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.

Rhubarb cheesecake experiment

I thought I should update on the rhubarb cheesecake experiment. I didn't manage to get a shot of the whole cheesecake before we made a dent, but we did manage to stop before we ate it all.

I used the New York cheesecake recipe out of Sue Lawrence's Book of Baking as a starting point. The changes I made to the recipe, apart from downsizing it, were to use ginger nuts for the base instead of digestives and to add some stewed rhubarb stirred into the cream cheese mix. I used three stewed stalks and a little bit of extra unstewed, just to see if stewing was necessary. I didn't add any vanilla essence or lemon juice/zest.

It turned out to be a successful experiment, the rhubarb gave a fresh taste to the cheesecake that contrasted well with the creaminess of the cream cheese. I found that there was no need to have stewed the rhubarb before stirring it in, and I could have definitely put in more to make it even zingy-er.

So, definitely an experiment that will be tried again. Grow rhubarb, grow.

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.

Cobblestone progress

We're off to Riga tomorrow for a long weekend to explore another of the Baltic cities. The weather's meant to be good, and hopefully it'll be a good weekend all round.

I promised myself that I would finish two balls of yarn on Andrew's cobblestone sweater before I went to Riga and before I blogged about it - so here it is:

Progress so far. Progress is slow, but it's progress nevertheless.

spring at last?

Finally, the first snowdrops have been spotted in our garden: