This is my first official challenge from the Fresh from the Oven Blog and it was a very festive stollen recipe.

The recipe is here on Jules' blog which I have been stalking for some time and it is based on a Simon Rimmer recipe/

I cracked on with it the second weekend in December and made only very minor adjustments such as missing out the rum because I don't drink alcohol and mixing some edible glitter with the final dusting of icing sugar for a really festive shimmer.

I doubled the recipe since I was making it with my sister and that is why there are two - marked with our initials in marzipan so we would know which one to take home.

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They turned out great but absolutely huge and we definitely couldn't finish one between the two of us.  Although I really did try.  Next time I shall do half the recipe for one portion.

I was pleased that I kneaded this by hand as it meant that I didn't mash up the fruit too much so we still had some gorgeous chunks of cherry, almond etc in the final product.

So finally the money shot...

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I have failed to blog about a new stash enhancement that happen some time ago in the Socktopus closing down sale:

Firstly some Sheepaints in Tiger Eye. I love the colours of Sheepaints but considering that the base is a fairly cheap nylon and wool blend I am quite off put  by the prices.  So this was a great chance to pick up some Sheepaints and a more reasonable cost in this great caramel brown colour:

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Secondly some Shelridge Ultra Sock Yarn in a pale green/yellow colour.  I have been interested to try this yarn for some time because it is one of the favoured yarns of the designed Cookie A and she is surely a woman who knows her yarn!  For some reason I have a few lime greens (I don't know why since I would never normally wear this colour but I think something in me like seeing complicated sock patterns in this colourway - it is solid and yet pale enough to show up most patterns) and now I have another one:

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Apologies for the terrible pun!

Yesterday my sister came over and we did some Christmas cooking together.  We made Stollen (more of that when I post about the Fresh from the Oven challenge on the 28th!) and Almond Roca.

A found this recipe for Almond Roca online a while ago and bookmarked it. Then a while later my sister mentioned that Mum loves Almond Roca but almost never gets to eat it because it is an American sweet you can't buy over here.  So I plotted with my sister to make Mum some for Christmas.

We made two batches from the above recipe, one covered in Milk Chocolate:

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and one covered in Dark Chocolate:

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This was a really simple recipe but I have two comments on the roca we made.  Firstly we didn't let the second batch cook for long enough.  It set fine but it didn't have as good a roasted-almond flavour as the first batch we did.  However in the first batch we got the chocolate top slightly wrong.  The recipe says to put the chocolate on the top of the hot caramel and let the caramel melt the chocolate to create the topping.  The first time we plonked the shards of cut chocolate on top and although it softened it didn't lose shape enough. You really do need to smooth the chocolate out with a palette knife and we didn't do that in the beginning.

Naturally we sprinkled it with edible glitter for a truly festive look.

Here is one set of it broken into chunks and boxed up:

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Initially we were worried we wouldn't have enough for the 4 gift boxes we were making for various friends and family.  However we got this quite wrong and J and I will be eating Roca and giving it away to people at work for quite some time.  Double the above recipe gave us almost a whole biscuit tin's worth of Roca!  And given how sweet it is, that is an awful lot.

When I tried a chunk to test it I nearly fell over as the flavour was precisely the same as a Dime Bar.  Dime Bars are lovely British chocolate bars with a hard caramel centre.  This was almost exactly like a dime bar except for the fact it has flaked almonds in it!  J has asked that we make it again to recreate a classic ice cream experience from our student days G&Ds Dime Bar Crunch Ice Cream and I think that this is an excellent idea!

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So none of the people who I am giving socks to this year read this blog which means I can put them all in the entry for posterity before I give them out…

Apologies before I start for the picture quality - in Winter it is hard to get the decent natural light you need for good photos.

1. These are the Rambling Rose (pattern by the Yarn Harlot) socks which I knitted up in some yarn wool and nylon blend yarn from Knot Another Knitter in this gorgeous purple and grey colour which was a mis-dye!  When I first started knitting with it I just couldn't get into it and then when I got them out for photographing I suddenly fell i love with them.  Despite the fact this is a mis-dye I think it looks amazing and should be a regular colour.

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I ended up doing the second sock wrong by putting the panel on the wrong side of the foot but I couldn't work out how I did it and I thought they look nice enough anyway so I am leaving them as they are.  I loved this pattern and will definitely use it again, especially as this was the real beginning of a love affair with turn down cuffs which I seem to have acquired.

