Harvest festival

Back from holiday and the fridge was bare. No fresh food in the flat. A trip to the farmers market was in order. Despite the pouring rain we bundled up our cotton carrier bags and puddle jumped round the corner to Islington Farmers Market.

Bounty
For £14.50 we got

1 bag of spuds

1 bag of carrots
1 bunch of radishes
1 aubergine
2 butternut squash
3 huge corn on the cob
1 enormous gnarly celeriac which looks like something from an old Star Trek episode
1 bag of pears
2 bags of apples - Egremont russet and Royal Gala
1 bag of red onions
1 bunch of beetroot
3 pak choi
3 little gem lettuces
2 bunches of spinach
1 fennel

and....

... COB NUTS!!!

Having missed these last year I've forgtton what to do with them. Watch this space...

A bargain. Also treated ourselves to 2 cheesy twists and some Hoxton Rye bread. All of which have disappeared.

I noticed the plant man had some cheery cyclamen and some pale blue pansies which would look rather fetching on my back windowsill, more colourful than the bolted radish plants which are currently trailing like the red week from War of the Worlds. After a swift cuppa I headed back to the market, bought said plants. Plant man was suffering from a nasty cold and trying to garner sympathy as he was getting none from the women working on his stall. Poor thing, a severe case of man flu.

On the knitting front I need to decide what I'm going to make Alex's mum for her birthday. She cheekily demanded a sweater last time I saw her. That's not going to happen before Christmas so she's going to have to settle for either, some fingerless gloves so she can do her art without frostbite or some slippers. The slippers, mainly because I want to make this pattern which I bought befpre we went to holiday. They only downside with these is I'm not sure how much yarn they'll use. I see some Ravelry research coming up...

Comments

Just beet it - part II

Here it is. The beetroot dye experiment results. I had read that beetroot turns a disappointing orange colour when the dye is set. The most saturated end turned a beautiful burnished orange however the far end of the skein, which had been a delicate shade of pale pink before cooking was a mucky yellow. The cream/mucky yellow colour dominated the skein and wasn't as graduated as I'd hoped for. I decided to redye the cream section, leaving a small section of the Naples Yellow (mucky yellow) for contrast (I actually like the colour in small amounts and looked up a nicer name in my Artists Colour Manual). I added a few drops of pink food colouring to the beetroot vinegar just to see what happened and over dyed the mid portion of orange with more beetroot vinegar with a few drops of red food colouring. This is how it looked while drying... ...ta dah ! Here it is reskeined . Well half the skein anyway. I was in a rush as I wanted to enter it in a dip dyeing competition on Ravelry w...

Unravelling the NHS

If you follow me on twitter you'll already know I have a healthy interest in politics. Our current government is slowly and steadily dismantling our beloved NHS (National Health Service) from one with full public accountability to one which is more dependent on profit margins rather than evidence based medicine. THIS MAKES ME VERY ANGRY. There's a lot of despair at the moment, many of us feel our government is not listening to us, the people, or experts in the field such as the British Medical Association or the Royal College of Nurses. Yesterday our unelected second house, the house of Lords, voted through the government's ill-advised health reform bill. We all felt hopeless, then I read this blog post . You should read it too. Many of us are working out what to do. How can we reverse this disastrous decision when essentially the democratic process is failing us. "The NHS reforms did not appear in either the Conservative or Liberal ...

Champagne Bubbles

We went for a stroll this afternoon along the Seine where my MIL lives to work off the champagne and cheese from New Year celebrations and build up an appetite for our postponed Christmas meal. It was a good opportunity to take some photos of my latest FO, Bubbles hat by Woolly Wormhead . Compulsory Catalogue Pose I've met Woolly at several shows over the summer and we sat together at several meal times at the infamous Knit Camp as well as getting tipsy at Knit Nation. She's ace and also a great designer. She leads a pretty interesting life, living in a converted double decker bus in Italy. Take a look at her blog which is a good mixture of her day to day life on the bus with her partner and young son and loads of great knitting tips. The Bubbles pattern was great fun to knit and worked up pretty quickly, the cables providing just enough interest to make this a great knit while watching Agatha Christie mysteries on TV in between eating festive leftovers. I used Araucan...

Ginger Knits UK

Search This Blog