Ragged baskets

After cleaning out my wardrobe, I was left with several tops I thought were too tatty to donate to the local charity shop. My mum tends to recycle such clothes by making cleaning cloths out of them, but since I'm not such a fan of the noble art of cleaning, I found an alternative use on Pintrest: t-shirt yarn. I quickly realized that it's probably much easier to make t-shirt yarn out of X-large men's t-shirts without seams than fitted small women's tops of various fabrics! But it does work, and in case you want to try it out yourself, here's one possible way to go about it.

To make the 'yarn', cut the fabric into strips. I used a width between 1-2 inches depending on the thickness of the fabric (thinner fabrics were cut into wider strips). This worked quite well with a crochet hook of 20 mm, but for smaller hooks you may want to experiment with smaller strips. I used different types of fabric, most of which didn't allow me to stretch the fabric to create tubular yarn, which is a common step in online tutorials (e.g. http://www.craftpassion.com/2009/05/recycle-tutorial-making-of-t-shirt-yarn.html/2). But no fear, it also works with strips, although the end result looks maybe a bit more ragged. Think of this as a feature, rather than a shortcoming :-) Finally, to join the strips of fabric into one continuous ball of 'yarn', I used the slit and slip method from this tutorial. 

I started with a magic circle of 6 double crochet (dc, UK) / single crochet (US) stitches. There are loads of tutorials about the magic circle/loop out there in case you've never done it (e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLUaywX0-WE). For the next row, I increased by making 2 dc stitches into each dc stitch in the ring (ending up with 12 stitches). At this point, a stitch marker comes in handy to start tracking the rows (I used my trusty paperclip).

For the next rows, keep increasing till you're happy with the size of the circle; this will be the bottom of your basket. My method for increasing was to add increases (2 dc into 1 stitch,) in every second stitch for the next row (dc 2dc dc 2dc ...), in every third stitch for the row after that (dc dc 2dc dc dc 2dc ...), in every fourth stitch in the row after that (dc dc dc 2dc dc dc dc 2dc ...), etc.

When you're finished with the bottom of the basket, just continue with rows of dc, one dc in every stitch from the last round. This will form the 'walls' of the basket. Continue adding rows till you're happy with the height of the basket.

To finish off, use a slip stitch and then weave in the ends. I quite like the slightly unfinished, ragged look of these baskets, with some pieces of fabric sticking out occasionally (I wasn't very precise in cutting my strips and the fabric didn't curl up to form neat proper 't-shirt yarn'). Mixing colours & fabrics also adds more character, in my opinion. In addition to looking nice, they are sturdy and quick to crochet. The bigger basket in the picture below has a diameter around 20 cm and can easily be finished in one evening, though you may want to allow extra time to cut up your fabric if it comes from a lot of small tops rather than larger pieces of fabric.

My mum has already put in an order for one of these. Even she can't deny it's much more fun than cleaning cloths...

Granny's birthday cake ('Petit Beurre koek')

This cake features in some of my fondest memories and is my favourite guilty pleasure, second only to dark Belgian chocolate. It is terribly rich and a small serving is loaded with enough sugar and caffeine to keep your children up all night and possibly the next too. But they love it, as do my colleague scientists (no comment on the similarity there!). 

Moreover, you don't need to be a kitchen princess/prince to pull it off. Take it from someone who can't even boil an egg properly :-) All you need is 4-5 cheap ingredients, some manual mixing and an interest in assembling or brick laying. You can try out different mixes of ingredients to get different tastes, or be inaccurate in your measuring, and your cake will still get compliments. Also no oven required so kids can easily make their own from start to delicious finish.

This recipe is quite well known in Belgium and everyone had their own variation and tricks. I'll share mine, which means mainly granny's but also the adaptations I've made to accommodate the fact that some ingredients are hard to come by in the UK. 

Ingredients for feeding 6-8 persons (or possibly 4-6 little persons/scientists):

- instant coffee (25-50 g depending on your caffeine tolerance)
- icing sugar (100-250 g depending on how big your sweet tooth is)
- 250 g of soft butter
- cookies: Petit Beurre (Belgium), Leibniz without chocolate (Germany), malted milk biscuits (UK) or your local equivalent (you'll want a fairly soft buttery rectangular cookie)
- optional chocolate sprinkles/hundreds-and-thousands or cocoa powder

Begin by taking the butter out of the fridge so it can soften, making it easier to mix with. Boil some water in a large mug / bowl and stir in the instant coffee. Granny recommends to use as much coffee as you can dissolve in the water without clumps appearing. I'd say around 25-50 g depending on how strongly you'd like it to taste of coffee. It should definitely (/hopefully) be a lot more than your regular portion when making coffee to drink! Stir well then leave to cool down. 

When the butter is soft & coffee cold, add the icing sugar. Granny says to use as much sugar as you have butter, but I tend to use a little less than that (about 150-200 g). It's a matter of taste; experiment to find your own (great excuse for sampling the mix till it's perfect!). Mix the butter and sugar (I do it by hand). Next, mix in a few coffee spoons of coffee (about 2-6 spoons, again, try out different tastes). The mixture should be very easy to mix by now. 

The original recipe asks for chocolate sprinkles to be, ahem, sprinkled over the cake at the end. However, if you don't have/like those but still want a chocolaty taste, try adding a few coffee spoons of cocoa to the mixture now. This really depends on your cocoa, so add in one spoon at a time, mix, and taste before deciding whether to add another one. Isn't experimenting awesome? :-)

Whether or not you've added cocoa, your mixture is now ready to use. Have the bowl of cold coffee, the cookies, a tray/plate and a knife nearby and pull up a chair. Time to start the brick laying!

