Stash Avalanche

Sun hat #2

I made another one! This time for Stashlet.

Having had a bit of a ponder on how to construct this hat, I hit on the idea of bias binding - not round the edge of the brim as previously mentioned, but round the brim-crown seam, like this...

I have to say the inside of this hat brings me great joy.

Using this method makes a reversible hat - you could even put bias on both sides if you wanted. Unfortunately I was too clever and sewed a name tape into the crown, so this particular hat is not reversible, but the orange+spots combo is so fabulous I may have to make another one.

Here's what I did:

• sew brims together and top stitch
• sew crowns and tack together
• create sandwich of bias binding (wrong side out) + brim  (right side out) + crown (inside out) and sew all together
• turn up bias and hand sew edge to crown (but through one layer only)

If I do this method again, I'll try to take photos of the sandwich bit because I'm not entirely sure my description is clear.

ps. fabrics all from Ikea except the bias which is some I made from an unidentified fat quarter a while ago.

 

A hat for Master H

Stashlet has a friend at playgroup who turned one the other day, so I decided to make him a sun hat (not that we have sun at the moment but there's nothing like a bit of optimism to get you through to summer, is there?).

It's the same pattern that I used for Stashlet's hat last summer. Like the sweatshirt I showed you the other day, it's from the Burda 9522 pattern. This time I made the largest size (18" head circumference) which is a wee bit too big for Stashlet, and will be a bit to big for Master H at the moment, but I'm hoping that it will fit him by the time summer comes.

The fabric is some Ikea heavyweight cotton (which I bought ages ago to make an Onion Uniform Jacket and still haven't got round to it) and a polycotton (I think) gingham lining.

Having made this hat once already, and not being very impressed with the construction instructions, I decided to go my own way with putting it together:

• sew the two brims together and topstitch them
• sew the tops and sides together to end up with two separate crowns
• stitch the brim to the outer crown
• turn under and baste the seam allowance on the crown lining
• pin and topstitch the crown lining inside the outer hat

You don't get a reversible hat this way, but all the raw edges are concealed so it looks nice and neat. The only way I can think of to do a truly reversible hat would be to sew the lining and outer separately, put them together and bind the brim edge with a bias binding. I intend to make at least a couple of sunhats for Stashlet this summer, so I will try to do one of each construction and see how they turn out.

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In other news, my mother came for a visit, I've started an exceedingly part-time job at my LFS, and Stashlet is now with a childminder three mornings a week, so unfortunately blogging (as you will have noticed) has got even more infrequent.

My distance learning course has to be completed by the end of this month - I just have an essay left to write but having had a year's break in the middle of the course, there's a lot of re-reading that needs doing first (sigh).

But some positive blog related news: MrG's friend, Mr C, has given us one of his old laptops, so once we've put Windows on it (it has Linux Ubuntu at the moment which drives us mad), I'll be able to blog on the kitchen table and not wake Stashlet up with creaking floor boards every time I try to get to my pc. So small hurrahs and hopefully things will improve blog-wise next month.

Happy Tuesday!

Little envelope neck sweatshirt

A long, long, long time ago, so long that you probably don't remember, I made a little orange fleece for the wee Stashlet. And at the same time, I also cut out and started a sweatshirt using the same pattern (Burda 9522).

And then, because I am a slovenly sewer sometimes, I broke the twin needle that I was doing the hems with (I was sewing over pins and not paying attention), and the 90% finished sweatshirt got put on hold while I tried to find another twin needle the same size. Well, it's a very boring story so the short version is, I finally got some, put them somewhere safe, and then couldn't find them. So the sweatshirt sat around for a bit more, until this Thursday when I finally cracked, pulled out all the hemming and redid it with a different size needle.

So finally, here is the little envelope neck sweatshirt, which Stashlet now fits without having to roll the sleeves up as I did with the orange fleece in December.

It's made from a lovely soft double jersey, which to the uninitiated (as I was until I came across this fabric) is two layers of jersery cleverly knitted so that they remain seperate but at the same time are linked together by a stitch very so often (like double muslin). the colour is not something I would have gone for but it was that or a horrible muddy dark green, so I thought if it turned out looking awful I could always dye it. In the end, I decided it looked alright, but there is (or there should be!) enough left over for something else, so I will probably dye that. One pinky biege top is quite enough for any little boy.

When I made the little orange fleece, I used a sort of pseudo overlock stitch and what with the thickness of the fleece, that worked out very well. I decided to use twin needle top stitching with this sweatshirt, and to be honest it was a bit hit and miss. I learnt that you can't turn neat corners with a twin needle, so the side vents look a bit crappy, and for some reason I managed to sew the whole of the back neck binding on whilst missing it on the wrong side, so I had to do a bit of a patch job with some hand hemming on that. But all in all, I think it looks alright on, and no-one will notice the crappy bits (I hope!).

 

Little heather jumper

Oh dear. here's one of those posts which I wrote 99% of three weeks ago then never had time to find one vital bit of information and so it stagnated in my drafts folder...

You have to hand it to Lidl. They do have some great finds if you're prepared to go on a regular basis or subscribe to their newsletters. We shop there pretty frequently because they do a lot of German food which, of course, keeps Mr G happy.

About twice or three times a year they do knitting yarn. You have to be selective because some of it can be 100% acrylic but they often have cottons and wool mix yarns too, and these are clearly very popular as they're often nearly all sold out by the end of the first day. I am terrible; I buy loads and then it sits in my cupboard until I can think of something to do with it.

Which is how this little jumper came into being. I got a pack (6 x 50g balls) of this yarn a good while ago. It's called Monte Carlo and it's 74% polyacrylic, 10% alpaca, 10% wool and 6% viscose, which is not my ideal choice but the colouur was too pretty to pass over. I'd already made a little cardigan from it and I found that once it's washed it becomes really soft and snuggly, perfect for baby knitting, so I thought I'd make Stashlet a jumper for this winter (although at the moment it's more like the tropics here) and make it big enough so that it will hopefully fir him next winter too.

Because my knitting tension frequently tends to be nowhere near what it says on the ballband (in this case the ball band says 14 stitches and 18 rows on 7mm needles and my tension came out at 16 stitches and 23 rows on 5mm needles), I knitted a little swatch and then drew up the pattern using some knitting graph paper I printed (I use this site the most).

The body was knitted in the round and the sleeves separately and then sewn in. I've never 'designed' a set-in sleeve before but I thought that, if I measured how tall the arm opening was and converted that into a triangle of decreasing rows, I'd get a reasonable sleeve top. Somehow, though, this didn't work (too many rows) and I ended up winging it on the basis that the yarn knits up quickly so I could always pull out a few rows and try again when it didn't work.

This is the kind of knitter I am, I'll carefully work out tension and size, and then not pay any attention to the details: I have no idea how many stitches I picked up round the neck but it worked out nicely to create a little polo neck effect. I put one button hole in the shoulder, and one in the neck itself, and with the colour of the yarn, it had to be mother-of-peal buttons.

The fit is big, as I expected, with few inches of growing room in the arms. I'm not sure how it will fare lengthways, as Stashlet seems to get taller and taller by the minute, but I have a little bit of yarn left over so I could always lengthen the ribbing at the bottom if necessary.

I have to say, I'm really pleased with it, and am all set to do another one. The Lidl stash needs using up, you know!

Idea failure

Remember how I was enthusing about that ripple knitting? Remember how I thought it might made a great jumper for Stashlet?

Cue big unhappy face.

It's not that it didn't work, but the more I knitted, the more lacy it got. I didn't realise what a difference knitting in stocking stitch would make. The k2tog s1k1psso combo (to get the 'valley' of the ripple) develops a little gap even when I try to knit really tightly and the more I knitted (I've done about another 10 rows since I took that photo) the more girlie the whole thing seemed to feel.

