More monkey news

It hasn’t taken long for knitted garden monkeys to start popping up all over the country. Seems they’re resourceful little fellas with sightings coming in from motorway service stations to hot air balloons. This handsome specimen looks like he has found a cosy home all the way east in Cambridge. I was lucky enough to visit his new owner Ruthie on her 30th birthday at the start of October. “Jeffrey’s settled in remarkably quickly,” Ruthie said, “he likes to lend a hand around the house and especially likes helping to hang washing out on the line. He’s ever so well behaved.”

Remember if you’d like to help save the knitted garden monkey, follow these simple instructions.

Big birthday cupcake

After the first knitted cupcake debacle I was scared I may never take up double pointed needles again. But the fast approach of my lovely friend Suzy’s 30th birthday helped me shake off the fear and get knitting again. I met Suzanne back in the day when we were doing English at Nottingham Uni. She was hobbit-sized, mouthy and Northern and I haven’t been able to get rid of her since. (I should also mention she is gorgeous, hideously clever and makes me laugh until I no longer have control of any bodily functions, but that would make her far too big headed so let’s just stick to mouthy and Northern).

Unfortunately, I couldn’t be with her for her big celebration so I popped the cupcake in the post. I just hope she hasn’t tried to eat it.

It’s made exactly the same way as the contraversial cupcake all the way to Row 48. It then goes as follows:
(with candle holder colour)
Row 49: kfb into all sts
Row 50: k all sts
Row 51: k2tog, YO to end
Row 52: k all sts
Row 53: k all sts
Row 54: Pick up purl bumps and k2tog with a stitch from current row (like for icing)
Row 55: k2tog to end (6 stitches)
(with candle colour and on slightly smaller needles if you have them)
Rows 56 – 69 k all sts
(with flame colour)
Row 70: k all sts
Row 71: kfb into all sts
Row 72: k all sts
Row 73: k2tog to end
Row 74: k2 tog to end (3 stitches)
Cut wool leaving at least 6 inches. Thread needle and run through remaining sts, pull tightly. Run needle down through candle, emerging at the base of the candle. Knot and tie off to secure. Cut off any remaining wool.

Milkshake + muffin = yumathon!

There are times when only the very finest banana milkshake will do. And since I discovered the recipe for the very finest banana milkshake, I find I’m having more and more of those times. I often buy too many bananas on purpose just so I’ll have to use them up before they go too squishy. And if I’m already making a banana milkshake well why not make some banana muffins too? It’d be rude not to.

Banana milkshake
2 ripe bananas
2 tbsps yoghurt
1 tsp vanilla essence
2 tsps runny honey
about 4 ice cubes
about half a pint milk

Blend all the ingredients together with an electric blender until the ice cubes stop rattling and it’s nice and frothy! (Makes about a pint). If you have some strawberries, blueberries, raspberries or mago throw them in too, but I reckoin the basic banana is the best!

Banana and white chocolate muffins (adapted from Nigella Express)
3 very ripe bananas
125ml vegetable oil
250g flour
100g caster sugar
half tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tsp baking powder
150g white chocolate pieces

1. Preheat oven to 200 degrees C/gas mark 6 and line a 12-bun muffin tin with papers
2. Mash the bananas and set aside
3. Pour the oil into a jug and beat in the eggs
Put the flour (I sieve it twice as Delia recommends), sugar, bicarbonate of soda and baking powder into a large bowl and mix in the beaten egg and oil mixture, followed by the mashed bananas. (Don’t overmix, just enough to combine, doesn’t matter if it’s a bit lumpy)
4. Fold in the chocolate pieces, then divide between muffin cases and bake for 20 minutes.

I baked these for the opening night of this year’s series of Strictly Come Dancing and they went down a treat! So did the pomegranate juice and sparkling wine!

A Hat of One’s Own

I am two weeks away from the hand-in date for my MA in Professional Writing. I am meant to be writing a novel, but I have also spent quite a few hours in the last week making this lovely vintage hat. Well, I say vintage, it’s 1970s which I would prefer not to think of as that long ago, but I suppose over 35 years makes it vintage! Anyway, it’s the first hat I’ve knitted for myself and I love it. At least I’m doing something productive with my procrastination time!

I used 2 x 50g balls of Click Chunky in shade 0128: tarn which gives an equivalent tension to the discontinued Patons Husky wool that this pattern was designed for. It was surprisingly quick to knit up and it’s going to keep my ears lovely and warm in winter. Just remember that when you make the bobble, you slip the stitch you’ve been creating the bobble with off with the last purl stitch. I forgot to do this and ended up mucking up the whole pattern and having to start again!
Click here for the pattern. Enjoy!

