Why my article revisions aren't finished yet...

Back safe in Ottawa, and trying to get myself back to actually doing work every day... funny thing was that this time, the jet lag didn't really seem to be a problem- no waking up at the crack of dawn or falling asleep really early. Instead, its the heat that's hit me - its so hot and muggy here (compared to Newcastle, at least) that I find it really hard to be motivated to do more than just veg all day... but who knows, maybe its the jet lag after all.

Anyway, today there was something fun to be done! Mike's (and soon to be my!) nephew Owen turned three at the end of July. For one reason or another (actually several all put together), the Delage side of the family had yet to have a birthday celebration for Owen. So tonight was picked as the night!

I talked to Tara yesterday, and offered to take over the task of making Owen a birthday cake. Since (as you may remember) this kid is still OBSESSED with Bob the Builder, what could I do but make a Bob themed cake for him? But far be it from me to fiddle with those fancy shaped cake tins that only need icing decorations (a local store rents them out - genius idea, I might add!) - I much prefer the old-fashioned, bake a rectangle cake and then cut it to pieces method!

So, to do this, you bake one 9x11 inch chocolate cake (thanks Martha for the recipe!). Freeze it, cut it in half width-wise, and then cut one of those halves in such a way that one quarter is a little bigger than the other. Got it? K, Now go ahead and build your cake, trimming edges and digging out pieces as necessary, until it looks something like this:

Now make your icing (I chose Buttercream). Dye it the most hideous yellow you can, without feeling like you could actually harm someone with that amount of food colouring. Slop, I mean smooth on the icing, using some of it to stick the layers together. Keep two little un-iced bits to serve as the bars connecting the scoop to the rest of the truck. Take some of the yellow icing and add red and blue dye so you get a kind of grey-ish colour, and use this to make the windows on the cab. Chocolate biscuits make easy wheels, and mini-oreos make great "dirt" for the scoop.

Voilà! you have a digger cake! Don't forget to add Bob, your driver. Many thanks to Twenty Cent Mixture (found via Google) for the inspiration for this cake! It was, if I do say so myself, a bit of a hit - so much so that Owen didn't want us to cut it up, because he and Bob had to "go build a cottage" first. We finally had to remind him that this was actually cake and not a toy! (but that didn't stop Bob from playing on it!)

After the cake came the presents...

A book from Granny Cindy, and read by Great-Granny Peggy (gotta love The Cat in the Hat!)

Then a brief stop while a family of six raccoons came to visit the backyard...

And finally, of course, more Bob, courtesy of my "special UK connections" (also known as Asda).

And then, just to round the evening out, a little bit of Felix!

So which is the better excuse, "My dog ate my homework" or "My nephew ate the cake I baked for him"? :)

FO: Center Square for Claudia

Pattern: Center Square from Knitty.com, Winter '06

Yarn: Debbie Bliss Chunky Tweed in Purple, and double-stranded pink DK felting wool from Knitting4fun.com. Both yarns are from Claudia's stash.

Needles: Alhtough the pattern calls for 8mm needles, I improvised by using a 6.5mm mini-circular (40cm) and adding one extra pattern repeat. On the crown of the hat, I had to improvise a little, first knitting on 2 circs and then switching to 5.5mm DPNs for the last 2 rows. I think I need to invest in more larger-diameter DPNs! :)

Comments: Claudia has been wanting me to knit this for her for a while now, ever since she tried it herself, and couldn't get the hang of the fair-isle part (all she needs is a little more practice, I think!). So of course now that I'm about to go home for a few months, it suddenly became imperative that I make this. So after Claudia gave me the yarn at Uni today, I whipped it up tonight... only took me about 4.5 hours - this is one of the quickest projects I've ever made! Must be that chunky yarn! The final size, with the extra pattern repeat, is 11" (28cm) across at the brim, and 8" (20cm) high.

Ravelled here.

K, now that this is posted, I'm off to bed... next time I plan to spend 5 hours knitting and posting a hat, I'll have to remember to start before 8pm at night! :)

Regarding our discussion at knitting tonight...

Yes Glittrgirl, the Clangers are on YouTube! :)

FOs: Twin Tomtens

I'm pretty sure that the person I made these for doesn't read my blog, so I've decided to post these now instead of waiting till after they've been gifted...