For the bottom layer of cookies, dip only the top half of the cookie into the coffee, then arrange on the plate. This will ensure a firm baselayer. Next, evenly spread some of the butter mixture over this layer. This will be the cement that hold the different layers of cookies together.

For the next layers of cookies, dip them fully in the coffee but don't leave them in too long to prevent them from becoming too soggy. Can't easily spread the butter mixture on top of the cookies if they disintegrate at the slightest touch! Continue interleaving layers of coffee soaked cookies with layers of the butter mix. Finally, finish off the brickwork by adding a layer of butter mix on top as well as on the sides, hiding the cookies from view and providing a sticky layer to optionally sprinkle those hundreds-and-thousands across.

Put the cake in the fridge and let it all settle (e.g. overnight). Keep the cake in the fridge (should be ok for a few days) and take it out about 15 minutes or so before serving it (so it can soften a bit again) for the best result.

This cake lends itself quite well to experimenting and decorating, and it's really easy to fall in love with its simplicity, and its sugary caffeinated taste...

Arm knitted scarf

I had seen a few of these being happily repinned on Pintrest and decided I couldn't ignore this cool looking trend of arm knitting anymore (neither could the Wall Street Journal). I thought, having knit 5 or so scarves on knitting needles before, I would get the mechanics quite quickly. Not so... It's probably just me but I had to look at several videos to find one from SimplyMaggie that caused my 'Eureka moment'

Once you get started it's actually really quick (about half an hour) and simple. The hardest part is to keep your arms from tiring out because you use different muscles in this particular form of knitting than you normally would. Having armrests on the chair was quite convenient :-)

I followed the method in the above tutorial to the letter but as my yarn I recycled 200 g (100 for each strand) of  Sirdar's Faroe super chunky. This yarn used to form a thick scarf/wrap I made as my first ever adult knitting project but never wore (obviously I had been far too excited about my first project and forgot about wearability!).

I like the different tones in this yarn but wasn't sure if it would work for arm knitting too, since all the tutorials and pictures I saw were done with yarn in a single colour. I think my blended yarn works very nicely too though:

I probably also made the scarf a bit longer than most (about 2-2.5 m), so I could have the option of wrapping it in different ways, and even use it as a cowl when tucking in the ends.

It's nice and warm and I like its 'airy' texture much more than the previous incarnation of the yarn. I have even worn it outside :-) All in all, I quite enjoyed the experience and may arm knit some more in the future.

Grundle Flower scarf

Sometimes, the yarn does the work for you and Grundl Flower looks as good in real life as it did on the pictures. In fact, it looks better, with a slight sheen to it, and it feels oh so soft too. At first, I was a bit sceptical about the price, but it has been an amazing knitting experience well worth the 'fancy' price, in my opinion. The yarn knits up very easily and quickly, and without any real effort on your part creates an amazing 3D texture reminiscent of flowers.

Grundl Flower comes in either a single colour or variegated shades. I found the location of the 'flowers' to be relatively predictable while the shades seemed quite random. It looked a bit daunting at first, 'knit past the flower' (e.g. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=068cRhC-cYA), but it's pretty self-explanatory when you're doing it yourself.

I used 22 stitches per row (knitting on both sides) and most of 3 balls of yarn to end up with a slightly less bulky scarf than the suggested pattern, and a little bit of leftover yarn for a yet-to-be-decided accessory (boot toppers?).

It has been a fun project. The easy almost monotonous knitting combined with the look and feel of this yarn has resulted in some very nice almost meditative knitting moments. And even though winter seems to be retreating, the soft warmth of this scarf may yet come in handy during the fickleness of British spring...

First attempt at crocheting amigurumi...

Or crocheting full stop. I can vaguely remember we may have done some crochet in primary school, but I don't think I was any good at it then, nor (or maybe because of that) was I very interested in it. But after (re)kindling my interest in knitting, crocheting seemed like a logical next step. So I bought a general how-to book, googled some free patterns... and found out about amigurumi.

If you don't know what amigurumi are, have a look at the wikipedia entry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amigurumi). They require little yarn and are relatively quick to make, plus there are many free patterns out there. And they look so cute and cuddly!

To decorate the bathroom, I'm trying to implement a seaside vibe and I thought some knitted/crocheted sea creatures and shells might work well. They are more quirky than any bought piece of decoration, and because of the yarn they may bring a warm and cuddly tone to a room that is otherwise quite clean and cold due to the tiles and blue & white colour scheme.

I searched for a project easy enough for a complete beginner, but one that looks nice enough to remind myself I want to make more of these. Also, I didn't have stuffing or eyes etc, so when I came upon this pattern, it was love at first sight: http://stumptious.wordpress.com/2011/03/25/free-crochet-jellyfish-pattern/

I used dk yarn in 2 colours of blue and a 4 mm crochet hook. The tentacles were especially fun to crochet, curling up into a neat spiral without me doing anything fancy!

It took me about 3 hours (in 3 separate sittings) and I made at least one mistake I'm aware of and didn't correct. But even though he's slightly ill proportioned, Johnny the jellyfish (he prefers to go by John) is now hanging happily in the bathroom, reminding me he wants more friends around...