Stash Avalanche

First Impressions: Little Crochet

title: Little Crochet, modern designs for babies and toddlers

author: Linda Pearman

ISBN: 9780307586582

OK, this is a rapido First Impressions because I'm typing one handed with a Clingy Wriggle Monster on my lap...

I saw this book in the library and grabbed it on impulse to have a look. I have to admit to being a bit cynical when it comes to craft books these days as I often find that they look great on the outside but disappoint on the inside, but this seems to be a great book. I know, that's not like me, is it?  

So. The book starts off with an introductory chapter which covers crochet hooks, yarns, sizing, and how to decipher a crochet pattern. This is followed by three chapters of patterns: nursery items, clothing, and gifts. These are followed by chapters on techniques and resources.

The pattern chapters have a nice range of designs including this mobile...

this cardigan...

this chunky textured blanket...

this (more unisex) cardigan...

...and of course, the cute shoes on the cover...

Amazon has a very good preview of this book (with lots more images) here.

Alright, let's get the cons over with. Yarns and stitches are described USA-style (eg. worsted weight). The resources are all USA based. 'Mum' is spelt 'mom'.

Now the pros. The patterns are provided in chart and written form so you don't have to panic about getting lost in a chart. Linda provides alternative colour suggestions for many of the designs (which I think is a jolly good idea). There is a good range of designs, big and small, simple and more involved (but not necessarily more complicated), and the Contents Page shows an image of every design so you can easily see what you want to make. The whole book is littered with clever tips (like make a toddler-sized cardigan using a fine yarn and hook, and presto, you get a new-born size). There are nearly as many items of clothing for boys as for girls (yay!) and they go from nearly-newborn to 4 years.

The book covers all the kinds of things you might want to knit but in crochet form, with a few quirky additions thrown in too. It would be a great book to have if you want to crochet for you own children but also would be a really good resource to pull out again and again for gifts. Really, even though there is a specific gift chapter, you could crochet any of these to make lovely presents. And as a not-very-experienced-crocheter, I think I would feel pretty confident tackling any of the patterns - if you can crochet a granny square, you can make the designs in the book. And if you can't, there's a granny square blanket to set you to rights.

It doesn't matter that stitch names are Americanised because you'll either go with the flow or know that a half double crochet is really a half treble.It doesn't matter that yarn weights are Americanised either because Linda provides a handy chart based on the number of (knitted) stitches per 10cm so you can translate straight off the ball band. I think a bit more effort could have been made with the information in the Resources chapter but it's easy enough to search for more local sources, and lots of shops in the US will post internationally. It does matter that 'mum' is spelt 'mom' but that's probably just me.

Verdict: go buy it!

 

A trio of trousers

Well, I finally got my act together and finished the knitted trousers I started all the way back in October.

At first they seemed to take ages to show any progress and then suddenly it was a case of oh blimey, I'd better cast off! I tried knitting them in the round (as the original pattern intends) but three colours of yarn on 5 dpns was just too much fiddle - needles falling out, yarns all tangled... So I knitted the whole thing flat and sewed it together afterwards with no regrets.

The yarn is Sidar Recycled which is a lovely soft cotton DK. I used Clay, Demin Wash and Canvas, and all the colours are slightly muted and washed out looking which really goes with the softness of the yarn.

Had I realised however, I would have used something more mercerised because I don't know how much crawling on one knee they will take before they wear thin (the green ones my mother  has knitted seem to be much more robust). It is a lovely yarn though- although it tends to split a bit - and I will definitely be using it for other projects, just not ones that involve knees sliding on the floor.

These were made just after Christmas and are from Butterick 5092 (which looks like it's been discontinued). They're a pretty baggy fit even with a cloth nappy but I suppose that's better than being too tight to wriggle in. The beige outer fabric is from Ikea and the same stuff I used to make these trousers, and the lining (which doesn't come as part of the pattern) is a white flannelette which I dyed with Dylon Tulip Red. Unfortunately it came out more of a dark pink than the red I was after, but as will only show on the turn-up I can live with it.

I did a bit of zigzag embroidery on a back pocket for bottom interest.

And finally another pair of overalls from the Jackie Clarke pattern, made with a lining for the first time.