Pattern: Tomtem Modular Jacket from Elizabeth Zimmermann's Knitting Without Tears. Mods: to try and make this 3-6 month sized, I cast on only 96 stitches and made the sleeves 46 ridges long. I also opted for a wider border on the fronts and hood, rather than a thin edging. I think they're a little bigger than I'd planned, but better to have them too big, rather than too little.

Yarns: King Cole Superwash Merino Blend DK (100% pure wool) in Olive, Kingfisher, and Wine. This yarn is great - machine washable, very soft, and not very pricey! Each jacket used 4 balls of the main colour, and 1 of the contrast colour.

I would definitely use this yarn again - especially since they now have an aran weight version. The colour selection is great, and its much more wooly-feeling than other superwash yarns I've used (Garn Studio's Karissima, for example).

Comments: These are for my friend who is expecting twins next month - one girl, one boy. Because I wanted to make 2 of whatever I made, this seemed like the perfect pattern - very quick and easy to follow (once you're used to EZ's style of pattern-writing) and fully customizable for colour and style. Claudia helped me pick these non-babyish, co-ordinated yet not matchy-matchy colours, and I think they were a great choice. I'm now knitting myself a cardigan in a colour very close to this kingfisher-teal! :)

The pattern recommends installing a zip as closure, but I thought the toggles were much cuter - plus, I imagine that the toggles will be easier to fasten on two squirming babies! They were a really quick knit too - the first one took just over 6 weeks because it was interrupted by a trip to Europe, a thesis chapter, and a short quest to York for the perfect buttons, but the second one took only 17 days... (yikes! I didn't realise it was that quick!). :)

Ravelled: here and here.

FO: Tulip Cardigan

Pattern: Tulip, from Rowan 41
Yarn: Rowan Damask, in Serpentine
Comments: This cardigan has taken a year to finish - it sat in hibernation for most of the winter, since I didn't see much point in finishing it until the weather was warm enough to wear it. The pattern is decent - just the back and 2 fronts, since the sleeves are part of the body piece. The instructions for the neckband were a bit odd though - basically, you knit the frill as a seperate piece, and then pick-up 276 (for my size) stitches up one front, along the neck and down the other side - for each stitch that you pick-up, you knit that into one of the stitches on the frill, thereby joining them together. I tried it, but it was too frustrating to go on with. In the end, I just picked up stitches as indicated, and then grafted them together. SO much easier.

As for the overall cardigan, this is one of those projects that I wish I'd had Ravelry for (I didn't join until after I'd knit the back and part of a front). The body on this is very short - It comes to just below my natural waist, and I'm a short person. Here's a photo of me in it, pre-sewing in ends and blocking...
Its not super short, but not as long as I would ideally like it. The blocking helped a little, simply by flattening the ruffle on the bottom, but not that much. (No Hannah, I did not expect it to grow from blocking! :P ) Anyway, it is designed to be worn over something, so its not that big a deal. I just think that I would try to make it longer in the body if I were to do it again. Also, the sleeves are a little narrow (again, they got a little more loose after blocking) - but if you had big arms, I think it could end up too tight for a lot of people. Not sure how you'd make them wider, given the style of the sleeves.

One problem I did have with this project was the yarn. Damask is 57% viscose, 22% linen, and 21% acrylic, and it does start to look it after a while... Too much friction (or ripping out, when trying to make sense of the frill-attaching instructions) on this yarn makes it fuzz - I'm a little sceptical about how its going to boy wear. Also (and more importantly!) can you see the colour difference in the back of this cardigan:

the bottom third of the sweater looks like it was knit with a different dye lot, even though I know this was all marked as the same lot number! (and I bought the yarn at Ring-a-Rosie, and the ladies there are fabulous about making sure you remember to check lot numbers!). I'm just glad this happened on the back, so its not as noticeable. The ties wrap around there anyway, so hopefully it will just look like a trick of the light or something.

The photo doesn't quite do the colour issue justice, but I think I will send it to Rowan anyway, to see what they say about it. I bought the yarn last year, so its not like I would expect much in return, I just think they should know about it!

Ravelled here