sisterly stitches

Recently (like a few months ago...) it was my sister's birthday and I made her a new cowl and fingerless mitts. The mitts are the same ones I've mentioned before called Fetching.

The cowl is from a pattern called 'Infinity Trinity Cowl and Wristers' and it can be found here --> http://bit.ly/nqnHSF

I was going to make the wristers as well but long story short; I had the wrong type of yarn so I just went with one that I knew would work. It's a beautiful pattern cowl pattern and can be made relatively fast because of the 5mm needle size.

For this pattern either purchase the yarn they recommend, use an equivalent in thickness or cheat by doubling up (that's what I did). If it's too thin the pattern won't show properly.

This is probably a good pattern for someone learning to cable, especially because the stitches are fairly large.

Also, above is a picture of my sister sporting her new accessories. I think she likes it!

fondant cake

Yes, I know the title isn't clever. Whatever, it does the job.

My first ever fondant finished cake! It's chocolate cake with chocolate icing and marshmallow fondant; created specifically for my cousin who had just turned five.

It was really good and my cousin was very excited to get a piece. He grabbed his plate eagerly and proceeded to eat all the fondant and discard the remaining cake inside. Oh well, it was a pretty colour I guess.

The cake and icing recipes came from my Magnolia Bakery cookbook (http://amzn.to/o9U2sW). If you are looking to buy a new desserts cookbook I highly recommend this one. Everything is delicious.

The fondant recipe came from somewhere online but I can't find it now. If you search 'how to make marshmallow fondant' you should be able to find a good site easily. It seems that a lot of people are more than happy to share their techniques.

To decorate the cake I had coloured a few smaller portions of fondant in yellow, pink and green. Using a cookie cutter I made stars and stuck them on. I think professionals use alcohol as glue but it seemed to work ok without.

The letters in his name aren't done as well as I would have liked but I was very tired at this point in the cake making process and had never done this sort of thing before. I just cut them out free-hand with a knife. In the future I should either invest in some alphabet cookie cutters or find some other way to make them.

The edging is made by rolling a bit of each colour into a ball and placing it around the bottom of the cake.

available in cable

For the first time ever I am knitting cables and they weren't hard to figure out so I am looking forward to doing more patterns with them. Cables really seem to make a piece look intricate and professional. I had attempted them once before but failed, I think it was a combination of lack of experience and bad instruction.

The way I figured out how to cable was through a pair of fingerless mitts. I'm really enjoying this new pattern. It's called 'Fetching' and is available on knitty.com. It was a free pattern and I really recommend it. http://www.knitty.com/ISSUEsummer06/PATTfetching.html

Lately I'm feeling impatient with my knitting and I find myself choosing quick patterns. Fetching is a very quick pattern, if I work at it I can finish the pair in one weekend. So far I've completed a pink/lime pair for myself and a black pair for a girl at my work. I like the black pair a lot so I might make another pair for myself.

Also, the pattern is easily adjusted to work with different yarn thicknesses. The black yarn is thicker so I just cut out two pattern repeats (10 sts) then adjusted the thumb stitches accordingly.

After the black pair for myself I need to make a pair for another girl at my work, then I might try using the yarn from the socks I made, I have a lot of that yarn left over.

sock it to me

I've finished my first knit pair of socks! This is a project that I've been struggling with for a long time so it's nice to see a finished product. I was having a hard time trying to figure out what the pattern was trying to tell me, so I decided to look for some answers online. Once again YouTube saved me. I don't know who these people are that feel the need to post videos on how to knit but I'm glad that they take the time to do it.

This pair of socks is from Red Heart's Winter Accessories book, the pattern is called Two Color Socks. I did make a change to this pattern on the ankle part. The K2, P2 ribbing is only suppose to go about 3/4 down the top and then it is knit in the round. This looked weird in the picture used in the book, so I continued the ribbing down to the heel. They also wanted me to use two colours but since it is my first pair of socks, I decided to keep things simple and just use one ball of yarn.

The yarn I used is called Mosaic by Bernat. This yarn is awesome because it slowly fades down the sock, it was also fairly light so I got away with using it for this pattern but the sock is a little loose. I would recommend using smaller needles or the proper yarn. Although the yarn did look great one of my socks got very thin in the grey coloured part. It was like the yarn was meant to have another layer that the machine missed during production. This really isn't acceptable when I'm working on something that takes such a long time to make and I don't realize that the yarn has a problem until I've used it for so long. Use this yarn with discretion, but if it works out you will have a piece that is very unique.

grape & apple, together at last

It's been a while since I've posted anything so I baked something quick to post on my blog. Today's treat is an apple grape torte. I know, apple and grape sound weird together but I figured that I like apples and raisins together so this isn't so much different than that.

One of my favourite shows on T.V. to watch is Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives. The food always looks so good, makes me hungry watching it. On one of the episodes a restaurant was featuring a pie that they make, an Apple Grape Pie. Sounded strange but I figure, fruit goes well with fruit.

I used the torte recipe in my Magnolia Bakery cookbook called 'Aunt Daisy's Fresh Fruit Torte'. The recipe called for a mixture of any two fruits but used pear and cranberry as an example. I didn't have any pear or cranberries but I did have apples and grapes. I've never eaten a torte before so I wasn't sure what to expect, turns out it's a type of cake. It was much sweeter than I thought it would be but the texture was nice. Also, I think it could have used more fruit. Next time I am going to try doubling the amount I put on it.

Not knowing what a torte was, I placed my apple slices on the top very carefully in a pinwheel pattern. Then I cut the grapes in half and placed one on each apple with a whole grape in the middle. I wish I had taken a picture of the torte before I baked it because when the mixture rose it pushed all my fruit around and just created a jumble mess on top. No need to organize the fruit on top, it's just a waste of time.

The recipe also called for a greased and floured cake pan with wax paper on top. Next time I won't be using wax paper, it just got stuck in the cake and I don't think it was necessary.

Overall, a very tasty and simple treat that I will be making again. I'd like to try some more fruit combinations. I do have some strawberries in my fridge right now that are too tart to eat on their own, very out of season.