So I'm going to pull it all out. I might... just might... try knitting it again in garter stitch but I feel kind of wounded by the fact that it didn't come out how I expected so I'm feeling a bit delicate about the whole experience at the moment. I shall sit on it for a while and see what I think.

So there. You live and learn. Go forth, you mothers of girls and knit a lacy ripple jumper, because I think it will look really pretty. Just not so suitable for a toddler of the male persuasion.

Oh, and let me know how you sort the sleeves out, will you?

Banana muffins

(Every time I type 'banana' my fingers seem to want to go on and on. Bananananananana...)

So. I thought I'd posted about these long ago. Turns out I hadn't, and they're so good, you really ought to make some. They're from the Baby Led Weaning Cookbook (no surprise there) and are sugar free. I make up a batch every couple of weeks and stick them in the freezer for Stashlet's afternoon snack. Stick one in the microwave on defrost for about 1½ minutes and it's pretty much ready to eat. 

I haven't tried this, but apparently you can save up over-ripe bananas but putting them in the freezer until you have as many as you need.

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Banana muffins

from The Baby Led Weaning Cookbook

150g (5½ oz) self-raising flour (white, wholemeal or half and half)

½tsp ground cinnamon, nutmeg or mixed spice (optional)

60g (2oz) butter (preferably unsalted) plus extra for greasing

4 large very ripe bananas

2 large eggs, beaten

Pregaet oven to 190C/375F/gas mark 5 and lightly grease a muffin tray or line with paper cases.

Sift flour and spices into a large bowl and make a well in the centre. Melt the butter in a small pan over a low heat. In a separate bowl, mash the bananas to a smooth thick puree consistency using a fork or potato masher. Add the eggs and melted butter, and mix well.

Pour the banana mixture ino the flour and fold together lightly, then spoon the mixture into the muffin tray.

Bake for 10-15 minutes until golden brown and springy, then remove from the oven and allow to cool for a few minutes before turning out.

Baking notes:

• I use muffin cases, it saves on trying to gouge cake out if it sticks
• I melt the butter in the microwave then mash the bananas in with it - saves on washing up!
• this amount of mixture fills 12 large muffin cases reasonaly full but the muffins don't rise much so don't worry too much about over-filling the cases
• you could also use mini muffin cases
• these freeze well and can be defrosted in the microwave

Happy bananaing!

 

Knitted ripple

We have a water filter that sits on the kitchen counter next to the kettle. And for years it has sat on a rather unappetising looking folded J-Cloth, which I have always meant to sew together (my grandmother always sewed her J-Cloths in half) and never got round to.

I've been looking at it lately and thinking things have got to change.

At the same time, I've also been thinking about knitting ripples. So at some stage - probably around 4am - I had a mild brainwave, put the two together, and decided to knit a J-Cloth. Does that sound odd?

So I hunted around on Ravelry and found that there are quite a few patterns which produce varying results. Some are curved waves, some are very angular, some are very lacy. I wanted to end up with a tight, angular fabric so I went for this one. The pattern (knitted in multiples of 11 stitches) is very easy to remember:

Row 1:  k2tog, k3, k3 into next stitch (into the front, into the back and into the front again), k3, slip1 k1 pass the slipstitch over

Row 2: purl if you want a stocking stitch finish (or knit if you want a garter stitch finish)

Here's the J-Cloth...

That's 33 stitches knitted in DK on 3.25mm needles. I knitted every row so the result is a nice firm garter stitch ripple, and the swatch ended up about 3½" wide and 5" long. The yarn is Patons 100% cotton.

So now we have a fancy cloth for our water filter to sit on.

While I was knitting it, I realised that, because this pattern has no 'extra' stitches (as in "cast on multiples of 13 plus 8" etc... ) , I could knit it in the round. And I could knit stocking stitch with 'stripes' of garter stitch to emphasise the ripple. So now, I have a ripple jumper on the go for Stashlet. Adding the sleeves is going to prove an interesting exercise...

 

Towelling post-swimming robe-tunic-thingy

Now there's a title that just rolls of the tongue.

We're going to go swimming.

I've been holding off on this on principle because I think the idea of having to wear a hat so that my hair doesn't clog the pool drain is absolutely ridiculous (one of those only-in-Ireland type things...), but Stashlet's love of water has finally won through so we're going to a parent and baby session tomorrow.

Babies get cold easily once they're out of the water, so inspired by Dana,  I thought I'd make a little towelling robe to cosy him up in once he's out of the pool. The original idea was to made an open fronted dressing gown type robe with a tie belt, but this metamorphosed into a tunic as Stashlet is not walking by himself yet and I felt that something with a closed front would work better.

Yet again, it's an Ikea repurposing. Three Nackten guest towels (30x50cm, and ridiculously cheap which probably means I'm supporting Taiwanese child labour or something); one for the back, one for the front, one cut in half and tapered a bit for the sleeves, and a bit of Kaffe Fassett bias binding that I made back in the days when I had time for such luxuries.

It looks quite a slim fit but with no nappy on, Stashlet is  a bit of a bean pole so I think it will fit him for a while (by which I mean at least this summer, fingers crossed).

You could easily make it with thicker towelling (the Nackten towelling is quite thin) or with bigger towels for larger kids. Bearing in mind the neck opening size experience I had with the Charlie tunic, I made this one a good couple of inches longer so there is plenty of roomto get in and out easily, and no need to fight with a wet and wriggling baby.

More posts on the way, I've been having a productive week...

Charlie Tunic #1

Finally! Here's a photo of the Charlie Tunic that I made so long ago that I can't remember when it was (Christmas?).

I think I have bored you on several occasions about how much I love this tunic, and Stashlet is finally able to wear his very own. And because I decided a while ago not to post anymore photos of the Wee Wriggle Monster himself*, you'll have to take my word for it but my god, does he look CUTE.

It's made from Bomull of course, and the facing is a bit of Timeless Treasures that I got a fat quarter of at one of the Dublin Knitting and Stitch Shows. There will definitely be more in the pipeline, subject to the following sewing notes...

• I made the 18mo-2yr size and it only just fits him. So much for saving this top till the summer
• The neck opening is barely able to go over Stashlet's head so I will add an inch more to the slit in future versions
• The pattern instructions have you put the sleeves on before attaching the yoke. I found this made things rather akward and will put the yoke on first next time
• There is a very narrow seam allowance on the facing (¼") which was a real fiddle to turn under neatly especially on the inside curves so I might try a wider seam allowance or a bit of Bondaweb next time
• I might try one in cotton jersey if I can find the new twin machine needles that I put somewhere so safe that I now can't find them (grumble)

space

*I hummed and haa-ed about this for quite a while and the more I thought about it, the more I felt that Stashlet has as much right to his privacy as any bigger person, and that posting personal photos can become a slippery slope into revealing everything about one's family life. I know of one blog (and there are probably countless others) where the blogger practially posts her address and phone number, and yes, that's extreme but it's not something I'd do in real life so why think the internet is any safer or respectful.

One!

(It's a crap photo and a pink candle, but you get the jist...)

Hard to believe it, but a year ago today the (not so) wee Stashlet arrived on the scene. A week late and reluctant to make his appearance to the very end, the threat of a Cesarean finally got him moving. I never wrote that post about the whole labour-experience-thingy, mostly because I never had time and it would have been far too long to keep anyone's interest apart from mine. Suffice to say, I came out of it with a bouncing baby and the knowledge that apparently I have very good pelvic geometry.

Anyway, we're here today to talk about birthday cake, so let's do that, shall we?