2. The Target Practice Socks (from Knitty) which are knitted in Socks that Rock Mediumweight Pink Granite.

These looked more fun to knit that they actually were.  They were very hard on the hands partly because I had a very tight guage and partly because of the pattern.  They do look good but they fit a little bit weird so I don’t think I will be making them again.  Unfortunately this was about the time I discovered I much prefer STR lightweight to mediumweight but the only skeins I have left are both mediumweight.  Nevermind I still love STR!

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3. The Magus Socks knitted in Violet Green's Merino, Cashmere, Nylon base yarn and leftover orange Wollmeise. 

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4. The Other knitted presents I believe have been blogged before so Cowl (homemade pattern), Ribbed Sky full of Bees, Nutkins in Kaw Kaw and finally the Komet Socks in Indigo Moon which are being given to my pa from work. 

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Recently I had some unsettling things happen.  Nothing terrible just something which unsettled me a great deal for a couple of weeks.  Almost as soon as I happened I found some Tide Pooling STR on Ravelry for sale in lightweight.  I loved this colour when it came out in the club and was really hoping I would be able to buy it.  Clearly this was a sign so I got it straight away and very shortly it arrived.

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Immediately I cast on for Cat Bordhi's Jewelled Steps Socks as I really thought (correctly as it happens) that this would best show off the varigated yarn. Basically I knitted out all my stress into these socks.  Partway through the first one I realised that the sums were wrong and it was far too long (and too long in a way which would have meant I ran out of yarn).  So I ripped out about 1/3 of the whole of the first sock and started again.  And I didn't mind doing it at all because knitting these socks in STR lightweight on Harmony needles (2.5mm) was nothing but a complete joy from start to finish.

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They are now finished and despite having knit them through such a stressful time everytime I look at them all I can think about is how calming the experience of knitting them was.  I am not wearing them yet however.  I have (in the last few years) started a trend of making sure that I wear a new pair of hand knitted socks every New Year's Day.  It is a silly little tradition of indulgence that I have created for myself.  They are in storage until New Year's Day or until I have finished another pair of socks for myself between then and now.

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Currently I am knitting J another pair of Orange Socks - I am using the Saxony Pattern (72 stitches on 2.5mm needles) and some great merino cashmere sock yarn from Cariad Yarns in this fabulous bright colour. I am getting a bit of laddering on the needles which is annoying but I think I can block it out in the final product.  I have made the heels unusual wide because a) J has strangely high arches and b) I was very worried that the intense cable pattern would make these very hard to get on over the instep.  So far they fit him like a dream but the extra yarn has left me panicking I don't have enough to finish them.  I am persevering and if the worst comes to it I have some other orange yarn which will have to finish a toe or something.

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I am also knitting some red socks for R.  I have never knitted socks for R before but I am confident she is someone who truly appreciates knitted gifts and she has dropped several hints over the last couple of years that she would like more knitted socks (I am not her only source of them you see!) I realised that knitting her a pair of socks was probably well overdue and so last Sunday I cast on for a pair of Kai Mai socks from Cookie A's Sock Innovation book (66 stitches on 2.5mm needles).  I started out with some Lisa Souza Yarn but the gauge was totally wrong and I ripped out half a sock and then picked another yarn instead.  This time I got out the red yarn of Unknown Origin.  This is the yarn that Triskellian and I bought together about 3 years ago at Ally Pally.  We bought 500g of it for £5! And then eventually split it in half.  I already used some of it on the "push me pull me" socks in stripes with plain black yarn (and I happen to think that the PMPM socks are probably some of the most gorgeous and striking I have ever knit for myself) It is lovely stuff and really well dyed and doesn't seem to have lost its colour at all in the PMPM socks.  I have now completed 1.5 Kai Mai socks in the red yarn (after having ripped out 3/4 of a foot for getting the second pattern repeat spiralling the wrong way and only realising far too late) and they look great.  I will be giving them to R but only because I have a will of iron!

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I am finally ready to admit something - 3 years after I first noticed the problem, our breadmaker really is just broken now.  The only thing it is useful for is occasionally making pizza dough or pitta dough.  Everything else  - even wholemeal dough! Is coming out like a brick.