The only carrot cake recipe you’ll ever need

I’ve used lots of different carrot cake recipes in my time but, after a fair few tweaks and a bit of experimentation, I reckon this one’s the best. It’s just squidgy enough without being soggy and the icing is spot on. I made one of these for a picnic a few weeks ago and had a little bit of icing left over. I faced a tough decision – eat the remaining icing with a spoon or make a whole other cake just to use it up. I went for the whole cake option!

150g plain flour
1tsp bicarbonate of soda
1tsp baking powder
1tsp cinnamon
250g grated carrots
150g caster sugar (golden caster sugar is particularly good)
1tsp vanilla essence
150ml vegetable oil
2 eggs beaten

icing
50g butter (at room temperature)
75g cream cheese (full or half fat)
half tsp vanilla essence
100g icing sugar

- Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C and grease and line a 7.5 x 7.5 x 2in cake tin. (it works just as well in two similarly sized round shallow tins, plus you can put icing in the middle too!)
- Sieve flour, bicarb, baking powder & cinnamon into bowl.
- Stir in carrots and sugar
- Add oil, eggs & vanilla. Stir to mix then beat for 1 minute until thoroughly combined.
- Pour mix into tin(s) and cook for 20-25 mins (2 tins)/ 35-40 mins (1 tin) or until risen and firm to the touch.
- Take out of the oven and leave for 5 mins, then turn out onto rack to cool completely.
- Meanwhile beat butter until smooth, add cheese & vanilla and slowly stir in icing sugar. Spread on cake.
- Sprinkle with crushed pecans or walnuts if you like.
N.B. If the cake is not completely cool, the icing will melt into the cake a bit and make it even squidgier. This is not necessarily a bad thing!

Save the knitted garden monkey

Few people have ever seen a knitted garden monkey in captivity, let alone in the wild, but here’s one I spotted in its natural habitat in my Mum and Dad’s back garden. He looks happy enough here, but my parents’ 3 cats and a dog make the garden a treacherous place for such an endangered species. In the end this particular monkey decided to come back to Falmouth, where he’s become an activist monkey and found a lovely new home with a balcony garden. No cats can find him there!

If you’d like to help repopulate your local area with knitted garden monkeys, follow the simple instructions in Knit a Square & Make A Toy.

Hearty congratulations

I knitted these cards this summer for Vicky and Jon’s wedding and my Mum’s birthday.

Here’s a pdf of the pattern I used – knitted heart pattern
(I have lost the link to where I found it on the Internet, so if you come across it, let me know and I’ll credit it).

Contraversial cupcake

My friend Harriet and I decided to be out and proud when we celebrated International Knit In Public Day on 13th June this year. The big day coincided with the Falmouth International Sea Shanty Festival – knitting and song, the perfect combination, or so we thought!

Inspired by Harriet’s fabulous knitted fruit, I decided to attempt my first creation on double pointed needles. We found a sunny spot at the end of the pier and got to work. At first there was lots of swearing and thoughts of throwing the whole lot into the harbour, but with Harriet’s patient help and my stubborn persistance, my cupcake was soon shaping up. And the banana Harriet was working on was also looking delightful.

In search of refreshment, we found a table at one of the many venues around town where groups of shanty singers were entertaining the crowds. Now we had tea, lovely company, new knitting projects AND sea shanties, nothing could be better.

Until… we started getting heckled by one of the singing groups! They shouted at us through the crowd, incredulous that we could be knitting and listening at the same time. We were surprised but not deterred, determined to do our bit for knitters everywhere. They left us alone for a bit, but then accused us of being like the women who used to knit near the guillotines in the French Revolution and one man asked if we were knitting condoms for sailors! What a notion! Eager not to be seen to be retreating with our tails between our legs, we knitted on and tried to sneak out a while later, half way through a song. But the singers stopped mid shanty and bade us a fond farewell! I like to think that the next time they encounter knitters, they’ll know we’re just the same as everyone else, we just like making stuff with wool!

So here’s the cupcake that caused a stir, quite innocent really I think you’ll agree. And to see Harriet’s fruity creations, check out her blog – hblikethepencil.

