Crochet Stars: Step-by-step

I came across this pattern post for crocheted stars on A Foothill Home Companion via One Sheepish Girl and thought I'd give it a go. Until recently I've been pretty terrible at following crochet patterns but I found YouTube videos have really helped - seeing how stitches are formed and knowing I've got it right is really useful!
So I worked through this one, translating US crochet terms to UK ones in my head and squinting at the pictures when I wasn't sure and it worked out alright. Then I thought it might be useful for people to have a step-by-step guide and possibly a UK translation of the pattern. So I made another little star and took photos along the way.

Click through to see the rest of this post. The photos made it rather long so I thought I'd better put a jump in here :)

Oh Hello

Wow, June was busy!
Exams, birthdays, ball, wedding (not mine), shopping for the above, making use of my freedom, getting my results (relief!) and packing up my Bristol life for the return to the parental nest are among the things that have been keeping me away. But here I am sitting at my desk in my childhood bedroom (it seems a bit strange calling it that seeing as I am but twenty two and I've not had a proper home away from it, just halls and student flats).
I've spent much of the last week sorting out the epic mountain of stuff which came home with me, and even going through some older stuff that was already here. The really old has been thrown out to make way for more recent acquisitions. Since I've apparently not cleared things out really properly ever, there was a lot I could throw away pretty painlessly (ringpull collection anybody? I was a strange child.) but I'm only part way there. My old method of tidying seems to have been chucking everything into shoeboxes and stashing them so now I'm going through those boxes one-by-one, separating the junk from the treasures. Hopefully I'll emerge from this process several cubic metres richer in space and feeling like I know what I have.

And now for assorted bits of nice:

Sushicake! Made by me.

My friend had his 22nd birthday a week or two ago. We lured him to the park and fed him beer and surprise sushi cake. He had his guitar with him and I brought a board game to give back to S so we had a thoroughly lifestyle-y time sitting in the sunshine singing, playing and lazing about. A couple of the boys climbed a nearby tree too. All rather lovely.

Why do I still have them all?

This, worryingly, is just part of my knackered shoe collection. What this photo actually represents is "shoes of the year" - all these pairs have been worn to death over a particular period of time. Each of these pairs performed the semi-miraculous feat of fitting my oddly-shaped size 8/9 feet and going with everything. For that I honour them!
The two pairs of boots are the same (I scoured eBay for the second pair) and got me through my first two and a half winters in Bristol.The navy ones in the bottom left are from back in 2007, and the others from various years in between then and now, with the tan loafers being this year's pair of choice. All but those and the pointy ones in the bottom right were unwearable and are now gone.
They're mostly New Look shoes with the exception of the Barratts boots, River Island cherry shoes, and Jane Norman spotty-soled shiny ones. New Look has a pretty decent range of shoes which go up to a size 9 (and it's a 43, their 8 is a 42 - none of this 41=8 nonsense) plus a wide-fitting line (although those normally fall off my heels), and my local New Look is pretty big (I think the chain started in Taunton?).

Pretty wrapping paper is just here for the pretty

A bonus of being home

Wiggly!

My newest crochet project is a blanket for my sister. It's a treble crochet wiggle in three colours, each stripe is made of two rows. It was supposed to be a Christmas present last year and, shamefully, I've only just started it. I have been otherwise occupied though, with that degree thing, plus I've been making...

Note the brown edging

It's big!

This! My friend M's blanket, her Christmas present last year. It's been pretty slow but there were long periods where I didn't do anything with it at all. It became impractical to carry about pretty soon what with three balls of wool hanging off it all the time. I elected not to cut and weave-in the ends as there were just too many, and not cutting meant I could easily undo it all if need be.
It's all double crochet - each stripe is two rows so all the colour changing happens at one side. I covered this up by making a brown dc border around the whole thing and I think it's neatened it up considerably.
I now have the best part of three balls of wool to turn into something else. I'm thinking of a scarf in some sort of fancy stitch from my new Handbook of Crochet Stitches. I've obviously got a bit less of the brown, having made the border, but it looks like I've still got far more beige. Strange.

