Baking and knitting

Here we are in 2013!  I hope you all had a great New Year.  HP and I just had a meal at home and then watched the local fireworks at midnight.  We had a lovely festive week together, just the two of us.  It was the first Christmas we'd ever spent alone so it was very special.

I had a busy day yesterday.  I cracked open the Brownie Maker that HP got me for Crimbo

I love the logo!

Oh well, if you insist!

and made some chocolate and orange brownies, and I have to say they are delicious!

 

A big batch for everyone at work

 These brownies would look fab on the great gift I got from my Secret Santa at work - a gorgeous porcelain two-tier cake stand!  Someone at work obviously knows me very well indeed!  I absolutely love it!

 

I'm sure like me, many of you have recipes scribbled on bits of paper or printed off the internet.  I've been meaning for ages to collate all of these into one recipe book, so I'm not always searching for scrap bits of paper.  I found this lovely book in Paperchase on sale!

 

There are plenty of recipe pages and ingredients cards.  There's even a section on Dinner Party Planning!  I hope to get all my recipes added before the end of this month.  That's one of my first New Year goals!

 One of the others is to finish my King Cole Galaxy Chunky jumper.  I've just got the front to do now and I started that yesterday and got quite a bit done......

The lighting is rather poor, so it doesn't do the colour justice

 ....admittedly, I did spend a few hours in front of the TV, but hey, it was a holiday!

I got a great book of Knitted Boot Cuffs for Crimbo from HP too, so I must make a few of these:

I like the simple but chunky boot cuffs

Loving the pigs

Hope you've all had a crafty start to the New Year!