Keep someone warm.

I should have known better than to try and make my knitting into a business venture. That’s just not why I knit.

With winter approaching in this hemisphere and the need for warmth just as real as ever, I decided to make the Prep School Beanie pattern available as a free ravelry download.

If you can, please consider donating a spare dollar or two to my favourite non-profit organisation.
Full disclosure: I work for Mission Australia during the week, but this is on my own time and I’m not speaking in any official capacity whatsoever.

What I've been up to.

Knitting socks, making pie, and fiddling with a new banner.

Wishing you all a weekend full of warmth, nourishment, and every good thing.

What I’ve been up to.

Knitting socks, making pie, and fiddling with a new banner.

Wishing you all a weekend full of warmth, nourishment, and every good thing.

Dale Cooper is my boyfriend.

Remember what I said earlier about wanting to keep things simple in the kitchen? Well, it doesn’t get sweeter or simpler than this.

Easy as Pie Cherry Pie

Crust
2 C plain flour
3/4 C sugar
3/4 C Nuttelex or other vegan margarine
1/2 C ground walnuts
1 t cinnamon
1/2 C water, or less
Filling
670g jar Morello cherries
1/4 C reserved liquid from Morello cherries
410g can black cherries in syrup
1 T arrowroot

Preheat oven to 190 C.
Mix flour, sugar, walnuts and cinnamon in large bowl. Mix in margarine with fingers until resembles breadcrumbs. Stir in a little water at a time until dough forms. Take half of dough and press into pie dish. Bake for 10 minutes or until crisp.

Roll out remaining dough on floured board, shaping a circle the size of your pie dish.

Stir black and Morello cherries until just mixed. Spoon strained cherries into cooked pie crust. Whisk arrowroot into reserved cherry liquid and pour mixture on top of cherries. Place pie lid on top, securing around the edge. Cut slits in centre of pie.
Bake for 20-25 minutes, or until crisp and golden.

Danish Fest 09

For Mothers’ Day this year I decided to put on a danish brunch: parcels of puff pastry stuffed with unsweetened fruit of all kinds, flaky and golden, some tidy and others dripping with bubbling and tangy juices. Heaven for a pastry lover like me.

Fig, kiwi fruit, raspberry, blueberry, apple and cinnamon–each flavour was my favourite as I ate it, but I couldn’t stop thinking up other combinations to try…

Prep school beanie

Beanie is knit in the round with a combination of stranded colourwork and a stripy crown. Pattern includes chart for colourwork, but not in-depth instructions on the stranded technique. If this is your first stranded project, just let me know and I’ll be happy to provide tutorials, troubleshooting and moral support! (It’s not that hard, honest.)

Pattern is available for $5.00 from ravelry or etsy.

For the superhero in all of us.

If anyone’s interested in knitting the Wonder Beanie, there’s a knit-a-long happening over here for moral support.

Happy.

I had forgotten just how compelling and grounding it is to crochet granny squares.

The soothing turn of the square; the mindless, repetitive motion that leaves the brain free to meander; the choice of colours that will be ordered and yet nudge each other; watching all of the pockets and spaces become something concrete and substantial, something that will warm and become a kind of home.

Tempted? Join in!

Usurpation

For the longest time my favourite colour has been green–all shades. But even a cursory glance at some of the things that have recently caught my eye, and it seems my affections have shifted.
Aqua seems to be cropping up more and more in my favourite things, and I like it particularly paired with other strong colours: lime, chocolate, fuschia. It’s a very versatile colour, as you can see by the selection of Aussie craft above (check out the flickr links for details).

What colour has been creeping into your dreams lately? Anyone had a recent change of heart?

The thrifty vegan strikes again.

The Thrifty Vegan’s Pasta Bake

This hearty comfort food is made creamy with a homemade mint pesto because I’m addicted to the sweet zing of fresh mint, but any fresh herb can be substituted.

1kg wholemeal pasta $4.00
810g crushed tomatoes $2.59
0.18kg green capsicum $1.24
1 zucchini $0.95
1 bunch baby pak choy $1.98
Bunch fresh mint $3.00
50g walnuts $0.70

From the pantry:
1/2 C olive oil
pinch black pepper
1 t vegetable stock
2 T minced garlic
1/4 C nutritional yeast
2 t lemon juice
water

Total (feeds 8): $14.46
$7.23 to feed a family of 4.