I started adapting a blouse into a Sorbetto while I was in Bristol but that's been put on hold by all this moving business and now I've got plenty to be doing with my project and my tip of a room. I'd intended to get it finished for the Summer Spark Sewalong which I have the badge for in my right sidebar, but it's not looking like getting there yet. Boo. I'll get it out and take some pictures in the next few days though, and probably ask for some advice on how to proceed. I remember it being a tad wonky...

Right, back to sifting through the shoeboxes.

Publife

The Hillgrove Porter Stores

The Hillgrove Porter Stores is a good sort of pub - exciting ale, games, cose, an impossible quiz.. The Boy is rather a fan of real ale and the Hillgrove is within easy walking distance of his house so it's surprising we don't end up here more. However I don't think either of us feels quite settled enough to be declaring a local, and it'd take me a lot of steady visiting to pluck up the courage to chat to the bar people. On top of that there are so many pubs out there, all of them with a different selection of drinks, ambiance, facilities, and, of course, location, that it'd be silly to limit ourselves to just one.
The university's ale society (known as BRA) does a good job of keeping Bristol's pubs going. This Friday will see the annual BRAmble, an event where members amble across the city from pub to pub, beginning at lunchtime and imbibing copious amounts of beer along the way. I find it really heartening that despite being a society which is all about alcohol, doesn't promote irresponsible (or downright dangerous) drinking. *cough*UBRUB*cough*

Recently I've been the one with little time (last exam tomorrow!) so we've erred towards Clifton and The Portcullis for our evening excursions when they do happen. It was actually shortly after a Flickrmeet pub quiz at The Portcullis on a cold night in January 2010 that the boy and I became an item. We started as we've gone on seeing as we first met in The Old Fishmarket at my first ever Flickrmeet.
The Bristol Flickr group has very few rules (beyond the banning porn, racism &  Not Bristol...) but one thing that is constant is that the meet is held in a pub, chosen every month by whoever feels like joining in the discussion. This has led me to discover vast swathes of Bristol which I'm sure the majority of students don't know about or aren't interested and some very nice pubs, and that's on top of all the interesting & lovely people I've met.
 
This is a bit of a rambly post and it comes courtesy of my cryptography-addled brain so I shall say goodnight and leave the rest to pictures.

Narcissi at The Ostrich, their outside area is right by the harbour

The Hillgrove Porter Stores

The Hope & Anchor

RIP Daisy, The Three Tuns

Alice at The Three Tuns

Domestic Yarn Bombing

I love yarn bombing. It's one of those wonderful things that I happen across in the street and improves my mood amazingly. It's so fun! And creative! And friendly! <3

I've wanted to have a go myself for ages, encouraged by a Yarn Bombing Evening I went to at The Cube back in September; but the civil disobedience part* and the prospect of having someone destroy my work** didn't appeal. I had grand ideas of covering the banisters in my student flat with brightly-coloured cosies but of course the sheer amount of them and the fact that I'm soon to move out made that an impracticality.
One day I was sitting in my room revising something dull when inspiration struck, I could yarn bomb my Ikea uplighter! While it may be quite tall it comes in sections that screw together, and as such is easily coverable in sections. Since I own it I won't have to de-bomb it when I move :D

So, the process goes like this:

- Work out what size rectangle you need to make

- Crochet/knit it, checking the size regularly (I used up and down stitch from my recently purchased Handbook of Crochet Stitches)

- Use a yarn needle to sew it in place (sewing the seam around where the wire comes out)

- Embellish to taste (I used a crochet flower made using this video) and attached it with the trailing ends

Voila!

Have you ever yarn bombed anything? Would you?

