Flowers of winter

Due to a warm winter (so far...) our rose tree has decided to re-bloom with lots of white roses (in the summer they were a mix of white and pink on the same tree!). Plus our Christmas cactus is full of pretty pink flowers. Its nice to see flowers in the winter.

Butterfly cakes

Continuing my love of all things butterfly here's the edible type.
Pre-heat oven to 190C/375F/Gas mark 5

Beat 5 oz softened butter with 5 oz caster sugar together
add 2 eggs and mix well
Fold in 6 oz self-raising flour
Add 2 tbsp milk & 1 tsp vanilla extract

Spoon mixture in oiled fairy cake/ muffin tins or place paper cases into the fairy cake/ muffin tin s.
Bake for approx. 12 minutes (or until brown, push a strew into a small cake and if it comes out clean the fairy cake is cooked)

Buttercream - Beat together 4oz softened unsalted butter with 6oz sifted icing sugar, 1tsp vanilla extract.

Leave to cool and slice off the tops in one slice. Chop the cut-off slice into two for the wings.
Spoon a small amount of buttercream onto each cake and carefully place the cut-off slices (wings back on top on there sides to look like wings. Add cherries, almonds, chocolates, small fruits to decorate. Have fun and experiment. I like to add 1oz shredded coconut to my cake mix and some creamed coconut to my buttercream.

I have not been doing any crochet or knitting for a few days because of Christmas and am starting to get withdrawal symptoms. I can tell this because while cooking the Christmas diner my mind keep thinking maybe next year I will knit/ crochet a turkey and veg............... use them as decorations around the house.............. sparkly brussel sprouts eeekkkk......

Spider scarf

Finished the kid silk haze scarf using a spider pattern. The glass crystal beads don't show on the photo's very well, they are crocheted into the ends of the scarf with 2 at each centre of the spiders. They look sparkly in real life. I only used one 50grams of yarn for the whole scarf too :)
I got my mom to model the scarf.

Fish, fish, fish

Salmon is one of my favourite fish meals to cook and eat. Just poach the salmon in a little water with chopped dill, lemon juice and hot sweet paprika for 8 minutes. Serve with steamed asparagus and broccoli on a bed of rice (flavoured with lime and coriander) fast tasty food.

Been to another great new yarn shop with a friend on Friday. i knit london at 13 Bonnington Square, Vauxhall, SW8. About five minutes walk from Vauxhall tube station. A small cozy shop with a nice choice of yarns including Cherry Tree Hill sock yarns, Garthenor Organic Pure Wool, Rooster yarns, Artesano Alpaca, an unusual banana fibre yarn (can't remember name or brand but very nice) plus Lantern Moon, Brittany & Denise needles (eeek I wanted the interchangeable needle kit but it was out of stock)
Stefan (in the photo knitting) had an excellent knowledge of knitting, was friendly and fun (great stories of knitting & life). He went out of his way to help us, finding & suggesting products/ information.
I bought some Artesano Alpaca in a few colours and some Rowan kid silk (all my posts are late because I have been crocheting a filet crochet spider scarf with glass crystal beads with the kid silk).
The shop also has the Knit a river campaign with WaterAid (photo of the giant knitted roll/ river) to get water and toilets for all worldwide.
I will be back again to visit this shop very soon.

Christmas Party

End of term this week and Christmas party time.

Flan, flan, flan

Back to childhood for desert. Flan with chunky slices of juicy mango and strawberries. Ok I did add a blob of extra thick cream to my slice :)

I love tuna fish

Today I got time to cook. My brother bought some really fresh, tasty tuna so I made a meal for us of tuna marinated in olive oil and lemon myrtle on a bed of rough tagliatelle with cherry tomatoes, asparagus, and spring onions sprinkled with olive oil mmmmmm.......

Fingerless & thumbless gloves

I saw this yarn by Debbie Bliss called SoHo and fell in love with the colour (so I had to buy a couple of balls), which is unusual as I am not a someone who normally picks out pink to wear. Saying that I do like pale pink for a bedroom.

I decided to try making some fingerless gloves, plus I can put them over my normal fabric gloves when it starts to gets really cold. I crocheted them in the round, very little sewing hehe. They only took about 2hours max. to make while watching TV. I am happy with the results.

Stash Yarns Visit

I went with a friend to a really great yarn shop yesterday. It stocked lots of beautiful yarns (Malabrigo, Brown Sheep, Crystal Palace, Rooster, Fleece Artist, Silkwood , Noro and much more) The shop is spacious and laid out neatly so the large range of yarns don’t overwhelm you. There are seats to sit on to knit if your addiction needs a quick fix (seeing all that nice yarn mmmm..click, click, click). The people who run the shop are very helpful and friendly which creates a really nice atmosphere to shop in. And OK yes I did buy yet more yarn but I did need to for the new curlicue cushions I am designing (that’s my excuse and I am sticking to it anyway!)
I bought 4 X balls of Lambs Pride (85% Wool/15%Mohair) by Brown Sheep and 2 X balls of Gala Print (48% Silk, 24%Rayon, 17%Linen, 11% Polyamide) by Lana Grossa.
The Lambs Pride is for the curlicue cushions (and accessories) and the Gala Print for small beaded bags.
Stash Yarns Ltd 213 Upper Richmond Road, LONDON - Tel: 020 8246 6666

Excaped Butterflies

I made these butterflies in the summer. I love butterflies and the summer seems to really start when you see them fluttering about. There’s something magical looking about them. I wrote the pattern out, tested it then deleted it from the computer by accident. Lost one butterfly in the garden (tiny garden no idea where it went)taking some photos and the photos looked bad too. Another disappeared when I was showing them to a friend at a coffee shop. The bag with lots of different colour samples I have put away so safely I can on longer find it (a bit to safe). One of the last butterflies (not in the bag) I lost last month at the Alexandra Palace Knitting and Stitch Show, it dropped out of my bag when I was buying some yarn (like I needed more yarn…). Now I have to remake them all again. Luckily I had photographed making each part of them for the pattern. I hope this batch do not escape.

Wash day for Curlicue Scarves

I love spirals of every kind. They are found everywhere in life, snail-shells, springs, corkscrews, double helix of the DNA, finger marks, whirlpools, whirlwinds spirls are everywhere.

I designed these spiral curlicue scarves when I was thinking about waves. I often look at different beaches and watch the waves online, I find it relaxing. Living in a city not much change of getting to see real live waves often. The crocheted curlicue scarves needed a bit of a freshing up today (they were in a plastic bag, on show and have been handed by many people....plus I wanted to wear one of them tomorrow as its starting to get on the cold, winter in coming now) so I put them in the washing machine and hung them on the line to dry. When I went to get them off the line they were blowing wildly about in the wind. They reminded me of waves in a bad storm.

Mom modelling new bag

I have been working on a few new patterns, this is a Tunisian crochet with bobbles bag modelled by my mom. She is in the late stages of early onset Alzheimer's and is in a nursing home (its hard to believe looking at the photo she is so young and there are many young people with this illness). We are luckily she does recognize my father, brother and me and many other family members, lots of suffers do not. Plus even thought she can no longer knit or crochet she still likes to look at and feel the different balls of yarn (don't all us knitter and crocheters). I often bring my knitting and crochet with me when I visit. It seems to make her calm and relaxed plus she often makes comments about the stitches and colours.

Welcome NezumiWorld BLOG Begins

Welcome to the NezumiWorld BLOG
Today is Saturday the 11th November 2006 and this is the first of hopefully many entry's