Internet love

What's the best way to say, omigosh somebody gave me a blog award?

How about... somebody gave me a blog award!  The lovely Hazel, of Hazel's Crochet nominated me!  How supremely flattering!

The award goes to a blog you love that has less than 200 followers, and once you receive the award, you then need to give it to 5 people you deem worthy.

I've been madly clicking away trying to find the origins of this pwn award.  Apparently 'Liebster' means 'Dearest' in German (thanks Sweet Williams). 

It was REALLY hard to choose who to pass this onto (I'm pretty addicted to blogs...).  Without further ado I am pleased to pass this award to the following blogs which I love to read:

1. Useless Beauty Designs - I get uber excited everytime I see a new post from Susie from UBD.  She writes about her life with such humour it's difficult not to be enamoured;
2. Tea and Craft - You know that feeling you get when you think you've found a cyber kindred spirit?  With every post from Lisa from T&C I think, oh I like that stuff tooooo.  She is much more crafty than me though!!;
3. Sweet Little Stitches - Lynne from SLS is a crochet master, with every creation she shows off, my amazement increases;
4. Master of a Thousand Things - Certainly a master of both crochet and knitting, Tink makes lovely things and is very gracious with answers should you have any questions!
5. From now till then and in between - Jarka makes really lovely things, and also says lovely things.  I always love visiting her blog!

So there we have it!  GO VISIT THESE AWESOME BLOGS NOW!!!

S.W.A.K.
~Tan

Ginger!

via

I personally like everything about ginger.  My dad is ginger.  Unfortunately, none of his children are :(  Boo!  I'm hoping that if I have children the ginger gene will somehow rear its bright orange head.   I love ginger tea, crystallized ginger and if course, gingerbread.

Christmas for me means gingerbread!  It's the only reason I will visit Starbucks, because during the Christmas period they have gingerbread latte!  

This is my favourite recipe for making gingerbread men, which I found ages ago on the back of some packet or other, so I'm going to share it.

Gingerbread Men Cookies

120g unsalted butter
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup golden syrup
1 egg
2 1/2 cups SR flour
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tbs ground ginger
1/2 tsp ground cloves
2 drops vanilla essence
1 tsp bicarb soda

Cream the butter and sugar, add the egg, golden syrup and essence.  Add the sifted flour, spices and bicarb.  Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 20 mins.  Then roll out and cut away!  I also put the cut out men in the freezer for 10 min before they went into the oven, but these like to puff up a lot in any case!  Bake for 6 minutes or until golden at 180 C.

I do a pretty basic glace icing, and decorate them fairly simply.  They look very homemade :D

*NOM*

I really want to try a gingerbread house this year, but it look like a lot of effort.  If I make one I will definitely share!!

FO! Pressies!

How good are pressies?  Pretty darn good!  Our family doesn't do presents anymore, just for the littlies, and A and I just tell each other what we want because we are that exciting.

But we had a secret santa at work and it was soooo much fun!  And it was so awesome to see all the pressies under the tree! 

I made my present for my recipient.  These are little ornaments for your tree, made with felt, embroider the name on, stuff and wa-lah!  Cute little stocking mice.  (I had to include a couple of pictures of The Kitten's shenanigans too!)



The Kitten loves bags.  Too bad that my craft stuff is in there. 

I also made my recipient's child this hat that I showed off as a wip on Wednesday.  Only 2 days worth of train trips, and I love the funky stripes.

(ignore that messy joining in the first row)

And because everybody's doing it, I thought I'd show off my christmas tree.  I will spare you the 'Oh Christmas Tree...' or 'Its beginning to look a lot like...' post title though!!

A and I don't usually bother with a tree, because it's just the two of us, but this year we made the effort, and it just puts me in a good mood, looking at the tree.  It's a cheap and nasty plastic one, with mostly cheap and nasty decos.  Our theme is silver and teal, but not everything is matchy matchy.  (There's my benny hill christmas pudding which I posted an awesome video of here.  Best christmas paraphernalia ever!)


If you do not have disco balls on your tree, your christmas is ruined!!

And a few more shenanigans from The Kitten:

Oh hai only looking.... *NOM*

More FOs at Tamis Amis!

WIP! Blue and green should never be seen..

I can't find the origin to that saying.  Apparently it might be 'red and green should never be seen' but I hadn't heard that one before!

So, my WIP I'm showing this week is a quickie little hat I am whipping up for a friend's son.  He's 18 months, so hopefully I get the sizing right.  I have no children to test it on so I am going by what this website says.


Action commuter shot.