I found the original pattern by Blah Blah Blahhhg on Ravelry, using mods by neekie, kelly-ann and noteventherain. I made even more mods myself, so the pattern I followed in the end was something like this:

With wrapper colour, cast on 6 sts on dpns.
Row 1 – kfb into each st (12 sts)
Row 2 – (and all even numbered rows) k all sts
Row 3 – kfb, k1 to end (18 sts)
Row 5 – kfb, k1 to end (27 sts)
Row 7 – kfb, k2 to end (36 sts)
Row 8 – p all sts (36 sts)
Rows 9 – 20 – k1, p1 to end (Row 14 & 17 increase by one stitch at either end to make the cup angle out a bit)

Change to icing colour.
Row 21 – k2, kfb to end
Rows 22 & 23 – k all sts
Row 24 – k2tog, YO to end
Row 25 – Pick up purl bumps from the top of the cupcake base on wrong side of work, k2tog with one st from icing (this can get very tight so be careful)
Rows 26 – 32 – k all sts
Put circle of card in base and fill cup bit with rolled up toy stuffing (I put a small stone in the middle of the stuffing to give it weight, but that may not be suitable if it’s a gift for children).

Here's the cupcake in an Alice in Wonderland window display at the lovely babahogs cafe

Row 33 – k6, k2tog to end
Row 34 – k5, k2tog to end
Row 35 – k all sts
Row 36 – k4, k2tog to end
Row 37 – k all sts
Row 38 – k3, k2tog to end
Row 39 – k all sts
Fill top / icing bit with stuffing.
Row 40 – k2, k2tog to end
Row 41 – k all sts
Row 42 – k1, k2tog to end
Row 43 – k all sts
Row 44 – k1, k2tog to end
Row 45 – k all sts
Row 46 – k1, k2tog to end
Row 47 – k2tog to end
Row 48 – k all sts

Change to cherry colour.
Row 49 – k all sts
Row 50 – kfb into all sts
Row 51 – k all sts
Row 52 – k2tog to end
Cut wool leaving at least 6 inches. Thread needle and run through remaining sts, pull tightly. Run needle down through cherry, emerging at the base of the cherry. Wind wool around base of cherry and tie off to secure. Cut off any remaining wool.

Tea cosy tastic!

The curse of the knitter is to always end up giving away their creations. But after Sarah and Harriet bought me a delicious mint green tea pot for my birthday, I was determined to clothe it in a cosy without delay even though I was due to make two other cosies for gifts!

I adapted the cross rib stitch hat I made in the winter and chose a cheap DK yarn in pretty shade of greeny blue from my local wool shop. Here’s how to do it:

1. On 4mm needles, cast on 51 stitches or a multiple of 3 to fit (mine’s a 4 cup pot)
2. K2, P1, K2, P1 to end of row
3. P2, K1, P2, K1 to end of row
4. Repeat steps 2 & 3 until you have enough ribbing, I did 6 rows.
Work the rest of the cosy in cross rib stitch:
5. (right side) p1, Tw2R, p1, Tw2R to end of row
6. k1, p2, k1, P2 to end of row
Tw2R = knit into front of 2nd stitch, don’t slip off, come back round and knit into first stitch then slip both off together.
7. Knit until you have 16-18cm then start to decrease as follows:
8. (right side) P1, K2tog, P1, K2tog to end of row
9. K1, P1, K1, P1 to end of row
10. P1, SSK, P1, SSK to end of row
11. P the whole row
12. K2tog through back of loop for the whole row
13. P the whole row
14. K the whole row
15. Break the wool and thread back through remaining stitches, pulling tightly to gather.
16. Repeat steps 1-15 to make the other side
17. Sew together using matress stitch leaving holes for the spout and handle.
18. Finish off with a pretty button or whatever you fancy!

Chick Knit

Who knew that a tea cosy could start a revolution?

Well, when I sent my lovely friend Paula a stripey tea cosy for her birthday in April, not only did it provide her with a nice warm brew, it also sparked a new wave of creativity. Paula had been taught to knit at a very young age by an elderly relative and could remember many happy days spent creating all sorts of wonderful knitted objects.

So spurred on by the arrival of the tea cosy, she picked up her sticks again and was amazed how quickly it all came flooding back. A few weeks later it was my birthday and I was thrilled to receive the cutest little knitted chick from Paula!

She made it up completely off the top of her head (making a big oval for the body and little ones for the wings) and isn’t it a fine creation? He now sits merrily on my kitchen shelf keeping a beady eye on me and my housemates.

To find out what other delightful creations P’s working on, visit her at Dizzychick Does Stuff.