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For the first time in over a year I've actually picked my knitting up. I'm quite surprised with myself. While I haven't been knitting I've been busy - first moving (again), and then making one of these:

This is Rory Aloysius, born July 9th. I seem to be the only knitter I know that doesn't go into full on baby knitting mode when pregnant.

So, we're all doing fine. Let's see if the blog keeps going or if it languishes.

Frances' chair

This week I have managed to finish a sewing project which I have had on the go for a few months - a chair for Frances.



It's made from leftovers (thanks Quinn for the denim), including the pillow forms and about half of the stuffing. Frances helped with the final stuffing of the pillow forms and knew that it was for her and exactly what to do with it once it was assembled. 11 months old yesterday - she's getting closer and closer to being a little girl.

Baby saag

Apart from being busy looking after Frances, working, meeting up with people, visiting places, trying to do a bit of gardening, a bit of crafting and generally living life, I think one of the reasons the blogging stopped is because this blog bores me.

I'm not sure what to do about it - do I abandon the blog? Or take it in a different direction - not sure which direction that would be? Or something else as yet un-thought of? Who knows?

While I figure that out I thought I'd post about baby food. If you've read David's blog (also stalled) you'll know that we do a bit of cooking, so it will come as no surprise that we've primarily been cooking our own baby food for Frances.

There are times when jars are great - especially when travelling - but I do wonder what's in the food to allow them to have an unrefrigerated jarred shelf life. I also think, of the ones I've tasted, that the savoury offerings are very bland, and the sweet offerings very sweet.

So, back to cooking baby food - we have one baby cook book. "New Complete Baby and Toddler Meal Planner" by Annabel Karmel. I've found this a very good guide through the weaning process - there's contradictory advice out there about what to give babies at certain ages, particularly concerning eggs and dairy, but I've been quite happy to follow her advice. Frances hasn't had any allergies (so far!) so I'm quite happy to continue following it.

The one recipe that I feel is missing is a baby curry. So this afternoon I've been rectifying that. I adapted a recipe out of another cook book that we have (and we have plenty!) called "Curries without worries" by Sudha Koul.

So, what I did:
1. Defrosted about 300g of frozen spinach
2. Chopped an onion, couple of cloves of garlic and a couple of cm's of garlic in the food mixer. Then added about 5 cloves that I'd pounded in the pestle and mortar.
3. Fried onion mix, then a chicken breast that I chopped finely in the food mixer.
4. Once everything was looking well on the way to being browned I added two chopped tomatoes, 1/2 teaspoon each of turmeric, cumin, cinnamon and cardamom (all pounded in the pestle and mortar if they were whole), and about 100g creme fraiche.
5. Added the spinach, reduced the heat, covered and let cook for a bit until it looked right.

This made about 5 jars of the 8 month old size when I filled the jars about half and half, rice and curry.

I was going to take a photo of it, but Frances ate it so quickly that I didn't manage!

It's about time I blogged something...

Life is good.


Our move to Turku went very well.


We've had both sets of our parents come to visit already and are due my sister-in-law in December.


Frances is doing very well, she's what could undoubtedly be called a happy, contented baby (without being on a strict Gina Ford regime).

We've decided not to put too many pictures of her up on the internet.


The usual focus of this blog is craftiness - there hasn't been a huge amount of crafting going on since Frances has been born, but I'm sure that will increase as time goes on.

Frances

This is Frances Lorelei, I suspect she will hinder my knitting and blogging for a little while!



Born 4th September, 3.5kg. Mother and baby doing well - Father worn out!

Race update - and the winner is....

A pretty close run thing, but Andrew's jumper has won. Last ends woven in today and after a little bit of a light blocking I declare it the winner.

We had our friend Mina to visit last week along with her son Theodor, who's about 8 months old. She asked if I could help her develop her rudimentary knitting skills - I'm not sure if I was that much help, but she went home with some yarn and needles that she was encouraged to buy and a pattern for a baby hat that she practice cast on for while she was visiting. She's since set up a ravelry account, so hopefully she'll keep going. I cast on for the same baby hat and have nearly finished it - it just needs some i-cord making for ties.

Now we just need the baby.

Race progress

The jumper vs baby race is really hotting up:

Baby is at about 8 months.

And as far as the jumper is concerned, the sleeves are done and I'm onto the yoke. Another inch or so and I can start doing some decreases. I'm looking forward to the decreases as it's an awful long way around at the moment.

So, the race is hotting up and it's all to play for.

Resurrected quilt

While David has been at work this weekend I decided to have a bit of change of craft project. When my Mum came to visit back in March one of the things we did was organise my sewing supplies - in the organising, one of the things we came across was a languishing quilting project. I've been trying to figure out when I must have started it, and think it must have been sometime in the late 80's! I seem to have a habit with quilting and patchwork of starting with a very manageable sized project and extending it into something that stalls because it's too big/complicated.


It started out being this:

First change was to not want to do any applique, so these blocks were changed - so far so good, and then I think I must have gone on a family holiday somewhere in Scotland and came back inspired to try to piece together a border composed of Celtic knot work - this is obviously when it got out of hand.


We found about 4 blocks of knot work and 15 blocks of normal patchwork. My Mum's suggestion was to go back to the original plan and make the quilt up as per the book using the blocks I had as it would turn out about the right size for a cot quilt.