In fact the last couple of batches of bread were so bad that I began to doubt my ability to make bread at all.  Enter "Fresh from the Oven" a bread baking community who post monthly bread making (by hand) challenges and you have to complete 8 in a year. I have been watching it for some time through the Domestic Goddess in Training blog and when I admitted the breadmaker was dead I decided to join myself.

I joined just in time for the December challenge which I shall be tackling this coming weekend but I also wanted to get a bit of practice in before hand so I decided to do the November challenge as well for a fast knead plain white loaf.  The recipe is here on the DGIT blog.  Well after several dodgy wholemeal loaves this was an absolute joy to make, the dough was easy to handle (the short kneads meant it wasn't too arduous) and using oil instead of flour is completely inspired.  The first loaf was light and tasty and looked like this:

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The 2nd and 3rd loaves were likewise and this is now the new favourite bread recipe in the Fraxknits household. There are a lot of fiddly bits to this recipe and I slavishly followed all of them each time (except I doubled the amounts to make loaves 2 and 3) and I can confidently say it was worth it and I shan't ever be tempted to cut corners if I make this again.

December is Stollen and I remember when I finally got access to the public blog to pick up the recipe being really rather excited by the prospect.  This is precisely why I joined the blog.  To make things I wouldn't normally make and improve my skills.  So this Sunday J is out and I have a day to myself.  I am going to spending it wrapping Christmas presents in front of old Dr Who episodes and making this Stollen recipe.  Probably with some knitting and maybe some creative writing thrown in as well.

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Not long ago I made a rash statement about how hard I wear my socks "and they never get holes in them".  Well clearly this hubris in the face of the knitting gods would not go unpunished and within 2 months 4 pairs of socks had developed holes!

This was an excellent excuse to get out my antique darning mushroom which my Mum bought me as a beautiful if curious Christmas present a while ago.  Here is a picture of it unsocked although I don't think you get a good sense of it since I photographed it lying on a wooden table.

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I can say that the old antique darning mushroom held up very well for the first two socks I darned and the wood was quite warm and comfortable to hold.  It seems to take roughly an hour/45 mins to darn a sock at the moment using this great technique on You Tube.

How To Darn A Sock

My second darning (where I managed to use the same coloured yarn) was actually practically invisible which I am very pleased about and the darned patches actually seem stronger than the rest of the sock.

Here is a picture of the first hole though so you can see it.

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All my socks to develop holes have done so in precisely the same little spot everytime where the back of my heel bone rubs my shoe.  The only one of J's socks to get a hole has been on the ball of the foot.  I have no idea what this means.

I now have two more to do and might take them with me over Xmas to do when I want a break from knitting. 

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I know, posts are like buses around here...

Well I just wanted to do a final post to write about what I am currently knitting.

Firstly I am knitting the Elegant Ribbed Stockings by Ann Budd from Favourite Socks (still on my odyssey to knit everything in the book).  These are particularly special though because I am using the Cascade 220 I overdyed.  So this is the first thing I have knitted from my own hand dyed yarn.  They are a surprisingly quick knit for being knee high socks, probably because the gauge is so huge.

Elegant Ribbed Stockings

In order to counteract the huge gauge on this, I decided to go the other way on the other socks I am currently knitting.  after much recommending I am finally knitting the Coriolis Socks in New Pathways for Socks Knitters by Cat Bordhi and they really do not disappoint, they are a really interesting construction and lots of fun.  However in my wisdom I decided to try knitting them on 2.00mm needles because Cat's Master Numbers will allow me to do this.  They are understandably going slowly but the resulting fabric is so smooth and fine (for a handknit) that it is worth it.  I wouldn't want to have to knit like this all the time though.  I am using purple bfl sock yarn had painted by Knitwitches.  I bought this nearly two years ago and i has sat in my stash waiting for the perfect project because the colours are so good.  I gave up waiting in the end and I am very pleased that I did.

Coriolis Socks

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Most people in the UK will probably know about this already but In Trafalgar Square in London there are plinths with statues on them and the 4th Plinth is empty.  Various things have filled it over the years and for this summer the great artist Antony Gormley (who was responsible for the fabulous Angel of the North statute) has filled the plinth.  He has chosen to fill it with ordinary people chosen by lottery who get to do anything they like (as long as it is legal) for one hour.  The project is called One and Other and there is someone on the plinth 24 hours a day every day and yesterday between 1pm and 2pm Brenda Dayne of Cast On was on the plinth!

Brenda Dayne Knitting on the Plinth

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