*yf, sl1, k1, psso, k7;

Stopping time

2006-06-13T15:25:08Z

One of my many 'finds' from Oxfam in the past few months is this awesome retro windup clock. Last week I dropped the clock on the floor and the casing fell apart. As I'd been winding it up when the 'incident' occurred the clock mechanism was still working and it was fascinating to watch it tick away. Before I put it back together I took some photos. (Because I haven't taken many photos recently.)

And here it is working again & back at home on the mantelpiece:

Receipt

2006-05-23T16:11:00Z

Only very occasionally now do I make mistakes on the till. And when I do, once I get over the initial shock they are actually quite funny.

This post needs more substance but I can't think what to write.

Zachariah or Samuel for a boy, Hannah for a girl. Or maybe Bethany. What do you think? (I can't help but think about these things.)

Too much mushroom

2006-03-14T12:26:39Z

I do my big food shop online and this week's order just got delivered. I think I went a bit wrong somewhere when adding things to the basket.

I ment to buy a handfull of small mushrooms to go in a salad...

So, anyone got any good recipies to share?

Making things

2006-03-13T17:02:38Z

I've been feeling a lot more creative recently. Early last week I baked chocolate chip & ginger cookies and then for tea on Saturday I made pizza from scratch, the dough, sauce and everything. Both still need a little work (the cookies didn't spread enough in the oven and the pizza dough tasted yeasty), but I'm certainly going to try both recipes again. I got my sketch book out and did some drawing (now that really does need more work!). I've also been knitting away at my side-ways rib cardigan and am now on the sewing seams and weaving in ends stage, I'll have it done by bedtime tonight. And the today and yesterday I've started slowly cutting the pattern and fabric so I can sew myself a dress, which is what the above photos are all about.

The other day I watched The Man Who Cried and fell in love with Christina Ricci's costumes. She wears beautiful 1940's dresses, with great hair, lipstick and heels. Now I want to dress like a 1940's lady. Luckily I remembered that back in October I was inspired by ageofscience and the dress that she made and I went out and bought the pattern and fabric to make my own. So here I am now with my self imposed shopping ban, able to create a new dress for myself. I hope it works!

12.10pm

2006-02-19T16:49:28Z

Yesterday was my 23rd birthday. To celebrate I went out at lunch time with with Matt, my Mum & Dad and my little brother Timothy for an all-you-can-eat chinese buffet. I had a relaxing afternoon and then spent the evening with Matt, pizza, wine, cake and some not-that-great movies.

It was perfect, Life is good.

Early birthday present

2006-02-06T15:30:50Z

My new camera arrived today. I need to play around with it some more and get used to it before we go on holiday. So far I love the supermacro setting.

A sequin heart saved from a valentine's day card Matt gave me a few years ago.

I can't stop using this.

This little guy sits on our mantlepiece. He's tiny, about 6cm tall.

bird

2006-02-02T16:36:49Z

If I wasn't getting my digital camera for my birthday I'd ask Matt for this Lone Bird necklace from day-lab.com. It's beautiful. It also goes with my new user picture that my sister Maria drew!

illusion

2005-09-21T11:02:50Z

Two things:

1. Peanut butter on toast makes my mouth feel like it's full of glue, but I still can't stop eating it.
2. I'm knitting a skull illusion scarf for a friend using some beautiful black and purple Jo Sharp DK wool and this chart. It looks like an ordinary stripy scarf, but then from certain angles you can see purple skull and crossbones.

I've tried to take a photo but it doesn't show up so well. All I could get was this:

In fact that picture really sucks. It looks amazing in real life, I promise. The purple is much brighter and the image really 'pops' out of the black background. When I've made more progress I'll take another picture.

Blending

2005-09-07T16:53:44Z

I have an essay to write before Monday, so of course all of a sudden I am feeling very creative and want to do lots of things like knitting and cooking.

I just made some avocado houmous and it is so tasty on toast - you must try it too.

First, what is the correct spelling of Houmous/hummus/humous? Everywhere (the magazine, my cookbook and dictionary.com) is telling me something diffent.

Avocado Houmous

Ingredients
400g can chickpeas, drained
1 small clove of garlic, roughly chopped
1 large ripe avocado
juice 1 plump lime
handful fresh mint, finely chopped

Method
1. Place the chickpeas in a food processor (I used a hand blender) with the garlic and whizz until very finely chopped. Add 75ml/3fl oz cold water then whizz until smooth and soft.
2. Halve and stone the avocado, then scrape out the flesh and mash with a fork. Add to the food processor and pulse until well blended. The mixture should be soft not stiff, so add more water if it needs it.
3. Stir in the lime juice, mint and season to taste with salt and pepper. Cover and chill until needed.

Recipe from BBC Good Food magazine Feb 2005.

I have this horrible problem that I cannot use my hand blender without imagining my tongue suddenly getting tangled up in the blade while it is whizzing around. For this reason I am always very nervous while blending. I must be the only person in the world who has this problem!

Official Kittyville hat

2005-09-01T17:41:23Z

With my knitting fingers itching to start a new project, yesterday I dug out some Debbie Bliss Merino chunky in a purple colour and my Stitch 'n Bitch book and started to knit. My gauge was way of so lots of reworking was needed but I now have an Official Kittyville hat of my own. The pattern can also be found online, here. I'd been meaning to make this hat for ages and now I've found out how easy it is I'm sure I'll make many more as presents for friends.

Bathroom makeover

2005-08-15T18:52:02Z

I haven't had a shower since Saturday morning and I've not washed my hair since Friday morning, I feel stinky and my head itches. None of this is because I'm lazy with my washing but because Matt and his Dad have been making over our bathroom! It's not finished yet but you have to take a look:

Before:

Old gross & moldy peach floor and peach walls with what felt like 100 holes in them. Here you can see matt filling them in preparation for painting. The shower leaked down the side of the bath and the previous tenant never bothered to stop it. The underneath of the lino was always damp and those black patches you can see is mould on the underside. Yuck.

After:

Now we have blue vinyl floor tiles, the walls are painted white (with a hint of blue) and there is a sealing strip along the shower door to stop the leaking. We still have to hang the new mirror above the sink and put shelves above the toilet, but both jobs shall be done before the end of the week. All this was done while spending as little money as possible because we rent the flat and it would be silly to invest much more into something we don't own. We aren't planning to move for a good while and so we wanted to make it a bathroom we were happy using.

It all looks so much brighter and cleaner. I'm looking forward to running myself a lovely long hot bubble bath with my candy bubble bar slice from lush. And I can't wait to have a good wash.

My first shawl

2005-08-05T15:09:48Z

Finished Kiri, originally uploaded by inapplicable.

Meet my first ever shawl, she's called Kiri (link goes to a pdf file). Kiri is not perfect but I am very happy with her. I love knitting lace and I love knitting shawls. There are some more photos of Kiri over on flickr.

...

2005-06-27T09:38:43Z

It's mostly like this: