New knitting group

Well hello.  I'm afraid I've been rather remiss in my blog over the last couple of weeks, mostly because I haven't done anything worth blogging about.

Most exciting is, a couple of us have started a knitting group at the office which takes place every Wednesday lunch-time.  It's a small office of about 40 people and on the first week, there were only 3 of us, including myself and my co-founder, but we are confident that numbers will grow as the word spreads.  Some of the girls are even interested in learning how to knit, which is great!  There can never be too many knitters in the world.

Because there's a lot of gossiping going on at these groups, I thought I would bring something easy to work on.  I cannot count and talk at the same time and when I'm working on a lace pattern, it always goes wrong unless I'm concentrating.  So, I'm working on a little summer cardigan from Sirdar in Click DK.  I absolutely love some of the colours in this yarn and the one I'm using right now, Cranberry, is no exception (although as usual, my camera doesn't do it justice):

A colleague's wife very kindly donated some Rowan magazines that she no longer wants to the group.  She naturally received some of my homemade brownies and shortbread as a big thank you for such generosity!  I love the Rowan magazines, but I doubt that I'm good enough to make half of the stuff in them.

Had a good piece of news last night too.  While checking my emails, I found that my Australian pal, AC, had contacted me.  He came to Cambridge to do some research at my last workplace in 2012 for a few weeks and bless him, he follows my blog - so a big hearty hello to you, AC!  He now has a position at the university and starts next January working for my former boss!  So this time next year, AC and his girlfriend will be living here - yay!  I can see celebratory welcome drinks on the distant horizon in January 2014......

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!

Finished cuff

I finally finished the black cuff for A's birthday at the end of the month and I'm very pleased with it.  It's the first one of its kind I've ever made, so I was a bit worried how it would turn out. 

I'm not sure the pictures really do it justice.  It was a real labour of love, but I think the birthday girl will like it.