an edinburgh getaway (sort of) - country

I recently told you about going to Edinburgh, but one of the days we took a day trip out to Loch Ness and Uruqhart Castle, stopping briefly at Glen Coe on the way up. It was really lovely, we had really amazing weather for the whole trip, and the sunset over the loch on the boat ride back to the coach was really lovely. I highly recommend taking a trip outside of Edinburgh if you're visiting - however I think the time you're there needs to be taken into account. We were only there for two full days, and spending most of the day travelling (about five hours driving) probably wasn't the best use of our time, but it was really lovely to see some the countryside, and I did get to do some bird watching (fairly certain I saw an eagle!).

fair-isle fun

Things I have learnt about fair-isle knitting (or stranded colour work, if you will) from my first item that I have knitted in this way..

• Tension is everything: and it's tough. It's something I've always struggled with - my mother says I knit tightly, but it lapses into something sloppy far too often.
• Making a little card with a sample of each colour (particularly when they're so similar) is such a godsend! There are so many similar colours in this project, it was driving me crazy.
• So many ends to sew in. So. Many. Ends.
• My respect for fair-isle knitters like Alice Starmore has expanded incredibly, and also increased my interest in visiting the Shetland isles ten-fold. 
• It looks harder than it is! Two colours on each row is actually pretty easy to handle, once you get into the swing of it.
• I also learnt the hard way the importance of keeping the same colour on the top or the bottom, there are hundreds of posts out there about this!
• I think good needles are important. I was using Knit Pro's Nova interchangeable ones, because the tips are so smooth because they're metal, and they have a good point on them without being too sharp. 
• Did I mention I have a lot of ends to sew in? Sigh.

I finished the hat about two weeks ago and I still haven't sewn in the ends. When I get it all finished and blocked I'll show you a better photos!

sour cream choc-chip cake recipe

Now I'm not one to blow my own trumpet, but this is one of the best cakes I've ever made. Perhaps even the best. My mum was looking for a recipe to use up some rhubarb we had in the freezer and I came across this Chocolate Chip Sour Cream Coffee Cake by Smitten Kitchen (I really love all her recipes). It sounded interesting with the sour cream, although I'm not sure why it's called a coffee cake, as there is no coffee in it... is this an american thing? Anyway, it takes a while to put everything together because you've got to beat eggwhites and mix ingredients in separately etc, but it's an amazinggg cake when its made. It's really light and fluffy and tastes a bit like muffins due to the sour-cream in it. It also makes a huge tray full so it would be good to make to take to a party or something like that. 

I'm not going to re-type the recipe here because it's long, and she explains it pretty well, and I highly recommend baking it, it went down particularly well in my family, even with my dad who doesn't really like chocolate cake!

(I made this a little while ago and I'm well on my way with my diet now (lost 7lbs!) but I found these pictures on my computer and it made me so so hungry!)

an edinburgh getaway - town

I recently came back from a far too brief visit to Edinburgh. I've been struggling a lot with my mood of late (as I do every January and February - they are bad months for me) and it was a great little trip to take my mind off a few things. It's been somewhere I've wanted to visit for such a long time, and finally got the chance too. Me and a friend managed to squeeze in a lot in the two and a bit days that we were there, but I really enjoyed it, overall. It was a very beautiful city that I could really see myself living in, in the future... 

These photos are from the first day we got there, we walked up to the castle and the sun was setting over the city, stopping in St. Giles Cathedral on the way back. It was great to see the city on the first day like that, thankfully we were staying just off the Royal Mile so it was a really good place to get to-and-from locations. 

So it wasn't exactly a 'winter sun' break, but we were very lucky with the weather and it was a lovely little time away.

the cowl to end all cowls

I posted these photos on Instagram and got a few nice responses, so thought I would show you guys: this is the first thing I knitted when I started knitting again, back in 2010. I originally knit it as a scarf, but it was a bit of a weird length; whilst being long enough to wrap around three times, it left these weird ends hanging down, and I never really wore it that much, except when it was super-cold. So I recently sewed the ends together to make it into a giant, super cosy, super comfy cowl or snood. I can't be quite sure what wool it was (it's been a while) but I have a feeling it was Rowan Big Wool. I just knit a knit one/purl one rib all the way up, which because it is a super chunky wool, you can only see the knits and looks like a double sided stockinette. But yeah, I'm quite pleased that I now get a lot of use from it, due to reworking it slightly!

(Fun tangent: here is a picture of me knitting this in a knitting club at university. I say club, there was only one or two meetings and I spent most of it teaching other people how to knit haha.)