, but then I realised that would rather disguise any anonymity! Luckily they arrived in time for her first exam, and here she is wearing them for her final bit of revising...

(looking very organised!)

So, there we have it! I hope Little M's good luck socks will have done the trick - all the best for the rest of your exams!

This weekend, A and I have some crafts planned, so there may be more posts to come...

Love to all our readers - feel free to leave a comment and introduce yourself if you're reading this!

E

Window Sill Gardening

I don't live at 2 CC most of the time, and there isn't a proper place for gardening where I live. But flowers and greenery area a must for anyone's life! So, this is where windowsill gardening takes place.
I have a changing collection of flowers and plants that live on my windowsill. It's not the ideal place for most flowers, as I have learnt over time - it's mostly too hot and stuffy in my room even with the window open (and don't worry, the radiator is kept off!) But there are certain plants that do pretty well.

Let's introduce you to my plants. From left to right, I have:

A Christmas poinsettia. Now, this one is looking a little sad. Almost all the red has gone from the leaves. I know that you are supposed to keep poinsettias in dark for something like 16 hours a day in order to keep the differentiation in colour, but it seems like far too much effort to me. But, it does mean that you end up with rather sad looking plants like this one...

This basket is doing a lot better (although not a great photo!) There's still a lot of red on the leaves - although all the new leaves have come out completely green. It's a lovely basket - poinsettia and ivy (which you can't see very well.)

Now comes the start of my newest addition to my windowsill garden. It's a beautiful planter, covered in birch bark with a variety of little plants in it. I don't actually know what this one is! But it seems to be doing fairly well. A very nice vibrant yellow.

 

Next along in my planter is this beautiful gerbera. It's coming along really nicely - lots of buds still to come out, and a lovely colour.

Grape hyacinths! I love grape hyacinths - one of my favourite flowers I think. They don't have the same intenseness to the smell that hyacinths do, but they are completely beautiful in miniature. I often have some "real" hyacinths in my windowsill garden, but they go over so quickly, and I don't have one at the moment. When these are over, they will be sent home to 2 CC to plant out in the garden - there's a whole row of plants that have been "donated" from my windowsill garden over the past few years!

Also, you can see in the background two little wooden tulips - very sweet!

This is my peace lily - it's doing okay, although a few of the bottom leaves are a bit yellow. No flowers this year - not sure how to make it flower again. This was a present from A's choir about two years ago, and it's very special to me.

And this is my Cambria orchid that was an Easter gift from A! We (unknowingly) bought each other the same orchid for Easter! Sadly, it's not doing very well - I'm not sure if it's the environment in my room or what, but the flowers are just shrivelling up. I'm doing everything I'm supposed to (according to that oracle, the internet) but it just doesn't seem very happy... Cambria orchids are notoriously hard to care for, apparently, so maybe next time we should just be a bit less adventurous...

So, there we have it! Without a garden, go for windowsill gardening - it's a lovely sunny day here, so I hope that the flowers are all coming out at 2 CC.

Food at Easter CC (also a catch-up)

There was of course much eating done at CC last weekend, and very enjoyable it was, both in the making, the eating and the sociability involved in both.
First Little B made hot cross buns. Here she is decorating them:

For the midday meal on Friday, A found a large impressive celeriac from the Riverford box, and looked in the Cranks book (one of her mother's I think) to find the recipe shown here:


CELERIAC SOUP
Cranks Celeriac Soup with Bouillabaisse Seasonings

This is an extravagant soup with incredible depth of flavour! Served with Gruyere toasts and rouille it's also quite substantial. Don't despair at the long list of ingredients - prep time is minimal!

YOU WILL NEED

8 pieces dried orange peel
6 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
2 thin leeks
1 carrot
8 garlic cloves
1 small red pepper
1 tbsp fennel seeds
1 tsp saffron threads
1 tsp tomato puree
1 tsp soft brown sugar
1 large head celeriac
2 litres vegetable stock made with 1 tbsp Marigold bouillon powder
250ml dry white wine
6 tbsp finely chopped parsley
2 tbsp double cream
Half a very fresh baguette
60g Gruyere
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper


HOW TO MAKE
Serves 6

Dry the orange peel by placing in a medium hot oven for 40 miniutes (this will fill your house with a wonderful aroma!)
Heat 3 tablespoons of olive oil in a large, heavy bottomed saucepan and fry the sliced, clean leeks. Then add the chopped carrot, sliced garlic, diced red pepper and black pepper - fry for around 10 minutes.
Add the fennel seeds, orange peel, saffron, tomato puree, soft brown sugar, celeriac and chopped basil and fry for about 5 minutes, until the celeriac is coated.
Add the hot stock and 1 tbsp olive oil. Stir well and cook on a brisk simmer for 30-35 minutes until the celeriac is completely soft. Around 8 minutes before the end, add the wine and the 2 tablespoons of chopped parsley.
Blend the soup until very smooth, first in a blender, then with a fine sieve. Then add the remaining soup so that there are some chunky pieces. Return the soup to the pan and add the remaining parsley and olive oil as well as the double cream.

