New socks, new medal

I must admit I'm not getting much knitting done during the Ravelympics as I'm a winter sports geek. I was watching the moguls while trying to finish my socks and was so captivated by the men's and women's events that I had to put my knitting down. But finish my socks I did.

They are the Vinnland pattern by Becca Compton and are fun to knit. I used the pattern chart plus my favourite toe up Evil Genius sock pattern from Yarmando.

The yarn is Schoppel-Wolle Zauberball in Cranberries (1963)and is good to work with unless you need to frog. The single ply nature of the yarn makes it quite "sticky", though the stitch definition is good. The colour variations don't show up too well in indoor lighting but I think I'll have to wait til about April to get any decent natural light. You'll just have to take my work for it that they look good.

I started these just before I went in to hospital for knee surgery last May. I got quite a lot of knitting done despite being groggy from a general anaesthetic and remember having conversations with the nursing team at 3am about knitting and telling them all about Ravelry. I'm still amazed when I meet knitters who don't know about Ravelry. It seems quite timely that I finish these now as I hopefully finish my physiotherapy and treatment for my broken knee over the next few weeks, just in time to get back on the ski slopes. I doubt I'll win any medals there so I better get on with my knitting.

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Deja deja decisions

After all my decision making in my post yesterday, and my eagerness to cast on, my brain interfered again and I spent most of the evening playing with colour combos in Excel.

It looked like this:

I stared at it for ages, showed it to my other half, stared at it again, showed it to my other half*
*repeat until bedtime.

I decided to get stuck in having whittled it down to two possible layouts. I'm still not one hundred percent sure but I'm hoping I'll have a better idea by the time I'm at the next colour change.

Monogamy

I've been a fairly faithful knitter over the last couple of months, working almost exclusively on the Box-Set Blanket. Nephew Two is due at the start of July so I'm hoping to have it finished by then. I'm on the final round of colours, although this is deceptive in terms of knitting as the last few stripes include some pretty wide sections. One upside of the miserable summer here is I don't feel guilty about staying in watching box sets and knitting.

We visited my brother-in-law and Nephew One a few weeks ago and it was lovely to see Blanket One being used every day. The kid takes it to nursery for his afternoon nap and it goes in his pushchair when not at nursery. Makes all the knitting worthwhile! Hooray!

I'm enjoying the garter stitch though I'm starting to hanker after something a little more complex and have plenty of WIPs sitting idle which I'm looking forward to picking up once the blanket is done.

I did have a fling with a pair of baby booties for …

Food: easy five spice soda bread

In that idle time between Christmas and New Year some have dubbed Twixmas, I found myself recuperating from spending a week with my very intense mother-in-law by watching mid-morning TV.

I flicked over to Nadiya's British Food Adventure where this recipe for red split lentils and five-spice soda bread caught my eye.

I'm a big fan of curry; it's my favourite cuisine and the combo of lentil soup and soda bread ticked the right boxes. My dad is a keen breadmaker and he talked about making soda bread over Christmas which had tickled my interest. While I like the idea of making bread, I'm unlikely to have bread flour or yeast in and I find the kneading and proving off putting, but soda bread is doable.

The lentil soup was eaten before I thought of photographing it. It's similar to dhals we routinely make for dinner - so cheap and easy to do - though the garlic and butter were a treat. The bread has lasted for a few days as there are only two of us in the house. I manag…

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