The pattern is Cheri Hat.  Easy peasy, what you see here is the result of three train rides, so only an hour and a half of work.  I'm not cutting the yarn for each stripe, but just pulling it up from the last row.  It's on the underside so I'm sure it will be fine.  I'm using this bamboo/cotton yarn, which is ridiculously splitty but lovely and soft and perfect for a littlies head.

I haven't made many hats.  What's wrong with me?  They're so quick and easy!  I think I need to get a bit more hatty in the future!

I'm still progressing my with the CITY WATCH AUDIO BOOK CHALLENGE!  (Part 1 here, Part 2 here).  Now onto Book 3:  Feet of Clay.  I'm finding this a weaker story than the first two books.  Still enjoyable, but I'm not engaging as much as I usually do.  Though Carrot's loveable isn't he?  Very much looking forward to getting onto the second half of this challenge.. there are some good stories in there!!

The City Watch Audio Book Challenge.  Progress:  Book 3 - Feet of Clay. 

Quick quote from Feet of Clay:
'It's time to-'
'Prod buttock, sir?' said Carrot, hurriedly.
'Close,' said Vimes, taking a deep drag and blowing out a smoke ring, 'but no cigar.'

Hehe.

Make sure you check out more WIPs at Tami's Amis and Yarn Along at Small Things!

FO! The whole tooth

ahahaha I'm so punny.

My FO's are so few and far between :(  Though I have many WIPs at the moment so they should emerge from the chrysalis of WIP-hood into the wonder of FO-ness soon.  I hope.

This one was a real quickie.  A friend recently had her wisdom teeth out, so I made this for her as a kind of welcome-back-to-work-hope-you-feel-better type gift.

Attempt 1.  I thought I'd be clever and fudge the pattern a bit.   I made it bigger and when it came time to divide for the root I ch 4 or so across so it wouldn't pinch it toghether.  That, together with the too big safety eyes and terrible embroidery, resulted in something I wouldnt be proud to give to anyone.


boooo hissss ugly tooth.  you have no place as a gift.

So, this one now belongs to The Kitten.

take that ugly toof!

Attempt 2.  I followed the pattern for the larger size this time.  I opted out of the safety eyes, and attempted to embroider some anime esq eyes.  I think it's a slightly better result, but eh!  It might have been cuter if I just made the itty bitty one.  Oh wells!


o hai!

My friend was happy, althought it is sitting on her desk UPSIDE DOWN and looks like a rabbit. Like this:

Mosey on down to Tami's Amis for, I'm sure, more impressive FOs than mine!!

WIP - Poe-tay-toe?

Hiya.  As usual, many more WIPs for me than Fins... I've started two more things this week. 

Numero one.  I've been getting my amigurumi on.  Woo!  I won't tell you what it is yet.. can you guess?

I've been told it looks like a potato.  Hence the title to my post, which reminds me of this LOTR scene. Well, it didnt really happen like that but you get my gist. 

via (Also, all you whovians out there, have you seen this cool pic of Space Gandalf? hehe)

Numero two. My mother had this brainwaive of making the three grandchildren (my nieces) a little cardi each for chrissy.  I've been trying to teach her to crochet, but she is quite absent minded and doesn't like following patterns.  So I've been told I need to make three of these by Christmas.  Below is progress on the first one, I think I have about 5 rows to go, and only a couple of hours work.  Easy Peasy!  The pattern is Urban Girl Cropped Cardi.  I'm using Carnival Soft 8ply, just an acrylic, but look at the size of the ball it comes it!! Aieeee!  I have to carry this mother on the train!

An onto the CITY WATCH AUDIO BOOK CHALLENGE!  (Part 1 here)  I am now onto book 2:  Men at Arms.  I believe I have only read this once, so it is lovely to go over it again.  I'm really terrible with books, after finishing one I forget the detail right away.  I am generally only left with an impression of whether or not I liked the book, and a couple of images that really stuck with me. In this case it's largely Carrot and Angua.  There isn't as much Vimes as in Guards Guards, but its still very good to see how he is developed.  And of course Sybil.  Love Sybil. 



The City Watch Audio Book Challenge.  Progress:  Book 2 - Men at Arms.

And finally, here's a cool Pratchett flowchart I found on Pinterest!  A handy little tool if you're interested in Discworld and don't know where to start!  Because of this list I found out that I'd missed the short stories!  Shameful, I know.  You can read Theatre of Cruelty here, it has a funny exchange between Carrot and Death.  Perhaps I will re-read the Death books next...


linky

Remember to stop by Tami's Amis and Yarn Along for more yarny and literary delights!