A did all the initial bits, then got involved in crafting, so that J took over to make the rouille (which he also very much enjoyed pronouncing) and the later stages of putting together and presenting the soup. Also the gruyere toasts. I rather misunderstood this, so what we had were emmental on toast (see picture). And I suspect that the instruction to leave some of the ingredients not sieved did not intend for the bits to be as big as we see here. Never mind, it all tasted very good.

Playing Catch-up: Scenes from Easter Sunday

 (The camera cable somehow lost itself, so here is playing catch-up from last weekend. We didn't find the cable, but E bought a new one from Amazon - only £4.95, so it didn't seem too bad!)

Beautiful forsythia coming out on our Easter morning walk. 

Blue skies over the Orchard.

Planting seeds in the conservatory - too cold outside! - giant sunflowers and also 'Little Leo' sunflowers.

The Easter bunny came - gold decorated dark chocolate egg, dark Lindt bunny and a lovely sheep paperweight for the non chocolate fiends.

Chicken candles! (technically from Christmas, but they're very Easter-ish)

More seed planting - orlaya, candytuft and larkspur - new ones on us, so let's wait and see...

The traditional Saturday Guardian Quiz - not quite our worst score, but pretty poor!

Afternoon outing to the RSPCA to see...

CATS! (Coombe Cottages may be getting a pair of kittens, so watch this space!)

A very low scoring scrabble game... fun all the same.

And just to remind us that Spring is a-springing!

Happy belated Easter everyone!

New slippers!

So, around 30 years ago I knitted my Dad several huge Icelandic sweaters on big round needles to keep him warm in the wastes of Aberdeenshire then the paddy fields of Norfolk. I reclaimed them when he died in 1991 but have been unable to give or throw them away. I had felted them in a hope that I could recycle them into something else and I finally have! The Coombe cottage craft gathering allowed me to make these amazing boots with faux leather from Mortimer Hills craft supplies and a blanket stitch tutorial and flower from marvellous M. Here they are in our porch - a slightly odd shape, but then so are my now warm feet...

The Return of Coombe Cottage Crafts

When T and E were small, a few times a year cousin B and cousin M would come for a weekend of crafting and hilarity - Coombe Cottage Craft weekends. Although B, M, T and E are all grown up now, we had a mini reunion - a CCC day!

It was difficult to fit everything in! Everyone worked on their own projects. Inspired by seeing people's slippers at the Lovely Lyme weekend, A decided she needed a pair of her own. Repurposing one of her dad's old jumpers, it started out like this -

Nice to use up these old things - particularly as it was something she knitted herself. She still has a great deal of work to go, but definitely looking promising. A WIP that we will update you on.

M used an old jumper of J's that had been felted, and produced the only finished item of the day, a couple of oven gloves -

Pretty impressive for about half a day's work!

J and E started a collaborative project. Both being fairly proficient knitters, there is be thing that neither have done yet - socks on double pointed needles! This seemed the perfect time to try. E bought a sock knitting kit from Get Knitted with Opal sock yarn. A success so far! - but a very long way to go. And, with J and E each knitting one sock, only time will tell whether their tension is similar enough to make a matching pair of socks...


Big B decided to do an Easter project and went for making a chicken using this pattern from Landscaping Magazine. Another WIP from J's old jumper, but definitely looking promising.

(at the back - big B's chicken and M's completed oven gloves; underneath - beginnings of little B's hot water bottle cover; E's sock on the needles; front - A's slippers in the making)

And little B went for making a hot water bottle cover - this time from a different felted jumper. She was more distracted with packing up, but you can see it begin to take shape...

Apart from the crafting, it was a nice short day. An Easter tree was made with blossom from the garden, and M also insisted on a short constitutional after (a very successful! - recipes to follow in another post) lunch. It was cold, but the woods were full of promise - daffodils poking up everywhere and the wild garlic beginning to emerge.

 (the Easter tree in all its blossom-y glory! The little bird is a present from big B last weekend in Lyme - very nice)

Sad to see them all go. Just A, J and E at home for the weekend - continuing with the crafting projects, watching a film, snuggling in front of the fire, perhaps visiting Lyme. A lovely reunion.