I've listened to this sane suggestion and have produced the quilt front:

I've still got 3 blocks leftover, which I might put on on the back just so they have somewhere to go, and the Celtic knot work, which I think might languish a bit longer!

Still growing

Nothing much new to report going on here - just continued progress on ongoing projects.

Andrew's cobblestone now has 5 balls of felted tweed on it and is about 21" long - so probably one more ball and then I can get on with the sleeves.


The weather here has been nice over the last little while, and the veg garden is growing with varying success. We harvested our first broad beans during the week and after a few hints to the chef that these needed to be showcased in something, he made a nice risotto. We also have one surviving sweetcorn plant, some florence fennel, leeks and brocolli plants doing their thing, so hopefully they'll continue to make progress. Our soft fruit is also doing well. We have a few blackcurrents and gooseberries and also some strawberries - the field fares have been eyeing them up, but despite some attacks on the netting they haven't managed to get in there yet.

My bump is also growing - I'm about 7 months now.

I'm starting to feel a bit as if there's a race between Andrew's cobblestone and the baby - I would really like Andrew's jumper to win as I'm sure knitting will take a bit of a hiatus once the baby gets here.

Under the gooseberry bush

Well, not quite under the gooseberry bush time yet, but we went and picked up my maternity package today, which I get from Kela as part of the maternity benefit. I think this is a fantastic idea - I think it might be the only social security system in the world that gives a box of goodies to prospective parents. The link shows what's in it - basically baby clothes and bits and bobs like blanket, bedding, hairbrush, picture book etc. Even the box it comes in has a little mattress in the bottom and can be used as a crib. I need to look at the contents a bit more, but from what I've read everything it contains is ecological and there aren't any disposable nappies, which I think is good - just washable ones.

I didn't manage 11" of knitting while I was away, by the way, am not really surprised. Too many other things to do - oh well, I'll buckle down to it now (promise!).

The rain will do the garden good

Anyone would think we were back in winter again with the darkness of the photos I'm posting - in fact it looks like it's about to rain, big heavy laden sky. We have had some good sunshine and hot weather recently, so the phrase, "The rain will do the garden good" is more true than annoying. Hopefully it'll help to swell the gooseberries and encourage the rhubarb to put up a few more stalks for us to harvest, and maybe encourage the strawberries to fruit (the field fares are certainly keeping their beady little eyes on the plants despite them being securely caged - the strawberries, not the birds).


So, back to the photos - just a couple of progress shots again. The first is another shot of Andrew's cobblestone sweater. One more ball of yarn down and it's definitely getting longer - I think I've got about 11" to go before I get to the armpits (I had thought I only had 4" to do, but my maths isn't very good at the moment so when I checked I found it was more). We're off to the UK next week so I'll take it with me to try to get those 11" done while sitting in the garden relaxing and while David's off walking with my Dad. I still like knitting with felted tweed, there's something about it that pleases me - not sure if it's the tweediness, or the soft but not fluffy soft texture, or how even it knits up - or maybe all three and some other reasons that haven't been verbalised right now.

The other progress shot is the pile of nappies that I'm making.

I had a bit of a slow start as I decided I didn't like how they looked when I overlocked the edges, and I was having some problems with the soaker pad bunching when I washed them. But after taking a couple of the first ones apart and putting them back together so that they're sewn and then turned and with a better constructed soaker pad, I'm starting to make progress. These are going to be too big for a newborn, but I'm hoping will be a good average size that the baby will be able to get some good use out of. I think we're going to try these nappies from mothercare for when the baby's very little.

Count down

Some things I seem to be doing at the moment involve counting down - here are three of them:

Firstly, and probably needing the least amount of counting down is our rhubarb. This has come back nicely after the winter. I'll probably cut the first stalks this weekend. The plan is to make a rhubarb baked cheesecake - I don't really have a recipe to follow, but will adapt and experiment with my usual baked cheesecake recipe and see what happens.

Secondly, Andrew's jumper is still making progress. I've now knit 3 balls and I think I'm nearly half way to the arm pits. The felted tweed is knitting up nicely (as ever). I hope it fits him when it's finished.

And thirdly, the counting down of the bump... this is the progress at 25 weeks. It looks like a baby bump rather than a pie bump now.

Breaking the silence

It's time to break blogging silence... I haven't been feeling particularly energetic recently and the crafting has been suffering. (Sorry Andrew, your jumper is only 2" further along). I think I'm getting a bit more energy now and so thought it was time to break the silence.

I couldn't ignore, and had to share, the display Mr Amaryllis is giving this year. I've pretty much ignored him all year and only occasionally given him a drop of water and he's rewarded my neglect with this beautiful bloom. I've spotted a second bud coming from the same bulb, which is very exciting.

My Mum came to visit last week and helped me plant a few veg seeds.... it didn't take long, but a few have already germinated. The line of seedlings closest are broccoli, there's also some leeks that have germinated and one sweet corn plant (so far). It all bodes well for this years vegetable garden, we just need things to warm up and the snow to go and then we can really get things going.

I have started (again with the help of my Mum, and Dylan as model) a new crafty project. I've decided to make nappies. Dylan claims he doesn't need a nappy, but I'm not so sure! The plan is to make 20 before the beginning of September.