Wednesday, October 15, 2008

FO: October Baby Sweater

autumn baby sweater - side

You'll have to excuse the lack of blogging. I do love our new house (the door to the roof terrace has a built in bottle opener, what's not to like?), but the whole moving palaver has certainly been a blow to knit-blogging.

The picture above is a recent FO I've dubbed the October Baby Sweater. Its based on Zimmermann's February Baby Sweater, but I cut out the lace, replaced it with stocking stitch and finished with a bit of autumnal leaf embroidery. The yarn is some tea-dyed bamboo/ wool and a bit of left-over brown 4ply. The leaves are placed to fall across the left side, and down that edge of the back. See also its ravelry page.

autumn baby sweater - back

Its for my lovely friend Nadiya, who along with her also-lovely husband Ian recently reproduced an equally lovely baby, little Jaan. Last week I packaged it up with two Baby Surprise Jackets and a batch of diabetic lactose-free brownies. Recipe follows, its easily adaptable for those who know no fear when it comes to the sugar and cow juice (though hard to vegan-ise, you need the eggs). After many years of searching, its my favourite brownie recipe.
  • 250g good quality dark chocolate.
  • 200g dairy-free margarine. Or, for dairy-freaks, 250g of butter.
  • 100g cocoa.
  • 1 teaspoon of baking powder.
  • 200g perfect sweet. Or similar sugar substitute, or 250-300g fine sugar.
  • 40g plain flour. Use whatever type of flour works for your diet, though my personal preference is fine white cake flour.
  • Five eggs. Or four large ones.
Preheat oven to 180 degrees C. Melt chocolate and fat. Slowly. While that's cooling, mix the dry ingredients together. Beat the eggs into the choc/fat mix. Make a well in the dry ingredients and slowly pour in the wet. You can also add nuts or fruit at this point - a chopped up Mars Bar is ace if you don't mind the sugar. Mix to a thick paste and pour into a brownie tray (or rather splat it rather than pour, the stuff is thick, a spatula is useful). Bake for about 20-25 mins. Its should still be quite squishy in the middle. Leave to cool and cook a bit further while it does so. They are gorgeous while still warm with yoghurt or ice cream, but they actually improve with age, so worth making a large batch and letting them last a day or two.

presents!

I'm currently in Leeds, giving a couple of seminars in their philosophy department. I might have an hour or so free tomorrow afternoon, depending on trains - anything I should catch? Next week, I'm off to Dublin for a few days (very excited, never been to Ireland) - again, any recommends?

autumn baby sweater - button band

17 comments:

Christie said...

What a great baby sweater! Love the color!

Anonymous said...

Hi I'm in the French dept at Leeds! I saw your name advertised on our internal arts email loop.
I'm afraid the yarn and other crafting opportunities are very poor in the city. The newly reopened city museum is half way between uni and the station and is wonderful.

Pig wot flies said...

Beautiful! I love the leaves especially.

Anonymous said...

Dublin is my second home! I lived there 1997 - 2004 and it's amazing.

I sent Lara a great email with all these reccommends in it; am not sure where that email is now but if she kept it, it may give you some ideas about places to go and stuff to do... ask her!

Have a really lovely, lovely time.

X Your leafy baby cardigan is just gorgeous X

la glitz said...

Hi! I'm from Dublin, and you have to go to This is Knit in the Powerscourt Centre, off Grafton Street - fabulous yarn store, and Lisa and Jacqui who run it are lovely! Say I sent you!

Team Knit said...

The October baby sweater is so lovely! Wow, what an awesome gift. fabulous FO!

- Julie

At Home Mommy Knits said...

That baby sweater is adorable!! What lucky friends you have ;).

erngrn said...

aw that sweater is adorable!!

Jen said...

That's a beautiful little sweater--such a great reimagining of the basic pattern!

knithound brooklyn said...

that baby sweater is SO cute!

Anonymous said...

I'm seconding 'this is knit' in powerscourt townhouse centre.

Grafton Street is a pedestrian street that connects St Stephens Green and Trinity College. Powerscourt Townhouse Centre is down a little lane, just off Grafton Street (it's signposted, and anyone will tell you if you ask).

This Is Knit is on the first floor of the centre, if you come in by the French Connection (pretty jewellery in the shop by that door as well) it's straight up the wooden staircase and to the right.

Then if you walk through the centre and out the door on the other side, down the stone steps (this is Sth William St). There's a red paved, tiny pedestrian street opposite (Castle Market Street) that has a lovely small cafe called La Maison de Gourmets (good for fancy cakes). Beside it is a fabric shop 'murphy and sheedy' that is worth a rummage through, and a bead shop. At the end of Castle Market Street is Georges St Arcade (looks like an old victorian food market). In there on the left is a shop called 'honest goodness' that has good sandwiches, soups and coffees (v v v crowded at lunchtime).

there's also a cute button and trimmings shop on Sth William St (the street with the stone steps exit from powerscourt) called 'rubanesque', turn left coming down the powerscourt stone steps, and it's a 5 minute stroll (look for 'miss fantasia', it's beside it)

((don't ask ppl where 'miss fantasia' is unless you're ok with getting some knowing looks and grins - it's one of dublin's more famous sex/leather shop))

everything mentioned above is within a 10 minute ambling radius. the sth william st/georges st arcade/georges st and all the little streets that run parallel, and interconnect around there is my favourite part of Dublin, and are nice to walk around.

linky
http://www.thisisknit.ie/
http://thedubliner.typepad.com/the_dubliner_magazine/best_of_dublin/index.html

have fun!

spajonas said...

this was such a great idea! love the embroidery :)

Emily said...

I love it!

Sabrina Hirsch said...

That baby sweater is fantastic! Tea dyed bamboo, delicious! Also, those brownies sound amazing...mmm! Great photos too!

The A.D.D. Knitter said...

Love those leaf flourishes:)

Well my grandpa told me that the lightposts in Leeds have sculptures of bare naked ladies on them, is that true?

I've never been to Ireland either, have a great time!

børnetøj said...
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Viagra Online said...

Beautiful sweater, my son has one that resembles this one a lot. This sweaters are perfect for the cold weather.