new winter hat

I finally got around to making something for myself... yay.
a new hat

I've actually made one like this for Feeb for her bday / Christmas pressie. but i added a little crochet flower on this one. Luke thinks its a bit dorky. i kinda like it. the photo is kinda bad... sorry

it's from a Garnstudio Drop pattern.. I'll write more about it later, as I'm rushing to get packed and head off to France for our xmas adventure.

so I'll see you in the new year. 2009. i can't believe it.
see you later

Christmas Present Success

Here's M in her xmas pressie from me. I think she's pretty happy with it, and say she keeps getting comments about it, which is nice. And how cute does she look?

Crochet present success, I'd say.

I've asked everyone who I've made something for to take sexy pics and send them to me so I can put them up here. There's a few more to come in, I hope they come in asap before L and I head off on our French Christmas Adventure tomorrow (which I'm very excited about by the way)

wasted rainy day? I don't think so!

I feel like I've just spend ages today looking at different blogs. Blogs blogs blogs. You really can spend hours and hours going from one to the next. Today's activity was much more appealing than the other home activity that was going on - L is obsessed with "end of the world" movies, and at the moment he's watching Zardoz (again). Despite the lovely 70's knitwear and crochet that it features, I'm leaving him to it.

I'm on the hunt for UK based stuff as I feel like so many of the blog I look at are from the US of A. There's absolutely nothing wrong with them, I like them a lot. I just want MORE.. MORE MORE MORE stuff to look at. And I also want to find some kind of UK network thing going on.. not all of them are UK based, but they're lovely all the same.

I really like this blog, Needled. It has a really lovely inspiring feel to it.. its on my daily read list now.

Sofia Barao's work is lovely.. it has such a dreamy feel.

Wee Birdy (a fellow aussie in London) seems to keep her finger on the pulse of things in London. I'll be keeping an eye on this one.

Resurrection Fern has some lovely things on Etsy. And some nice post on Lyon, where I'm heading to next week. Handy to discover those pointers this weekend!

I'm loving roman sock's work. I'm totally going to make the frog, and owls (they are so cute)

Some foodie things at Orangette and Pictures & Pancakes (they have such lovely photos on here!)

I could go on.. but I won't - there are already loads of links in my blog roll.. Inspiration is good.

Shhhhh.. another secret

Here's another xmas pressie I've been working on. I think its really pretty..mmm

Xmas party food

Here's some pics of my cookies.. they all went down rather well it seems. Even my German Taste Tester was impressed. I was a bit nervous that they wouldn't work very well.. but I needn't of been.


I also made some mini pies (no, they're not traditional xmas mince pies - which I don't particularly like), Savoury pies - one with mushroom, spinach and feta. The other with a mince-meat kinda thing. People seemed to like those as well!

Christmas Cookies

In prep for a little Christmas/birthday party we're having I've been making Christmas cookies all week.

Hope they come out alright. I guess the Europeans will let me know if they pass or not.



Have made four different types: Vanilla Crescents, Pepperkakor (Swedish style cookies that are good by themselves, or with blue cheese...mmm), Zimtsterne (very hard to make) and Basler Brunsli.

More Craft - Rosette Making

The other day while I was at the Hidden Art UK Design Fair at the Truman Brewery, I pick up this rosette making kit from Barley, who runs Fabrications on Broadway market. She's promoting these as part of her Christmas present wrapping workshop thingies. Basically - wrapping your pressies out of recycled things - scarfs, ribbons, buttons. All sorts.


I thought these little kits were cute, so I picked up one, here's my first attempt, I think i need a bit of practice. But not bad for a first try ( it actually looks better in real life than in these pics - I gave it to Feeb for her birthday yesterday, well as part of her pressie.)

I think I want...

I think I want to subscribe to Interweave Crochet magazine. Some of the designs look really great and surprisingly modern. I like the look of the Ridge Swing cardi, looks exactly like the kind of thing I want to make, now that I've set goals to make more "serious" things. This jumper looks cute as well. There are loads of other projects as well. mmmm, I might consider this purchase - sounds like a useful thing.

Alex's finished scarf

He sure did finish that quickly - and here it is. Alex's scarf. Looks amazing actually. I think I might commission him to make one for a certain someone I know who needs a scarf.  It looks good. Props to my knit group peeps!

I wonder what he'll make next - will it be the jumper with the baby dear/bambi on it? Or a hoodie with lightening? 

