Bee Stole by Anne Hanson
My Ravelry Post: here
Yarn: Jaeger Baby Merino 4ply, that we got while we were on holiday earlier in the year. I had 4 balls, and used about 3 1/2 in total.
Needles: 4mm addi lace. <3
Notes: I cut the width of the stole down by two repeats, which worked out well mathematically, and meant there wasn’t really any serious fudging to do. It was exactly the knit I needed - always interesting, and with lots of mid-points to aim for, which is probably why it knit up so quickly.

Hopefully my mum will like it, and find it useful, but either way I’ll find out when I see her this weekend. :)

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PS. The camera is back! So there should be a shop update next week. :D

My sister has started a blog: www.littlegreenbees.com, and being the good sister I am, it’s only right that I point you all in her direction.

She sews and embroiders (her embroidery is superb) and is just starting to quilt. She’s also a scientist, and it’s really interesting to see how that filters into her work. (Virus models in embroidery and felt anyone?)

*proud big sister*

Rhubarb, Ginger and Cream

(Since this is my own recipe, I get to share it. ;)

Ingredients:

• a few ginger nuts
• some double cream
• some mixed spice
• about 4 stalks of rhubarb
• 2tbl spoons of brown sugar

1. Crush the ginger nuts up so that they are crumbled and powdery in parts.

2.  Cut up the rhubarb and put in a pan with the sugar and a splash of water. Cook till the rhubarb is soft and starts to break up.

3. Whip the cream until it firms up.

4. Assemble in bowls: first a bottom layer of crushed ginger nuts, then the cooked rhubarb, then the cream, and then a dusting of mixed spice.

5. Eat quickly before the cream melts into the rhubarb.

Delicious!

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Food Things:

The ice cream isn’t made, my grandma’s birthday cake is made, but needs re-making because I just found out that the prunes have stones in them - however this means we get the first cake, so let’s not cry too hard. I was going to make the lemon merague from the book, but ran out of energy so whipped up the above pudding instead.

Knitting Things:

I spent two days knitting Angle in wonderful orange alpaca silk, (I know - orange yarn! Kind of a busman’s holiday. :), only to realise that I was definately going to run out of yarn, and that getting more was going to make the cardigan very expensive.

So i did the sensible thing and frogged it. The wonderful alpaca silk will become something else for bump, and Angle will get knit up - probably - in some Jo Sharp yarn I have in my stash (which is also lovely stuff.)

However, the Bee Stole is done, blocked, and just waiting to be photographed… which brings me to:

Oxford Kitchen Yarns Things:

The camera has gone awol in the post - the post office say they have delivered it, but don’t have a signature, which makes them think it is back at the depo. Unfortunately getting to the depo without a car and while pregnant, is a nightmare, so I have used the automated redelivery service to attempt to get them to find it and redeliver it without being able to stand over them and *make* them find it and redeliver it.

Tomorrow we will see if that works or not.

Long story short: I can’t take photos of the yarn accurately until I get the camera back, so it’s likely that the shop won’t get updated this week. Which is incredibly annoying all round.

…next week at the shop.

(Luckily the camera is fixed, paid for and should be returned to us very soon!)

I realised - it being thursday already - that i was putting off writing about this week’s pudding. I think I know why. There were some problems with it.

Not in how it tasted - it tasted wonderful - but in the technicalities of how it was made.

But lets back up a bit.

This weeks pudding: Rhubarb Ice Cream.

Now, since this recipe isn’t actually in the book, and is one I adapted myself, I going to post it here, along with direction on how not to cock it up, (like i did.) I’m planning to remake it properly over the weekend - probably. Hopefully. Assuming all the baking works out.

But anyways, you need:

• A decent handful of rhubarb stalks
• A large (560ml ish) pot of double cream
• 260g icing sugar

1. Wash and chop up the rhubarb and put in a pan with a tiny splash of water. Heat until all the rhubarb goes soft and starts to break down. Leave to cool.

2. WHIP THE CREAM. (I didn’t do this, because i thought that my ice cream maker would magically whip it enough for me, as well as freezing it. This would have been fine if we were going to eat it all in one go, but i knew that wasn’t going to happen, and so when it actually went into the freezer, it froze into a solid block. Hence the scrapings, rather than scoops I photographed on monday. And thus i’ve put off posting this till thursday.)

So - whether you’re using an ice cream maker or not - WHIP THE CREAM. Till it has soft peaks and there is obviously a lot of air in it.

3. Add the icing sugar to the rhubarb, and mix till all the icing sugar has disolved.

4. Add the rhubarb mixture to the cream, and fold in gently.

5. If using an ice cream maker: Add mixture to the maker, and follow the instructions for your particular ice cream maker.

If NOT using an ice cream maker: Put the ice cream mixture into a plastic box with a lid, or wrapping cover, and put in the freezer. Take it out and give it a stir every hour, so that it doesn’t freeze into a solid block. It should take about 4 hours to freeze.

6. Eat. :)