I wasn't going to make a cake. We don't really do birthday's here at Stash Towers, and I know this makes me sound like a bad mother but Stashlet is far too preoccupied with throwing saucepan lids around the kitchen and freaking out the cat to notice that it's his birthday. But then my aunt phoned out of the blue all the way from Zambia to wish Stashlet happy birthday and said "you must send me photos of his party", and with no party and no cake I was suitably emotionally blackmailed into baking. That really makes me sound like a bad mother.

Moving swiftly on...

It's another recipe from the Baby Led Weaning Cookbook. One that I hadn't tried before, and was a bit dubious about because I'm not a big fan of banana cake, but then I said that about the BLW muffins and they turned out to be a total winner (and in trying to find the post about them to add a hyperlink, I've just discovered that I never blogged about them, so I'll have to add them to the to-do list...).

This turned out to be good too. Be warned it doesn't rise much, and it possibly doesn't keep very well (it's very moist) but you only get a small cake so easy enough to eat in one sitting. The rest of ours has gone in the freezer so that my mother can have some when she comes to visit next month.

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Banana Cake

from the Baby led Weaning Cookbook

butter or oil for greasing

100g (3½oz) self-raising wholemeal flour (or use plain flour and add 2 tsp baking powder)

½tsp ground mixed spice

50g (2oz) butter (preferably unsalted)

75g (2½oz) raisins (or chopped figs)

200g (7oz)  ripe bananas (that's pretty much 2 bananas)

50g (2oz) walnuts, ground or finely chopped)

1 egg, beaten

Topping (optional)

200g (7oz) cream cheese

50-100g (2-3½oz) 100% fruit spread or jam

Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/gas mark 4, and lightly grease a 450g (1lb) loaf tin.

Sift the flour into a large bowl and add the spices. Cut or break the butter into small cubes and add it to the flour.

Using your hands, a pastry blender, or a food processor, rub the butter into the flour until the mixture looks like fine breadcrumbs. Stir in the raisins (or chopped figs) and make a well in the centre of the mixture.

In a separate bowl, mash the bananas, add the walnuts and stir in the egg. Pout the banana mixture into the flour mixture and fold in.

Pour the mixture into the loaf tin and put it in the oven. Turn the oven down to 160C/325F/gas mark 3 and bake for 45-60 minutes, or until a skewer comes out clean.

Remove the tin from the oven and allow to cool for 5-10 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack to finish cooling.

Serve plain, with creme fraiche, or natural yoghurt, or covered with the topping. To make the topping, combine the ingredients thoroughly (using a blender or food processor if the jam is lumpy) and spread evenly over the cake.

*******

Baking notes:

• I hardly ever grease tins these days - I'm a total parchment convert. It's brilliant stuff  - if only you could use it in ring tins
• I soaked the raisins in milk for about 15 minutes because they were a bit on the dry side (drain the milk before you put them in the cake though)
• It's fine to use salted butter if you're not feeding babies or young children
  
• I used ground hazelnuts because that was what I had
• I used extra coarse wholemeal flour, again because that was what I had, but it also adds a nice nutty texture
  
• The idea is that you grind the nuts if your baby can't manage lumps but I think I would grind them anyway because a) I don't like pieces of nuts in cakes and b) I think the overall flavour wouldn't be so uniformly nutty with pieces
• I made a bit of glace icing with icing sugar and orange juice to drizzle over the top rather than the cream cheese topping, and was glad I did because the cake is very sweet and would, I think, be total overkill with cheesey-jammyness on top
• As I said it doesn't rise much so spread the mixture out neatly before you put it in the oven because any peaks or troughs will likely remain so after baking
• This cake probably keeps ok in the fridge for a couple of days but it is very moist so it should be eaten sooner rather than later
  

It was delicious. Much better than expected. Not overpoweringly banana-y, in fact it reminded me of a coffee cake I once had. Stashlet loved it so for a non-birthday birthday, it was a roaring success. Definitely one to make again.