Wibbo's Words

Yesterday

1. Finish knitting shawl. Win.

2. Clear everything off table to make room for blocking. Fail.

3. Block shawl. Fail.

Scary colours (let's not mention the patterns)

Crustless quiche

Not really a recipe as such, but this is how I make one:

Heat oven to 175C, 375F or gas mark 5.

Butter an ovenproof dish (I use a Le Creuset ceramic dish 20cm square).

Beat 6 large eggs in a bowl, add 275ml double cream and beat well. Season with black pepper and a little salt then leave to stand while you prepare the other ingredients. 

Grate 100g cheese. Cheddar is good or a mix of cheddar, mozzarella, red Leicester or whatever's in your fridge.

Chop up a combination of any of the following and fry in a little butter: pancetta, onions, garlic, red/green peppers, mushrooms, courgettes, leeks. You can also use left-overs of cooked food including broccoli, cauliflower, sprouts, broad beans, peas, ham, chicken, salmon.

Spread fried ingredients across base of dish, cover with grated cheese and pour over the egg/cream mixture. Grate a little nutmeg over the top.

Cook for about 30/35 mins until set and golden brown. Timing will vary depending on the size/depth of your dish and your oven; check after 30 mins and cook for longer if necessary.

Remove from oven and leave to stand for 10 minutes before eating.

Breakfast sorted for the next few days

Crustless quiche with broccoli, onion, cheese, pancetta.

Done it

Feeling in a wildly celebratory mood because I've filed my online tax return one whole week before the deadline. Better go put the kettle on then ;o)

And off I go

The yarn colour IRL is warmer and pinker than this. I'm alternating the two skeins to avoid pooling and so far, so good.

Ready to cast on

Two 100g skeins of hand dyed BFL sock, colourway Cassandra. After seeing the lovely ones that Ambermoggie has knitted, I think this will be a Pamuya (Rav links).

Ready to wear

Finished off the last five pairs from 2010's sock mountain this morning.

Coffee & flowers

Treacle & Co's window display is lovely at the moment - rows of old terracotta plant pots filled with flowering bulbs. This was taken from inside the window.

Chat, a little gentle knitting and a really good cup of coffee. Perfect.

Where's the flower?

So far, all I've got is a nice show of leaves; no sign of a bud. Reckon this amaryllis bulb is a dud.

Mmmmm

Christmas present - a selection of buttons, colourway Wuthering Heights. Delicious.

Coming along nicely

Size 6 beads instead of nupps - the beads are darker IRL.

Note to self

When you add edge stitches to a shawl pattern, remember that it's essential to write this information down somewhere. Preferably on the pattern. This will save you many minutes of puzzling about how you've ended up with 197 stitches instead of 195. Doh.

To do list

Taking a leaf out of Nic's book (or should that be Nic's blog; no, it doesn't sound right), there are a few things I'd like to do this year. 

1. Knit from stash; no yarn buying at all until January 1, 2012. I'm not going to flash my stash at this point, but there is an awful lot of it...

2. Be careful about what I spend on a day-to-day basis. All those small frittered-away amounts on things I don't need would add up to a nice chunk of cash over the year.

3. Read the stack of books-from-charity-shops before I buy any more. I'm better about buying books than I used to be and I'm lucky enough to live round the corner from a very good library.

4. I don't need to buy knitting books/downloadable patterns this year. I have enough of these to enable me to do 1. and more.

There you go then; will keep you posted :o) 

Happier with this

Jawoll Magic colour 66 with nice long colour changes, so stripes instead of pooling. Now to decide what colour beads will replace the nupps. Decisions, decisions...

That denial thing

You probably know it too. The little voice that whispers I don't really like that pooling. Immediately drowned out by the louder voice that says It'll look fine in the morning. The yarn is gorgeous. You're nitpicking again and anyway it's too dark to see the colours properly. The pooling doesn't look too bad and you've knitted so much it'd be such a shame to pull it out.

You'd think I'd have worked out by now that the little voice is usually right. The penny didn't finally drop until I'd knitted 13 out of 14 repeats of bud lace at the beginning of a Swallowtail shawl. Frogged it this morning and started again. With different yarn in a different colour.

Down and away

All the Christmas decorations are down and put away. And they're put away where they should go too, not just left on my table to gather dust for the next few weeks. Christmas/New Year seem to go on for longer every year and I'm ready to do normal things like queueing in the Post Office and going to the library....

Happy New Year

Postmarked Acomb, York, December 26 1911.