The lining is more of the red/dark pink dyed flannelette, and I used an remnant of Ikea's Berta Ruta fabric that waved at me the last time I was there. I find with trousers you can get away without a popper crotch fastening for nappy changing, but with overalls it is just too much fuss taking them on and off completely so I put in some of the snaps I got last year. The pattern calls for poppers that come ready attached to a tape which you just sew in, but I have only found this stuff with poppers about 6" apart (so useless for baby clothes) and about €15 per metre which is astoundingly expensive.

Oh and remember how I said I would definitely be making a Charlie tunic for KCWC? Well, I finished that last night (talk about catching up) so I'll take some photos of it and try to post them later in the week.

Baked risotto

And while you have the oven on...

A while back, Alicia at Posy Gets Cosy wrote a post where she mentioned making her first risotto and I commented that I do mine baked (most so that I don't have to hang around the cooker for half an hour), and kind of promised to post my recipe.

I must say that I too am a latecomer to the world of risotto. The idea of slimey creamy rice with cheese just didn't do it for me but I must have been having an extra optimistic day when I was looking for something to feed Stashlet and I thought I'd give it a go. Turns out the rice is not really slimey, and the cheese actually works, and Stashlet likes it too, so it has been appearing regularly on the Stash Towers menu in a number of variations.

So here, belatedly, is the recipe.

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Oven-baked aubergine and courgette risotto

from the Baby-led Weaning Cookbook by Gill Rapley and Tracey Murkett

serves 2 adults and 1 baby (generously) (or 3 normal sized adult portions)

500-600ml (18-21 fl oz) vegetable stock

2 tbs olive oil

1 medium onion, chopped

2 cloves of garlic, chopped

1 small aubergine

1 medium courgette

250g (9oz) risotto rice

knob of butter

60g (20z) grated parmesan

freshly ground pepper to taste

Preheat the oven to 200C/ 400F/gm6 and put the stock on to heat in a pan.

Heat the oil (preferably in a flame-proof casserole so you don't have to transfer the food at the next stage). Add the onion and fry until soft. Add the garlic and after a few seconds, add the other vegetables. Cook until they start to soften. Add the rice and stir to make sure that all the grains have a light coating of oil. Add 500ml (18fl oz) of the stock and bring to the boil. Cover the dish (or transfer the mixture from the pan to an oven-proof casserole) and put it in the oven for 30 minutes, then stir gently and add more hot stock of necessary. Bake for another 10 minutes.

Remove from the oven, check the texture of the rice: if cooked add the butter (if using), parmesan cheese and black pepper, and stir again. Cover the dish and leave it to rest for a few minutes before serving.

*******

A few notes:

If you're using this for baby weaning, cut the vegetables into sticks so that the baby can hold one end and eat the other. Otherwise, cut the veg however you want it.

Use a bigger pan than you would normally use to cook rice in - my first attempt had bits of veg sticking to the lid when it came out of the oven. Veg takes up more room than you'd think.

It seems to me that you can do pretty much anything you please with risotto. I've done several variations, the nicest was chicken and mushroom (3 chicken breasts sliced and browned with the onion, and 3 or 4 big portobello mushrooms cut into slices).

This stuff reheats well, and you can also make aranchini, which is basically cold risotto (with any big lumps cut small) rolled into little sausage shapes, dipped in egg and breadcrumbs and fried until crispy and golden. Haven't tried this yet but it sounds interesting.

I am bad and use stock cubes. My home made stock usually tastes crap. If you're feeding this to babies, make sure you use a low salt (or preferably no salt) stock.

Apple Sharlotka

Foof! A belated Happy New Year to everyone.

I haven't mentioned cake in a while but this weekend saw me baking a new cake, and baking it twice at that!

One of the blogs I read is Smitten Kitchen and on Saturday Deb posted a recipe for Apple Sharlotka which her Russian mother-in-law makes. It is so simple and so full of fruit that I went off there and then to bake it, and trial it on Mr G's friend Mr C.

This is what was left:

I'll take that as a positive response.

On Sunday, we had another visitor so I made a variation of Deb's recipe. I have to say I prefer my version but it is probably not very Russian anymore.

Deb's original version is here and mine is below.

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Apple Sharlotka - the probably-not-very-Russian variation

7  large Granny Smiths apples

4 medium eggs (or 3 large depending on what you have in the fridge)

120 g caster sugar

80g muscovado sugar (or dark soft brown)

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

 1 cup (125 grams) all-purpose flour

about ½tsp ground cinnamon

small handful of flaked almonds

Preheat oven to 180C. Line a 9"/23cm springform tin with parchment (not greaseproof!). Butter the  sides of the tin. Peel, core and quarter the apples, then cut each quarter into slices about the thickness of a pound/euro coin. Sprinkle the apples with the ground cinnamon, turning as you sprinkle to coat all the slices. Tip the apples into the tin.

