Progress

Well, so far so good. I've managed to finish off two WIPs since my last post.

My first priority was some lovely Ellie mitts for my girlie in rainbow striped yarn (Knitpicks Felici in 'Boardwalk' colourway). They used less than one 50g ball of yarn and are so soft and cuddly, with little flower buttons at the wrist. Perfect :o)

Next it was down to some seriously tedious knitting. Way back in August, with a good three weeks to spare, I cast on some socks to give to Mr Moog as a special surprise on his 40th birthday. He's never seemed keen on me making him handknit socks but I vowed to change his mind. After all, handknit socks....what's not to love?

However, after boring myself to tears knitting on and on and on with these greeeeeey boooooooring socks I totally lost interest and they'd been sitting untouched for months. He'll now get them for Christmas...

.....and I kind of hope he doesn't like them because I don't know if I have it in me to ever make him another pair!

Monster now has the same sized feet as his Dad (only size 9 so not colosal) yet I still enjoy knitting socks for him. Even though they now seem to take forever to knit, Monster's socks are much more fun as he likes them as bright and bonkers as possible and that is just enough to keep my knitting mojo ticking along row after row. Mr Moog likes them dark and plain. Yawn.

I think five pairs for a tenner from Tesco sounds like a plan.

I've done something pretty drastic and have frogged two of the WIPs from my previous post - the fluffy jumper and the black/rainbowy socks. I decided life was too short to be knitting things that don't make me happy.

Right, onwards with the WIP-busting.

Happy knitting!

xxx

Saturday Pudding Minxy style

My Minx loves nothing better than being busy in the kitchen, preferably baking something sweet and involving as many bowls, spoons, trays etc etc as possible.

I've mentioned before that our kitchen is tiny (but not for long - hoping for news on this soon!) and more than one person in there at a time makes it severely overcrowded and that, coupled with the fact that I invariably get left with a huge mess to clean up, means I'm not always as willing as I really should be to indulge her desire to crack out the contents of the store cupboard.

However, last weekend whilst staying at M-I-L's we picked up a couple of fabulous new bargaintastic baking books - two for a tenner at WHSmith folks!

Minx spent the rest of the weekend pouring over the pages, salivating at the deliciousness within and reading out the name and contents of virtually every recipe. She wanted to go straight home and cook every single one but I suggested she choose one a week to bake, to make it more special (and cheaper for me!), and got to telling her about the wonderful Saturday Pudding blog posts that my dear friend Mrs Stashbasket used to tempt us with - and which are sorely missed, Michaela...hint hint!

So, we hit upon a plan. If she agreed to actually read the recipe properly (!) and clear up properly after herself (!!) I would willingly provide ingredients for a weekly dessert of her choosing and her making.

Armed with her two new recipe books Minx set herself down to choose her first attempt....and promptly decided to cook from a different book entirely that my good friend Maggie gave to me ages ago! I have no idea where my girl gets her fickle nature......

She chose White Chocolate and Raspberry cupcakes and, if I say so myself, she made a fantastic job of them. So, without further ado I give you 'Minx's Saturday Pudding #1':

I've had a tiny tiny nibble for quality control purposes ( still sticking to that diet like glue!) and I have to say they're pretty tasty, although we all find the actual cakes from this book a bit dense for our liking - due no doubt to the higher than normal proportion of flour. Minx's verdict: will do them again with a lighter cake mix.

According to Minx next week's offering will be from the Green & Black's book - unless she changes her mind :o)

I've been plodding on with the Granny Stripe blanket and have now managed to do 32 colour stripes. This really is a perfect mindless project for hooking along to a good film and it keeps my knees lovely and warm. I got three stripes done during The Hunger Games last night....

....about 70 more stripes to go, I reckon!

In other news, do take a look at Ali's new blog for her Compound Word Project. I'm playing along and it's a great reason to crack out the camera for something completely different. Starting on Monday Ali will be posting 10 diptychs over the course of the week and you can guess the answers and win prizes!

love Moogs xx