* Yarn bombing is technically vandalism I think, although I imagine you'd probably only get a talking to unless someone had a complete sense of humour failure.
** The lady yarn-bomber who was at the event said that people do destroy yarn bombs, sometimes with fire :(

FOOD (a recurring theme in my brain)

Here are a few tasty things I've eaten & discovered in the past few weeks:

Popcorn done the proper way - It's trial by oil. Veg tastes bad, butter burns, margerine burns (oh my poor, poor saucepan). Next try: olive? Any tips? 69p for a big packet of kernels from Sainsbury's, hurrah! Popcorn is amazing for revision-time snacks, its volume is quite out of proportion with its calorie content.

Baked garlic - 1 hour on 190 degrees C with a bit of olive oil & seasoning. I did mine in a very cute teeny tiny casserole from Wilkinson's, but wrapping them in foil also works to keep the moisture in.

Smoothies - Frozen raspberries, orange juice & yoghurt. Schizzed*. Infinite variations possible.

Rosemary & sea salt crackers - From Pastry Affair. These work awesomely, even if you're using 1/3 real butter, 1/3 Flora and 1/3 Utterly Butterly. A great chef I am not.
Personally I'd increase the quantity of rosemary, but then I like rosemary enough to pick it from bushes which are in other peoples' gardens but overhang the pavement. Gallette & mini-tart-things - From Spoon Fork Bacon, adapted twice with good results. Pretty much any combination of softened onions/leeks/spring onions, bacon and cheese is a winner. The small ones I made (1/4 of a half quantity I think) were good for lunches.

Anna's Quinoa Salad - Quinoa, feta, cherry tomatoes, pepper, cucumber. She used Merchant Gourmet's ready-seasoned quinoa and fancy pointy red peppers, I boiled my own quinoa and used yellow pepper and Basics "Greek Salad Cheese". It's still great. I added a little bit of (reduced) parma ham and had a box of it for lunch today.


I also seem to have been on something of an Italian kick lately:


Bruschetta - Toast, olive oil, garlic (preferably pre-roasted, I tried it raw and felt quite bad for the evening...), 1 tomato, basil, pepper, salt, lemon juice. Mix & dump on top of toast. Simple, quick & tasty.

Homemade Tomato Sauce - Onion, garlic, tin of Taste The Difference cherry tomatoes, 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar, 1 tsp brown sugar, olive oil, salt, pepper, fresh basil leaves. Soften onions & garlic then simmer everything for ages & give it a schizz*.
The first time I cooked some smoked bacon & mixed it all up with pasta & asparagus, it was almost the wonderful Roman spaghetti alla amatriciana I had last January. Boy approved.

Nutella ice cream - 4 parts vanilla ice cream + 1 part nutella, mix & re-freeze. Tastes like Italian holidays. Mixing is prbably easier with soft scoop ice cream. I remember my sister doing a similar thing with smashed Maryland cookies when we were younger. The combination was a bit too good to be allowed.

Risotto á la boy - May include some or all of onion/spring onion, leek, garlic, celery, pancetta, rice, chicken stock, pepper, white wine, courgette, asparagus, parmesan, cheddar... He makes it well. The first time he ever cooked for me he said he "could probably cobble something together" and then made me risotto and duck (possibly wrapped in pancetta, I can't remember). He's good.

Lemon & rocket risotto - From the back of the Sainsbury's risotto rice box. I used frozen rocket I happened to have and it worked very nicely. I also used grana padano as it's far cheaper than parmesan and chicken stock for richness. Lemon risotto is incredibly fragrant, I think I'll try Joy The Baker's oven version next.

Outside of the house I have had:
Falafel from Schnafel - A huge pitta with 6 organic spiced falafel, plus tahini, tabouleh & salad. I could have had even more salad but opted not to. Not bad for £3.95

Best Yo Sushi day in a while - Tuna nigri, veg gyoza, chicken katsu, chicken gyoza. Missing the point of the sushi somewhat but I can't stand seaweed! 25% student discount is great.