Getting my head around the Granny Squares and discovering a new yarn

I've been practising my granny squares. Here are a few I've made recently. I think I'm getting better.

They still look a little rough around the edges - have much more practise to do.

Ages ago when I was down at I Knit London I picked up some Rowan Milk Cotton yarn. I think this is my new favourite to work with. I love how it feels so earthy and natural, and it is made from 30% milk protein - which is pretty odd when you think about it. It comes together really well. I only wish it came in a thicker weight - as then it wouldn't take so long to crochet things up. Here's what I've been doing so far.


The colourful one is actually the Koigu fingering yarn I picked up at the Knitting & Stitching Show. It looks pretty like this I think.

This one is actually a little xmas star decoration. It looks pretty hung up.

some xmas decorations

This one is my favourite - he's cute and ugly at the same time. Was meant to be a snowman, but is more like a elfish scary xmas character.

I've been running rather late with all my xmas presents. There seems to be so many people to make things for. and with all the weekends away, and things happening I decided to go the easy peasey route. I've been making a few xmas decorations. They're nothing very special, but are full of Han-Made charm, I think so anyway.

A Christmas tree made from semi-fluffy yarn that gives it a kind of tree like feel.

A Christmas tree - complete with stitched decorations.

A silly little granny square star.. I think its kinda cute.

Shhhh... don't tell anyone

I posted a while ago about xmas pressie things.. well here are some sample secret shots. You can't tell what they are.. one day you'll get the full picture...

New Camera

I got an early birthday/xmas present from L. I am the happiest girl in the world. I have a brand spanking new canon G10. I'm totally in love with it. We picked it up in duty free (well, tax free) on the way to Aberdeen for the weekend. It takes lovely pics, so hopefully from now on my photos on this blog will be excellent! Here are some nice ones I've taken.

check out the macro- taken at the Aberdeen Maritime Museum

Lovely Light.

I really like this shot of G&S

This is one of the cats that visits my garden. There are about 5 different ones that come by every day to say hi and play with each other.

Crazy Scottish person - going surfing in the snow.

We made some snow men in Aberdeen. Snow is a real novelty for Aussies.

My moment of happiness when I got my hands on my new camera.

A lesson and some lunch

D and I had an impromptu knitting day and some lunch on friday.

Firstly I taught her to crochet, and she made a great hat from Garn Studios / Drops Design (I've made it before as well, but more on that later). She used the yummy maggi knits tweed and it came up really well. She's a natural. Hope to see more of her creations in the future. She picked it up in no time, and was totally surprised when she finished the hat before she went home. Crochet is pretty quick sometimes.. even for a beginner.

We then headed out to Shanghai on Kingsland Rd for Dim Sum (or yum cha) happy hour. Everything is just under 2 quid each, and it totally yummy and fresh. The place is pretty cool, it's build in an old eel and pie shop, so looks kinda old-ee english cutesy. with nice tiles and mirrors. Very strange for a yum cha place. We've been a few times now and it's always been pretty good.

Vegetable dumplings made with carrot juice.

Strange goopey prawn and chive things - I think they're called Fun

Turnip cakes - they were ok, one of D's favs.

BBQ Pork Buns. They're pretty good.

Soupy Sundays

I love making soup on sundays.

It just seems like the right thing to do after the weekend, and to prepare for the next week. 

It kinda reminds me of when I was a little kid and on Sundays evening while other families would be making heavy sunday roasts, my family would make omelets - something light and easy.

For me, there is nothing easier than chucking a bunch of ingredients in a pot at lunchtime and letting it cook for a few hours. Sometimes we make up recipes, with a huge tendency of them to turn into brown-mush, you know that type of soup. But our fav soup to make would be a recipe from the Moro Cookbook (from a great restaurant in London). Even those people who don't like soup have fallen for this one's charm. It's very easy, Lentil and Cumin soup: fry some onions, and whole cumin seeds, add a bunch of lentils and water and cook for a an hour or so. When they're all soft and mushy (and yes, brown) blend the soup smooth. Then wilt-fry up some garlic and spinach, chop very finely and mix with the soup. Serve with a dollop of greek yogurt and a squeeze of lemon. It's yummy.

I just discovered another great recipe on 101 Cookbooks, a great food website I love to look at. It's for Baby Lima Soup with chipolte broth. It looks delish! Can't wait to make this one, I wonder where I can find baby lima beans over here in London.

 

I made up a recipe the other day for Fresh Autumn soup. Or Green Soup. It was kinda yummy, and took no time at all to cook.

