My Love Is Like A Red, Red... Cupcake

"Due to the unforeseen Great Albert Heijn Malteser Shortage of '14, we are, sadly, forced to postpone celebrating our 72 poundiversary loss with the designated Malteser Tray Bake. But we must thank the galant and vibrant Red Velvet Cupcake for stepping in at the last moment. (Red was due to celebrate the 59 poundiversary, but was inexplicably forgotten in the run-up to Christmas.)

Further poundiversaries are now designated as: 79 - Malteser Tray Bake (presuming the Shortage doesn't continue); 88 - something decadent from M&S (to be decided); 95 - tray of maple-pecan brownies; 103 - possibly an entire carrot cake. With frosting."

Yes, our noble heroine Bettie Crocker steps into the breach again, with her box mix cupcakes. The whole concept of bright red cake is such an alien thing to this Scot who was brought up with either brown chocolate cake or cream-coloured sponge that of course it had to be on the poundiversary list. Dear America, you are useful for so many strange things that we would never have thought of doing ourselves. Huzzah for your over-the-top, weird and wonderful baking practises.  

And frosting. Thank you for frosting. Icing is lovely, don't get me wrong, and the fairy cakes of my youth slathered in runny white (or blue or pink or yellow, should the village shop stock such exotic food colouring) icing, and hundreds and thousands, are fond, fond memories, but frosting? They say everything is bigger in the US and they don't appear to be wrong, at least when taking cake garnishing into consideration.

I wonder what it was that nudged some baker or other towards making a blood-red coloured chocolate cake, though?  I wondered enough, in fact, to ask Professor Google, and it appears it could be blood-red because some bloke in 40's America wanted to sell his red food colouring! Well, whatever the truth, the rise of the importance of the red velvet cake was enough for good old Bettie Crocker to package it up in ready-to-bake form, and for that me and my minus seventy-two pounds thank her.

Lovely Bubbly!

Champagne - the most decadent of alcoholic beverages, and usually so expensive to prohibit it's consumption except in the most celebratory of circumstances. 

So until you can get your neck around a glass (or indeed a bowl) of the good stuff, help yourself to some free bubbly socks instead!

champagne tower socks by yours truly

Champagne!  And what's more decadent than a glass of champagne, but many glasses of champagne, of course!

My Champagne Tower Socks are made from the top down, with a short-row heel, and were inspired by watching a 'how do they do that' TV programme that included the proper (or at least a successful) method of pouring champagne down a pyramid of champagne bowls!  I love the idea of champagne and froth carrying on down the sock in luxurious stripes - a gentle froth topping some over-the-top twisted rib - the epitome of luxurious ribbing in my eyes!

I did two versions, one a straight champagne and froth, the second a slightly more frivolous kir royale (crème de cassis, or blackcurrant liqueur and champagne),

kir royale tower socks
araucania ranco solid in 'PT485'
kartopu kristal in 'white'

but the options are not few - there are a good many cocktails that include champagne that could inspire you to any number of colour combinations!

I think my ultimate favourite champagne cocktail is the Black Velvet - champagne and Guinness.  Delicious!

And how often do you get offered free champagne?  They're just one click away...  Either HERE, which goes straight to the Ravelry pattern page, or...

(It says buy now, but the button just takes you to the paypal download page, but you pay nothing!)

Harmony Of The Ellipses

"Nic is grateful to the gods/builders/tectonic plates that conspired to make the only area in her place with truly flat floorboards be right in front of her telly.

Because that's the only spot her elliptical cross trainer works properly!

Mwah hah hah hah haaaah!"

I am also grateful that my behemoth of an exercise machine has little wheels built in to the bottom of the front stability bar to enable me to tip it forward and roll it from where it's stored in my bedroom through to that hallowed spot in the living room, or the age-old, cheap and crappy carpets that cover the less-than-flat floor would be in an even worse state of repair. 

Poor flat. The owners really don't care that much about how it looks, as long as what's there lasts a long time, so let's try to ignore the blue brillo-padesque plastic/wire monstrosity that carpets, for want of a better description, the stairs and hall; you don't want to catch your calves going downstairs (or knees, falling upstairs :: cough ::) on that travesty of a floor fabric, because the resulting welts and grazes sting like a mofo.

