In the Making

After some internet searching I’ve finally adapted a mitered granny square to get a really nice square ‘unholey’ granny square. Phew. So far so good. And I’ve played with the possibilities of a wall photo studio :)

Today I’m connecting to Our Creative Spaces.

Keep Calm and Swatch On

Gauge is a tricky matter in the knitting business. Everyone knows your should swatch before you start knitting, and many ignore it. I mean, gauge is written on the ball band, right? I confess, this was my philosophy oh so often. And I was mighty lucky, as I never had problems with sizes of the finished projects later. Nastier things happened, though. Like planning a project, finding a lovely stitch pattern, the suiting yarn in the color you love, designing a project and then… on finishing… realize… that the stitch/yarn/color combo JUST DOESN’T WORK. That sucks, doesn’t it? My previous knitting half-disasters left me with some lack of motivation to start something new, but a swatch was just a perfect size, you know. A great way to play around with yarn and some new stitches, and get a feeling if they are a match made in heaven. Or maybe not. Plus, I have several ideas kicking around in my head, but, alas, not enough time to commit to them right now. Once again, enter a swatch.

Invigorating! And I had some fun with taping the swatches on the wall. A tabletop is not a very safe place with an active and curious-about-everything-Mummy-is-doing  2-year old :)

Sprinkle Cake

This is a cake I made for my son’s second birthday. The base is a simple sponge, there are so many recipes around that it doesn’t make sense to write one here. But what I wanted to be special is the cream. Not an easy task, as I didn’t want the cake to be too heavy and too sweet, and butter cream is oh so typical. I was very pleased by the result, light and still keeps the cake moist. Secret ingredient? Ricotta and banana-cherry filling between the layers!
Here is the recipe:
Ingredients:
2-3 ripe bananas
a handful of cherries without pits, fresh or preserved, I didn’t use that many
30 g powder sugar (yes, that little! but don’t forget the bananas, and preserved cherries add sweetness, too)
500 g ricotta
125 g cream
Beat ricotta with the powder sugar well. Beat the cream and fold carefully into the ricotta/sugar mixture. That easy!
Assembling the cake:
Make a sponge base and cut it in two. Put one sponge layer on a plate. Cut bananas in half lengthwise and put them on the cake in rounds. Distribute the cherries around. Like this:

Cover with cream. Put the second sponge layer and distribute evenly the cream on the top and the sides (the amount was more than enough for everything!)
Enjoy!

For more inspiration head to My Creative Space here. 

Think outside the frame

Watching children play is fascinating. But especially if you are a creative person (or call yourself one), being a part of a child’s imaginative play reminds us how little we know about creativity. Actually, I prefer another word choice: how much we have forgotten since we were children.
I mean: give a kid a bunch of bread sticks and you get a piece of art. At least to me it’s one.

Joining in with My Creative Space today. 

Nobody is Perfect

I say it straight away to avoid unnecessary misunderstandings,  I have nothing against Facebook, Twitter and whatever else exists (to me it looks like every day something else pops up, doesn’t it?), but I’m keeping my social engagement to a minimum, for a number of reasons, lack of time is one, inability to understand how the b…y thing is working is another. But this post is not about the disfunctionality of all those networks, along their disadvantages (which I’m sure they have!) they are invaluable for … I don’t know exactly, you name it, you do it so much better than me :)
What I really want to talk about here is how being on Ravelry, Facebook, Flickr and so on and so forth changes us. I’ve been on Ravelry for some years already, and I love to knit, but recently I’ve noticed I am planning projects JUST so that I can take a pretty picture and publish it there. The practicality, or, my gosh, such a ridiculous question, DO I really need this scarf? have slightly lost the importance they enjoyed before. Perhaps someone will notice and write a nice comment (not bad per se!). This has proved anyway a great jumpstart for me, a push I needed after years I spent without the needles and mulling over the next project in my head. But reality can be a tough lady, you know. Or I have problems with seeing things in my head properly, because sometimes they turn out rather different from the image in my head. And here it all starts… If the project turns out photogenic, I can still make a picture of it and hang it out on Ravelry. And then every time I look at my project page, I feel like a fraud – people surely think I’m enjoying this thing and wear it every single day, but the truth is, it is lying at the very bottom of my knitting basket and I have to reknit it before I can wear it. IF I will be able to wear it at all. Sometimes I’m really wondering, am I all alone in that dimension of the knitting universe?
So today I’ve been working on my son’s sweater (a nice photo is already on Ravelry and even got a sweet comment from the designer, yippee!). I reworked the collar, the arms and the edge. Now I am anxious that the sewn edge I’ve did on the collar will make it too tight and the sweater will not fit comfortable over the 2-year old’s huge noggin and, of course, he will not wear it. The collar was the central issue, by the way. Then I have a wonderful Abigail Cardi, that I wore only once. But the number of time I already reworked the collar band is considerable higher. Today I’ve frogged it once again. One more try is to come. Pathetic, I know.
So I’ve decided to keep to socks, for the time being. Playing safe, you know. Heal the wounds and ponder what I should knit next.