Make the batter by beating the eggs with the sugar (break up any lumps in the brown sugar before you start) and vanilla essence until thick and you can lift the beaters out and make a trail in the egg mixture. Fold in the flour until just combined (a bit like making brownies) to end up with a very thick batter.

Pour the batter over the apples making sure they are all covered with the batter. Sprinkle the flaked almonds over the top. Bake in the preheated oven until a skewer come out clean (about 55 minutes). Cool in the tin for 10 minutes or so then turn out onto a plate, peel off the parchment and turn the cake right side up again onto a second plate. Eat warm or cold with a dollop of cream.

*******

A few notes:

Deb specifies Granny Smiths and that's what I used with my variation. For the first cake I used Pink Lady apples. I think Cox's Orange Pippins would be better than both of these, and will try that next time.

Deb descries this cake as a bit like a cloufouti although the 'sponge' reminded me more of British trifle sponges, but don't let that put you off!!

Both times my cakes came out well browned but with slightly crispy apples. Rereading Deb's recipe I see that she cuts her apples into little slivers rather than slices; also my oven runs ridiculously hot so even though I compensated, perhaps I should have turned it down further.

Happy baking.

oh. Ps. I finally added a photo of the cut Canadian fruit cake to the post from a while back. So full of cherries - heaven!

 

Xmas decorations

I'm big into snow flakes this year so we have plenty  - some of which still need stringing up! The big fancy ones are from a  post that Kate at M is for Make did last year. In fact, I cut them out last year and they sat in a cupboard for 12 months before I managed to make them up (sigh). I wanted to make tiny little ones out of tracing paper but joining them up was so fiddly that I gave up - next year perhaps...

I'm always a big fairy lights fan so we have plenty of those too, and because I rather short-sightedly threw out the branch which has been our xms tree for the last few years last month, we have very few tree-ish places to hang decorations. So some baubles on the fig trees, and my lovely Dutch porcelain ornaments over the fire place.

Have a lovely Christmas everyone xx

This morning

Simultaneous sewing and breakfast. Why no one ends up with thread on their rolls is a constant surprise to me. The sooner I have a sewing corner, the better!

SMS Giveaway Winner

Thank you for all your comments! I'm glad I'm not the only one who really needs a piece of cake right now! There seems to be a chocolate cake bias going in the comments so here's one I made earlier which should satisy your eyes if not your cake gland. The icing didn't turn out exactly how I'd imagined but hey ho, it tasted pretty ok.

Now on to more urgent matters...

The SMS Giveaway winner was picked by random.org ...

...who was Theresa...

Congratulations, Theresa! Cherry cheesecake most certainly counts. Look out for an email from me very soon.

Canadian fruit cake

Hello. Here for the Giveaway? You need to be here instead!

Lots of you are craving chocolate cake by the looks of the comments on the Giveaway post so I thought I'd let you know that Joy the Baker has a chocolate mint swiss roll thing going at the moment. Sounds delish! I spent half my teens baking peppermint victoria sponge. Aah, the calories...

But I digress.

Meghan commented that she'd like pineapple upside down cake which reminded me that I should share this pineapple christmas cake with you. I'm afraid you only get a photo of an intriguingly wrapped lump as we haven't cut it yet, but I'll try to remember to post one of the real deal once we start eating it.

This recipe is one that my mother cut out of the newspaper so long ago that it only comes with imperial weights. It makes a light coloured but full of fruity goodness cake that you could have for christmas or take on picnics (when it isn't blowing snow at 100kph outside like it is today!).

*******

Canadian Christmas Cake

7oz self-raising flour

1/8 sp salt (I suspect a pinch is much the same thing)

5oz glacé cherries

1lb tin of pineapple (I use crushed pineapple)

5oz butter

4½ oz granulated sugar

2 large eggs

2 tbs brandy

9oz sultanas

3oz cut mixed peel

Set the oven to 325F / gas mark 3.

Sift the flour and salt together. Cut 8 cherries into small pieces and reserve. Cut half the rest into halves. Roll the whole and halved cherries in flour and shake off surplus. Drain the pineapple and if it isn't already srushed (I really recommend it), chop it as finely as you can.