But I digress.

Yes indeed, that sweet spot where all four corners of my trainer rest just so. Where balance is premium, and no corner has to bear even the tiniest lurch every time the wheel is turned. For you see, a lurch brings with it a tiny hint of a grinding noise. A suspicion of mechanical disapproval. A suggestion that should any horizontal inadequacy continue, Terrible Things Might Happen. 

So, not just to the left, where the floorboard squeaks pitifully when sensing any sort of imbalance. Not just to the right, where there's an inexplicable bump in the flooring. (I've never found enough courage to actually find out what it is; I just avoid it and hope it isn't/wasn't anything that might ooze in the future...) Not set up running parallel to the sofa and sideways to the teevee for there appears to be a lack of wholesome boards at that particular point. They don't squeak there. It's more of a groan, and a slight give that supplies just enough impetus not to linger.

I guess I just want to point out that I didn't simply plonk the thing down in direct view of the screen without trying all other options first. That I did in fact search for a suitably stable support in all corners (or all corners that didn't show an unnatural pliancy of support) of the room, before finally coming to the realisation that, for a short time at least, the Gods of Getting In Shape were smiling down upon me and my efforts to both pedal my pounds away and watch 'Grey's Anatomy'.

I probably need to replenish that cake altar again.

Empirical-Line Dress

"Nic was looking forward to finally fitting back into her beautiful ball-gowns for all her lovely concerts over Christmas, but WOE!!  During the hiatus of projects that needed pretty dresses, optimal fit has already been passed.  (Yay, of course, but woe too!!)

Time to get out the sewing-machine, and find a copy of 'Dress Alterations for Dummies'..."

It's not that I've been oblivious to the changes, quite the opposite (as posts on the subject will testify) but somehow work and special-occasion clothing exist in another part of my brain's wardrobe section. Like somehow satin and silk have the magical properties that allow them to fit the wearer no matter what size they both are.  

I'd been wearing a gorgeous black satin concert dress I found on eBay for everything. It was my go-to empire-line, floor-skimming, classically elegant black dress and it had slowly replaced all the other concert gowns once I had become too big to wear them. (Notice the quaint notion of things fitting on the way down wasn't given any noggin space on the way up. Denial on the outside, but acknowledgement of the truth on the inside, maybe.) It looked smart, elegant, it covered me up enough that I felt comfortable to be in front of people wearing it. I was still wearing it until a very recently, when it became obvious even to me, that simply by cinching in at the waist with a pretty belt, or taking in at the bodice, it was just too big, and instead of being elegant it made me look like I was wearing a trussed-up bin-bag. An lined satin bin-bag, but a bin-bag none-the-less.

I suspect that that's one of the reasons why I was actually quite shocked in discovering that those ball gowns, stored away (out of sight, out of mind) were too big. That although the dress in which I had worked for so many years was beyond the help of both my sewing skills and even my widest belt, I thought, expected that perhaps now I'd be able to wear my old gowns again. If I let out the corseting a little and sucked in my tummy a bit. But no! Most of them were already slightly baggy around the boobs and waist, and didn't strain across my hips or stomach at all. (The problems with being pear-shaped - you have to buy clothes that either fit well on top, but complain at the seams lower down, or comfortably skim your lower portions, yet gape open at your less than vast tracts of land.)

It's quite the stupifier (a word which my spell-check informs me doesn't exist, but it should, dammit), because not only have I discovered that my expectation of something is way off, but I've also been shown, empirically, that the weight I've lost is noticeable (at last)!  

WOE, but YAY, too!

Senior Coatizen

"Nic has finally put her long-serving Winter coat into much-deserved retirement.

Not so much because it's falling apart (because that fluffy-collared behemoth will be here until after doomsday) but more because falling off the shoulders of the wearer has to (she presumes) go against the very raison-d'etre of Winter coat-kind."

It is a fine indication, however, to just how much my shape has changed over the past couple of years. I really did fit this coat well, and even though there was just enough extra room to wear a decent chunky jumper under it without feeling like a stuffed sausage, it sat well on my shoulders, kept me deliciously warm, and made me feel a little glam, too!

