By the pricking of my thumbs..

So how do you like to spend your Saturday night? How about in a foreboding council block in the East End, surrounded by witches, power-hungry usurpers and borscht? No? Ok, you might want to stop reading now.

We were lucky enough to nab some tickets to RIFT’s epic production of ‘Macbeth’, set within the monolith that is Balfron Tower. We are also lucky enough to have friends who are willing to join us on such daft adventures, so at 8pm sharp our motley crew of 9 assembled on a patch of astro-turf in the shadow of the Tower. 

We happily signed our lives away, exchanged some pounds sterling to ‘Bordurian Rand’ (in order to purchase beverages within the building) and waited in anticipated for our guide Uri to check that our visas were in order.

After some banter with Uri, he lead us down to the entrance into the bowels of the building. I think we were all feeling a little nervous at that point – this is the building they used when filming ’28 Days Later’ after all! As our eyes adjusted to the darkness of the underground carpark, witches seemed to materialise out of the gloom and stalk a couple of the more unfortunate members of our party. Assembling around a burning oil drum, Macbeth and Banquo soon joined us and the action began in earnest.

Some six hours later we emerged from the same building shiny-eyed and drunk on adrenaline. So what happened in between?!

It’s tempting to say: 'well go and see for yourself' but I guess that would be a bit mean seeing as the tickets are now broadly sold out. And anyway, I wouldn’t want to give too much away. Although I will say that we were mainly based in ‘our flat’ with action going on around us, in a couple of ‘bar’ areas and a few other flats around the building.

I think it may suffice to give you a couple of glimpses into scenes from the evening:

• Flattening myself into a dowdy armchair in our tiny living room while two men fight with knives approximately half a metre away (ok, don’t panic, they were realistic-looking plastic knives!).
• Being singled out and pulled into bed with a pleading Lady Macbeth. Having to be prised away from her convulsive sobbing by one of the guides.
• Feasting on borscht, rosti, cabbage and chocolate trifle at the banquet scene, before having a large pot with a severed head placed on our table to be incorporated into the action.
• M falling off an armchair and almost kicking Lady Macbeth in the face as she burst in through a door unexpectedly.

Ok so the last point wasn’t exactly planned, but was none-the-less most entertaining.

The acting was amazing - on the verge of making you feel a little bit like you were actually experiencing some real council estate drama at some points. The fact that the setting and costumes had a 70s theme definitely definitely enhanced this - and strangely didn't seem to clash with the Shakespearean English script.

We could have stayed over in 'our flat' if we would have wanted to (bunks and blankets provided), but we decided to head for the comforts of home at around 2am and forego the breakfast that would otherwise have been served the next morning.

The only problem is, what could we possibly do next to top this?

Making Good

Sounds a little like the opposite of Breaking Bad right? Well, you wouldn't be far off. I don't think you could get further from dodgy meth dealings than to entrepreneurial crafts fairs - although I suppose the 'entrepreneurial' part could be a slight overlap.. Anyway, enough musings.

A few weeks ago I had the good fortune not just to attend the MakeGood festival, but also help out Helen on her wonderful Curious Handmade stall. Helen has been a busy bee building up her knitting empire, founded on sheer passion, bucket fulls of talent and just a pinch of tireless determination.

So we found ourselves not only able to wander the other crafty stalls to our hearts content, but also help to sell Helen's beautiful pattern designs and generally natter with customers about knitting. It's a hard life.

Also worth noting that Helen won Unwind Brighton's prestigious award for best knitting pattern, as voted for by the fickle knitting masses. I'm currently working my way through 'Pebble Beach' so that I can wear it with pride to the Unwind event itself in just a couple of weeks.
It's been a while since I did any good yarn tourism, so Unwind seemed the perfect excuse. I won't be attending any of the classes, but will be listening to Ragga talk about Icelandic knitting which I'm rather looking forward to - oh and then there's the market place to check out of course..

 Because making things really is good for the soul!

Food for thought

So I've always been a granola fiend, but always saw it as a bit of a questionably ally when it came to health. After all, there was SO MUCH SUGAR in most of it. No wonder it was tasty. But then it also had oats and nuts and other, much more healthy stuff.. Oh the conundrum.

For some reason I had never really considered making my own, until a newsletter handily plonked a recipe directly in my lap: Sarah Wilson's coco-nutty granola, without sugar.
But surely it's only health freaks and those on restricted diets who make their own cereal? Meh, well I was curious. Mainly because it sounded really good!

So I tracked down my local supply of coconut flakes (Holland & Barrett), assorted nuts and other bits and pieces. The only substitution I had to make was to get agave nectar instead of brown rice syrup, which even the shop assistant hadn't heard of.

So to the chopping:

Here's the final mixture chillaxing on a baking tray:

And the final result! The batch on the left contains cocoa powder, so makes the granola just a little bit chocolatey.