Cream the butter and sugaruntil light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs one at a time. stir in the brandy, flour, and then all the fruit except for the reserved cherries. Turn into a greased 2lb loaf tin (or line it with baking parchment), level off the top and bake in the preheated oven for 1 hour.  Scatter the reserved cherries on top and bake for another hour (so 2 hours total baking time).

Leave until cool before removing from the tin, wrap well and kep for at least 2 weeks before eating.

*******

I am a total glacé cherry fiend so I don't bother with the cherries on the top; everything goes in the cake. Apparently this will keep indefinitely in the fridge, but frankly wouldn't you rather eat it and make another?

ps. if anyone comes across a website where you can convert square/loaf tin sizes to circular tin sizes, please let me know. Somehow a proper christmas cake needs to be round...

added 09-01-12 We cut the cake (not today but I'm only just getting round to posting this) and it looks like this:

I actually found it too sweet (not having eaten it for years) so next time I will cut down the sugar by an ounce or so. But the excessive number of glacé cherries will remain.

SMS Giveaway Day

It's here, I'm totally unprepared, I'm not entirely sure I understand how Sew, Mama, Sew's new rules work but I have a giveaway for you. Just a little one. But first...

Hello! Welcome to StashAvalanche if you haven't been here before, welcome back if you have! It's been a bit quiet round here lately but that's no reason not to have a nosey about and come back again some time to see what I'm up to.

My giveaway is a little pink bead necklace. Pink and white swirly Venetian-style beads strung on a linen cord. It's about 70cm long so just right for wearing with a shirt or v-neck top.

I have several of these in different colours which get worn quite regularly when there isn't a small wriggle monster to pull at them and cover them in hummus. This one has been made specially for the giveaway and has not been subjected to wriggles or hummus, so no need to worry!

To enter the giveaway, just leave a comment telling me what kind of cake you would really like a slice of (I'm suffering from serious Austrian Coffee Cake lust right now) and leave your email address in the comment too. You can use a format like stashavalanche[at]gmail{dot}com for security if you want but please leave it somehow! I'm sorry but I don't have time to go charging round Blogger or Ravelry in order to message you.

I'm happy to ship internationally and the giveaway will be open until Friday (that's the 16th December) closing at as near to 9pm UK/Irish time as I can make it. Winner to be announced on Saturday.

And if you want to have a go at some more giveaways, just clike over to SMS's Giveaway Day post for a miriad of lovely stuff.

The winner was Theresa. Click here to find out more...

Orange fleece

Not posting so often means more time to craft... haha. But I have managed this top and there's another in the pipeline (except that I need to go and buy another twin needle because I broke the last one half way through top stitching... seems to be turning into a bit of a trend...).

So this is Burda 9522*, which I like in part. It's a nice simple pattern but Burda would have you cut a  slit opening in the front of this top which to me seems like a) overkill and b) a bit crappy to have a raw edge, even if it is made from (alegedly non-fraying) jersey. (The hat in the pattern is also put together rather crudely which Burda might think is a consession to beginner sewers but just seems to be an excuse not to write decent instructions).

I did quite a lot of tacking because I find the fleece moves around quite a bit in (in?) the sewing machine even with a walking foot, and the stars were stitched on by hand first too.

I cut the top about 8cm longer because Stashlet is pretty tall and constantly seems to have builder's bum vest in all his bought clothes, and made little vents in the sides so he doesn't feel like he's in a straight jacket.

The bound edge of the envelope neck was done with raw edged fleece and a pseudo-overlock stitch to keep the bulkiness down, and this worked pretty well, I think.

Next time I will have more faith and do it in a contrasting colour.
 

Oh, and of course the other thing I did was make the sleeves long, because the pattern is for a short sleeved top. Stashlet is wearing them with turn-ups at the moment but at the rate he's growing they won't be like that for long.

The orange fleece is pretty thick and came from my LFS. I originally wanted to make one in some (slightly less in-your-face) mustardy yellow that I have left over from a top I made ages ago but there was only enough for a front, a back and one sleeve so that has been shelved until I can think of something else to do with it. The (thinner) white fleece for the stars was a scrap of Ikea Polarvide blanket left over from the Lila Tueller quilt.

 Mr G says he looks "very Dutch". He certainly looks very orange.

 

*When I Googled this to find an image of the pattern, I clicked on the first few links without actually really reading them and was a bit alarmed to find one about a onesie from the same pattern was a post I did earlier this year. Ahaha haha... Fame on Google at last, aned I didn't pay them a penny... ahem.