Easter, and I'm wearing that cardie

First photos of the cabled cardie on a real body, and latter a swatch report, not enough frogging for a frog report (just a few rows in the swatch now and then), and just for Easter a recipe!


Here I am, squinting into autumn sun and wearing the PBCZC aka powder blue cabled zippie cardie. I'm in front of the Fejoea tree in the back corner of our 'yard'. I am very very happy and have worn it almost every day since I finished it for the second time. If daring, compare me to the dressmaker dummy wearing the same cardie (post march 29th) to get some idea of the reality effect.
And yes we do get fruit from the tree, not a lot but having been raised early on in Auckland - I do miss a supply of Fejoea. Ddespite advice that Dunedin would be to cold to fruit, the tree survives, fruits and is healthy.



And these are the result of yesterdays nod to easter traditions. My variation on the hot cross bun, before & after the oven. Just like my knitting this recipe is modified and made up as I go. Into the bread machine goes 1 tspn of sugar, 1 cup of warm milk, and 3 tspns of yeast. On top with no delay goes 2.5 cups of bread flour, 2 soup spoons of really dark dark sticky brown sugar - the kind you have to pry from the bag, 2 big tspns each of mixed spice and cinnamon, one egg and a large lump of butter, a bit more than a soup spoon. After 10 minutes toss in half a cup of Craisins which have soaked in black hot tea for 10 minutes (a small new to me trick to stop the surfaced ones from burning when they are cooking). I drain the tea off the craisins first, and add extra flour then if the mix is goooey. I know a soup spoon is not a standard baking measure - but it came to hand before the table spoon.



After the machine has run its 'dough' cycle, cut the dough into halves, half again, half again, and half again, and make little round buns. I now know the trick is to stretch the tops down under the bottoms to make pert stand-upy little buns. Wish that trick worked for me. Left to rise, in a roasting dish, lined with baking paper, 1-1.5 hours in warm room then bake - - oh around 15 mins at 220*C - but until darkish golden brown. The glaze was 2 soup spoons of soya milk (I had run out of ordinary) and 2 soup spoons of white suggar, boiled for a few minutes and brushed on right after they exited the oven. these were so good, both with red plum jam and with butter, I plan to make more today, and the next day, and the next day ....


The Swatch, I want to make a fingering vee necked jersey, so I've been swatching, and sketching. So far I've got cables, and variations of mock cables. My swatch is in the round, properly in the round, I usually use a whole ball of yarn in a swatch, as these are designer swatches not gauge swatches. I use them to test stitch patterns. Usually I knit in the round flat, that is I knit each row, but loop the yarn across the back, this time I knit fully in the round so I could reuse the yarn if i need to. I usually get really frustrated at the loops across the back and end up cutting and knotting them away. This particular yarn is Rowan 4 ply soft, merino, so will pill at first, but should settle down. I wonder if that trick of washing merino with jeans to 'knock off the pilling' works with hand knits as well as machine knits? So far I know it will have small cables from hem to under bust or waist, and a steeked v, but raglan or strap? and there are some options to decorate the v, cables and slipped stitches, choices to explore and decisions to make

Today I went 'shopping' is to see if there is more to make a sweater for me, I calculate I need 1900 meters, and this has 179 per ball. I tried to use this site to work out how much yarn, but the recommendation was in oz's, so I also used the guide in Knitting in the old way as well, wraps per inch x 10 for a plain vanilla adult sweater, 19 wraps so 1900 m. More for cables, so buy 12 balls of yarn if I can, I have one in the swatch, so 13 in total, should be plenty.


I tried so hard to buy some nice yarn, I got 4 balls of John Q cheapie white baby wool to dye with the kids latter in the week - ok thats not nice yarn, but its pure wool and Toby and Poppy can dye it and I knit it into more mittens. I also picked up a ball of Dawn 50:50 wool and silk to try, in a fine fingering (recomended for 2-2.25 mm - thats more like it!) and Sublime a cashmere, merino, silk dk weight for 4mm needles. The grey dawn is for me, I'll swatch and plan a light soft cardigan, with grosgrain button facings. The sublime - might have to go back - or maybe a soft baby hat. Its heavier that I would wish for. I also have the shop tracking down 12 balls of the Rowan sage baby soft with the same batch number, enough for a v-necked sweater for me. I'll know latter that week, they have 7 in shop so only have to find 5,


Today I did a little woodworking, and made these, what for and why .... all will be revealed in the next post.