You'll need:

1 medium sized leek

300 grams fresh peas

half a head of broccoli

3 cups of baby spinach

a few gloves of garlic, chopped

500 ml chicken stock (homemade if you've got it)

1 tsp of freshly ground nutmeg

Gently cook the leek in a little butter until soft, add the rest of the garlic, peas and broccoli and the stock, and half a cup of water. Season with salt & pepper, and the nutmeg. Bring to boil and simmer for 10 mins. Add the spinach and cook until it is wilted (probably about 3 mins). Remove from stove and blend until smooth. Adjust seasoning to taste. Serve with a spoon of greek yogurt and freshly ground pepper.

Once again, I'm sorry about the crappy picture quality - our camera is STILL broken, well it's not really going to get fixed, but it is taking rather yucky photos.

Making secrets

It's kind so annoying really that its Christmas. It's not just about my usual dislike for the festive season - this year it's more than that. Since getting all crafty with it lately I decided to make some presents for people. However, I can't put pictures of the finished items or my Work In Progress up here on my blog in case the people I'm making for see them and then where would the surprise be? And so far I'm pretty happy with what I'm making!

Some people, like A Steno Pad For My Thoughts has so many great ideas for what she's making for her friends and family and posts about them as well. My fav things she's made is this recipe book that she's pulled together from her Grandma's old hand-written cook book to give to all her family. Its such a great idea (and since I'm still in the experimental stage with my recipe filing system) I'm jealous - only problem is, she has really neat and lovely hand writing, while everyone knows I write like a 14 year old teenage boy.

So the main thing is - I am making stuff, you all just can't see it yet! ok!

Rainy Saturday Afternoon

No surprise there, but it was raining and horrible on Saturday. That's London for you. I was meant to be having some people around for dinner, and planning on making pizza dough so we could make our own pizzas, but I guess because of the rain and horribleness of the day people just wanted to stay inside. I know that I did. However, after spending most of the week inside (probably going a little stir crazy) I knew it would be good for me to get out.

D called, and we arranged to meet in Islington - have lunch at the Afghan Kitchen (which was so yummy) and then look at Camden Passage antique markets then hit Loop.

I was good - didn't see anything I wanted at the antique market (which is amazing), then we heading to Loop. Which is an incredible yarn store on Cross St. I was nervous, obviously, about walking into a wool shop. What if I had to buy something? D wanted to get some wool and circular needles. Don't worry, I gave her a hard time about buying more stuff so soon after Ally Pally (we did go over board on that adventure, I have confirmed that now), but she was convinced - she must buy more wool.

We were in there for a while, touching things, as you do. D looked at me after about 5 mins and said "Han, have you breathed since we've been in here, you look shocked?". I laughed but inside I was dying as I was ogling over all the beautiful yarns - and I wanted them! Actually I was telling myself I needed them. But I held my breath and resisted the temptation.

I did however pick up some hooks - which I'm happy about (these handy padded hooks should help with the impeding RIS I'm sure is approaching). I've wanted some like these for a while! Yay - I got to buy something in the end.

We needed some cake and coffee after that, I can tell you. Which led to lovely conversations about our directions and in life - the eternal question of what the fuck am I doing with it all and so on. With some rather lovely outcomes. And some inspiration as well.

So, all in all - a lovely Saturday afternoon. a lovely day indeed.

Cracking Granny Squares

I've wanted to make Granny Squares for ages. In fact, its the reason I learnt to crochet. I dream of making a lovely blanket. But for so long now I just haven't been able to crack them. I can't get my head around them - I'm really bad at following patters, and am trying to rectify this. I have these two great books - one I got a while ago 200 Crochet Blocks by Jan Eaton and the other is an amazing Japanese motif design book I picked up in Paris at the Japanese book shop.

Maybe its insane trying to learn granny squares from a book that is not even in English - but the designs are so pretty I just had to try.

I found these inspirational posts here and here on Attic24's blog (which could be a new fav blog for me) and I was convinced. I had to give it a go! On Friday I was home along and it was pouring with rain, so what better time to struggle through and crack the granny squares. I started with a few misses rather than hits - they looks ugly, very ugly. I had bookmarked The Purl Bee's granny square project ages ago and she also helped me through the tough times.

I got so excited that I just kept going and going. They really don't take too long to churn through each square side. I was using up my oddments from ebay, unfortunately I had to stop as my little scraps of yarn are not long enough now to go round a whole square.

Watch this space - there will be more granny squares.