What can I say, it was gooood. So good in fact that I had to make a second, larger batch a couple of days later because the previous supply had gone!

 And the health doesn't end there, oh no.. All hail the kale!

Spurred on by my granola success, I decided the time was right for more oven-related experimentation: kale chips!
I actually first thought about these some months ago, but then kale was difficult to come by as it was the wrong season - apparently kale needs frost? So now it was all over the place so it just seemed natural to give it a go.

I actually followed the instructions in a magazine, but really it's very simple:
- Set the oven to 120 degrees C
- Pour your kale onto a large, lined baking tray and spread out evenly - removing any large stalky bits
- Sprinkle some olive oil over your kale and massage in slightly to get good coverage. Some people also recommend a little salt.
- Toast the kale in the oven for about 15 minutes, or until all crisp
- Scoff and be amazed how great they taste

To me they taste a bit like popcorn which I realise is weird, but I don't care because they are so tasty!
A word of warning though, kale chips don't keep very well if left overnight in a non-airtight container. I decided to be sensible and leave some for the next day, but sadly by then they had lost some of their magic crispness and were a little disappointing.
So DON'T be sensible, scoff while at the peak or crunchy goodness.

Jumper round

Yes it is time to celebrate as I have finally finished my first jumper! Even though I'll admit that it will only fit a seven year old - and yes that was the intention.
The Happy Sweater is yet another creation by prolific Norwegian knitter and knit store owner Pickles who has made so many delightful designs, especially for children. I like the way that the patterns are uncomplicated and the results look wonderfully textured and just a little bit old fashioned. These are clothes for kids, not little adults.
So this little jumper went to M's nephew for Christmas and I believe it has found a good home.

However, M also has a niece so what better than to send her a similar gift but make it in the form of a knitted dress.

This pattern had me slightly riled as it was supposed to be for a 2 year old, but although I followed the instructions for this sizing it somehow ended up humongous. Thankfully I had the bright idea to add the little 'belt' to gather the dress a little and give it a bit more shape. You'll also note that I decided to add buttons the front incase the size was a little too big still, so that the shoulder straps could be crossed at the back if necessary and buttoned in place.

Anyway, it seems it was all worth the effort, and as a bonus I can say that I have officially finished a jumper :)

Rainbow with a twist a.k.a CMYKake

Have you noticed all the rainbow cakes that have been doing the rounds on the interweb? Like this one, this one and this one? Well, I was just looking for an excuse to create one for myself so of course an opportunity had to arise sooner or later.

Earlier this year I did some work with a colleague on our new colour palette at work - a task that nearly put us both off colours for life. But we got there in the end, so I thought it only apt to produce something of a tribute to this for his recent Birthday.

So a full on seven-tiered rainbow cake would have been a bit over the top so I settled for something a bit more geeky: a four-tiered CMYK cake (CMYKake for short). For those of you who don't get the joke, see me after class or consult Wikipedia.

It started harmlessly enough: four tiers, four bowls of sponge mixture:

Oo now this is where the fun started! Chuck  in the colouring and voila:

Sadly the finished sponges were less vibrant, but still:

And here's the finished article:

The cream cheese icing was a little runny, but thankfully it wasn't a complete triumph of style over substance and actually tasted pretty good!

Hm, maybe seven tiers isn't completely out of the question after all.

P.S. I was very smug at having come up with the CMYKake idea all by myself, but sadly some geeky baker had actually already done this - doh! Oh well, I guess there is nothing new under the sun after all..

Whoopie it's Halloween!

It all started with a fairly innocuous workplace challenge: every team gets a pumpkin, and gets to do with it what they will. Judging takes place at 2pm, this spooky Halloween Thursday.

By Tuesday our pumpkin was still in tact. Something had to be done.

Earlier in the week, someone sent around an email about food waste. This got me thinking. All those Halloween pumpkins are bought, carved and essentially thrown away. How's that for food waste?!

What if you could make something a bit different (and useful) out of pumpkin flesh?

What if you made whoopie pies?

So after Martha Stuart (controversial I know) supplied this recipe, it was really just a matter of using some tricks to turn this pumpkin into a treat.

Before:

During (Part 1):

During (Part 2):

After! Complete with clip art mash-up and patronising note about food waste :)

Ok, so we didn't win any of the awards but the pies went down a treat and everyone was most appreciative - which to be honest, was the most important thing anyway!

Happy Halloween!

Let me smoke my (knitted) pipe

I needed something cute, but not overly fussy for my colleague's new baby. Mainly because her other half did not seem kindly disposed to the usual 'novelty' baby-wear.

So...sophisticated but not boring, that would be a challenge. Until I found this pattern. A quick knit AND I had just the buttons to go with it!

The only thing missing is a tiny knitted pipe to go with it.
For anyone who doesn't get the title of this post, it's a song by Mr B, the Gentleman Rhymer who I've had the pleasure of seeing live a couple of times.