Bought around 1997, full-length, black wool, lined with a soft black watermark satin, and finished off with a luscious and soft faux-fur black collar, I felt glamorous indeed! I imagined I looked a little like one of the heroes from The Matrix, with my long, dramatic coat catching the wind as I walked down the street, although I suspect the reality was that I looked more like a rather squat black-hulled ship in full sail battling rough seas. Never-the-less it made me feel fabulous!

And now, now it is gone. Gone to that second-hand clothes shop in the sky down the street. In all honesty I could have used it as a bedspread, considering the amount of fabric used for its creation, but I'm inclined to believe that it would have preferred to keep its identity as Coat and not debase itself as Blanket.  

And I need to stop anthropomorphising my items of clothing - I'm sure they don't appreciate it.  

Twinkle, Twinkle

...Little Star shawl,

How I wonder what you... 

What you... 

...are all...

about?

Poetry.  Not my forte, as is rather eloquently shown above.  What I can do, however, is turn out little cosmic creations like this:

rain's obsessive stitchery fred sock in 'telltown'

this:

aade lõng artistic 8/2 in 'flame'

and this:

fearless fibres lightweight superwash merino sock yarn in 'sloth'

More stars than there are in the heavens.  No, wait.  That's MGM.  Part of an Amazing and Expanding Universe.   Ah.  Eric Idle may have me for nicking that...  But I suspect you get the idea...

May I present the Gold Star For Effort (or Morning Star) Shawlette. 

I was inspired to create this pattern by a friend on Ravelry who told me, after they saw my Cocktail Umbrella Shawlette, that I deserved a gold star for effort.  It was an innocuous comment that never-the-less took root somewhere at the back of my noggin, which was then jogged to the front after perusing some of my favourite cocktail websites for pattern inspiration, after finding mention of the Morning Star mocktail*. And the final falling in to place came when Rain of Rain's Obsessive Stitchery contacted me about a potential collaboration - her yarn, my pattern!  That plus a little bit of sparkle at the points of each star, and voilà!  A Star (scarf/shawlette) Is Born!  (Oops - sorry Barbra!)

*The Morning Star, by the way, can be a myriad of things: a medieval spiked mace; one of the many names for the planet Venus; a town in Western Virginia; a newspaper; a song by the UK band N-Dubz, but for my purposes, however, the Morning Star is a mocktail, or mock cocktail, and is one of the lesser-known non-alcoholic drinks in the cocktail firmament (see what I did there?!!)  There are a few differences in recipes, but on the whole it seems to involve one teaspoon of sugar, and one of honey, ten fluid ounces of pineapple juice, three pineapple chunks, and mineral water to the top of the glass.

The Gold Star for Effort (or Morning Star) Shawlette is a reversible crescent scarf-shawlette, worked from the star motif edging upwards, with some beads (60 to be exact) for a bit of added (optional) bling. The body of the shawl is worked in garter stitch using short rows.

My testers and myself have used varying amounts of yarn, from 400 yards, to 453, so to be safe, I've suggested that you have at least 450 yards of your chosen yarn before you start.  (The Fred Sock by Rain that I used for the gold version is 463 yards long in total.)

And where can you find this little gem?  HERE, of course.  Ravelry is again playing host and this link will take you through to the pattern page, which is available to all, not just Ravelry members.  Should you wish to purchase straight away (and why not?) feel free to click on the button below.

How much?  Only €4!!  (or £3.40, $5.40, ₪19, NOK32, ¥530.24..) and for the first month you can get 25% (or 1 euro) off with the code 'twinkle'.  Just apply it when prompted at checkout!

Coconut Shells At The Ready

"Nic does occasionally feel like she has embarked upon an epic and almost impossible quest to Thinner-land. A quest where will-power is tested, where her belief in herself is questioned, and her strength of commitment is pummelled and pounded by those who use insults like battering-rams, not caring what they crush as long as they perceive themselves the victor.  

But like in all epic quests, (and epic status updates) abilities once lost, return, glimpses of hope for a successful outcome become more frequent, confidence in self gets bolstered by little victories.

Today is a day of hopeful glimpses and little victories. Another milestone is passed. This one reads 'Four stones'."

Because what's more arbitrary than celebrating UK and US pound loss goals in separate posts? I'm such a universal crowd-pleaser!