Uncursed

I'm behind behind behind! I've a post coming about the Stitch n' Bitch Day, but it requires photography, which requires light, which is in short supply round here. So here are some old-ish pictures of a pre-blog FO.

This is a jumper made originally for Anthony, a couple of years ago. It escaped the boyfriend curse by dint of only being worn once by him, before falling into my clutches. Ha ha!

I used the same basic shape as I did for the Wonder Woman Jumper (hurrah for Woolworth Knitting magazine 1973! And a calculator to re-gauge the whole shebang with!), and Rowan Kid Classic. I bought 4 balls of each colour, but I had almost all of the last two balls left over (and made legwarmers). It took about 4 weeks to do, is lovely and cozy, and gets a lot of wear (well, from me it does. Not so much from its intended recipient...)
A quick and pleasing knit!

Home again home again

And the postal backlog is nearly over. Hurrah!
The wee bag/pouch/envelope above has reached its destination in California, and can now be safely blogged. It was a belated birthday present, made from the last of this lovely fabric (which has already made a skirt).
I've already written about one of the badges, and the other comes from the same place- the Mundane Appreciation Society. It was a Crunchie bar wrapper which I had in my pocket (the bar itself was long gone...).

Of course, all good post goes in both directions, and I was not disappointed: this lovely haul was awaiting me on my return

The part wrapped in a ribbon comes from the kind-hearted Ysolda, who took pity on my plaintive cries for the fall issue of Interweave, and sent me hers (well, sent it to me and Flatmate Alice to share). And she didn't stop there- she threw in the ribbon (with knitting instructions on it!!), the fab vintage buttons and some Ysolda originals- the two gorgeous wee appliqués, and the fabric under everything- both with her own prints on (there was some delicious dark chocolate, too, but it didn't make it to being photographed...). Thank you Ysolda!

The sewing patterns are my own fault. I ordered them in my winter-dress-pattern buying frenzy- we shall see how long it takes me to actually make either of them up...

Japonicarama!

My Grandfather has a Japonica quince in the garden, which produces an annual modest glut of fruit.
Since the un-processed fruit is bitter and inedible, and the blossom very pretty, most people grow the plant as a flowering shrub, and let the fruit rot.

However, if you can be bothered, it does make a delicious, if laborious, jam. So of course, I jammed!
This year the tree excelled itself- rather than the usual, manageable, 3kg or so, it came up with 6kg of fruit (and that was discarding ruthlessly, instead of saving the savable!)

This took 12 litre of water to boil up

Six hours to push through a sieve for the pulp

and 6kg of preserving sugar (lurking behind the bowl...)
It took 28 jars to pot it up (I had to resort to buying all of the tumblers in the local charity shop!)

But it's yummy!