Spinning light

It seems forever ago but I joined in with a Christmas swap on Ravelry.  The rules were that it had to include a knitted or crocheted decoration, the spend was to be around a fiver and the theme was 'White'.  A handmade card was optional.

I got a bit confused around the decoration and thought it was just to be hand made. Lucky I checked before I started making anything as I'd lots of beautiful papercraft ideas pinned on pinterest!  

I knew that as a newbie spinner I fancied spinning something for my lovely recipient, but as I'd been practicing on a number of natural wools from different breeds I knew I didn't want to do the same.  Inspiration struck and I sourced some beautiful punis from an etsy seller:

After all, when you split white light, you get a rainbow.  I gave myself an additional challenge by spinning two plies rather than chain plying a single.

I had to break off a little when the plies got out of step, but I was surprised at how consistently I managed to spin. 

I found it hard to stop taking photos of the skein when it was on the niddy noddy.

 and despite it looking like a tangled mess before it had its final bath,

it turned into a beautiful skein of rainbow goodness -  192 yards from 40 grammes  at about a 4 ply weight I think

I hope my recipient loves what I made as much as I did.  I'm hoping to see it made up into something one day

Pinterest adventure 1

So, is anyone else making from pinterest in response to my challenge?

I thought I'd better get on with it, so I started with a bit of baking and made magic cakes from this pin

There was lots of mess,

and the resulting batter looked more like an enriched milkshake than something that would make a cake. Uncooked, it tasted like a weirdly flavourless, floury milkshake too

The recipe specified an 8" by 8" pan, but there was so much mixture that I filled one of my silicon cake tins too (and yes, I know that is an oxymoron....)

The cakes really puffed up and in hindsight I don't know if swapping their position in the oven 2/3 of the way through was the right thing to do, but after they came out of the oven they deflated but still looked good

I was a bit impatient and didn't wait the 3 hours recommended before taking a slice.  Excuse the dark pic - it was raining heavily at this point

It tasted good and had a really interesting combination of fluffy and flabby textures (I'm really selling this to you, I can tell).  I had another slice a couple of hours later and it was delicious so I'd recommend following the instructions to wait.  As the evening wore on, the flavours and textures blossomed.  The downside of course was that the cake got smaller and smaller. This was the last piece

Luckily I had the second cake in the fridge.

Because
a) the whole thing reminded my husband of an egg custard without the pastry
b) it was in a silicon 'tin' that gives a weirdly smooth surface to anything in it
I decided to unmould the second cake and serve it upside down

What a hit - it disappeared in minutes

I will definitely make this again, but next time I'll find a larger and deeper tin to bake it in as I didn't really get much of the middle sloppy custard layer, but did get the slightly cakey top and the gorgeous thick custard base

Wonder what I'll make next?

Pinterest - thoughts and a challenge

In my quest for pinterest world domination (truly, not) I've added some pinterest toys to the blog so I can be followed and pinned (Eeek).  I still don't know if I really get pinterest.  Doesn't stop me loving it, but I'm never sure if I'm, well, doing it right. Whatever, I enjoy what I do with it and love all of the wonderful things that people find and share on there.  I'm on the desktop this morning and I never realised how much functionality I miss because I'm usually on my tablet.  Its been a revelation, let me tell you.

However much I love seeing all the pretties, I have a sneaking suspicion that my pinterest could be in danger of becoming an overstuffed but dead space.  Kind of like my del.icio.us account - full of lovely things that I don't use  - the same could be said of my papercraft stuff in real life - I start to sense a theme here.  Magpie time - ooh shiny......

So, I want to issue myself a challenge and invite you all to join in. If you have a pinterest account where lots of great ideas are languishing, within the next month, make something from it or use a tip.  Post about it somewhere and link to me / tell me about it in the comments.  Feel free to issue this challenge to others and lets see if we can use what we've saved on there.

Instinct wants me to set up a group blog so we can all share, but I'll see if this takes off first

And on that note, I just snapped my glasses