*To schizz, verb. To blend with a whizzy stick (or hand blender if you must be boring about it) "sch" is pronounced like the end of the contraction of casual, pretty sure we don't have a character for that.

A Capsule Larder?

Food is something I generally take a lot of pleasure in, and during revision time deciding what to eat and making it is a great form of procrastination  relaxation. My brain seems to go into overdrive thinking of things I MUST EAT NOW, not helped by the likes of Smitten Kitchen and Pinterest. Yesterday it was bruschetta, today it's been gyoza and cake, some are easier to satisfy than others. I managed to assemble a pretty good bruschetta from what I had in the fridge/cupboard but I have to admit that I do not have the time or kitchen for attempting gyoza.
I'm also faced with the challenge of using up everything I have in the freezer before I move out at the end of June. I could take it all home since I only live an hour away, but most of that stuff was bought in larger quantities to save money, and merging it with my family's larder would be throwing that away. I intend to move out again (and back to Bristol) as soon as I come by some form of paid employment so the less perishable things (e.g. spices) can stay separate, but I also want to reduce what I'm lugging home.
I'm definitely not a minimalist when it comes to keeping my cupboards stocked, I reckon I could go for a good few weeks without buying anything if forced, and my supply of dried fruit and frozen peppers means I might not get scurvy too. Bonus! So, I am living a form of Ready Steady Cook for the next few weeks, anything I buy will be scrutinised for how well it combines with what I already have.
There are some things I will definitely top up on; milk, butter, bread & instant coffee are my essentials. Orange juice, lettuce, cucumber, tomatoes and good cheddar join them form a sort of capsule wardrobe of food.

From the making of scalloped tomatoes last year, needs less bread.

Now I need to come up with combinations to do away with the many, many things I already possess. There are grains, pulses, pasta, sugar & flour and tins of soup in the cupboard; sun-dried tomatoes, a tiny jar of lemongrass paste, a large jar of mayonnaise, four lemons, several baking potatoes I don't seem inclined to eat and ever-changing fresh things in the fridge; and in the freezer two duck breasts, four sausages, a chicken kiev, a bag of rocket, a bag of peppers & a tub of vanilla ice cream.

Ideas thus far:

• Sausage stew with tomatoes & beans (super use-y up-y)
• Duck breasts with roast potatoes or green lentils (a treat for post-exams?)
• Lemon & rocket risotto (the recipe on the back of the rice box, never tried before)
• Thai curry (lemongrass & a can of coconut milk & peppers?)
• Coconut macaroons (bag of dessicated coconut)
• Wholemeal flour cheese straws (use egg yolks leftover from macaroons)
• Nutella ice cream (4 parts ice cream + 1 part nutella, mix & refreeze. Far more likely to be eaten than plain vanilla!)
• Quinoa/orzo salads for library day lunches (+ sun-dried tomatoes)

Are any of these ingredients screaming recipes at you? Let me know!

Oh Hello, May + Morning Musings

Where have the last few weeks gone? The last coursework (ever, hopefully!) is done and submitted and now it's hardcore revision time. My brain seems to disagree, it'd rather think about intricate crochet stitches and exciting things to cook, or just fall asleep.
Spending time in the Physics department library with friends who've been finishing their project theses seems to be a good way of getting some good working time in but I need to improve my ability to get up and go in the morning. I always seem to end up in pajama-wearing internet limbo and not make it out of the house for a good few hours, even when I'm supposed to be having coffee with people I get stuck. Oops? Not really "oops" since it happens so much; I must try harder. The old alarm clock on the other side of the room trick does alright when I remember to set it, now I must learn to jump in the shower at the first opportunity and not descend into warm pajama ickiness.

My morning routine tends to go thus: roll out of bed, coffee & some form of bread, start making sandwich while kettle boils, laze around while finishing coffee (I'm incapable of drinking coffee fast), possibly check e-mails while finishing coffee, ... , shower, brush teeth, dress slowly while trying to round up handbag contents, assess weather conditions & add scarves appropriately, finish sandwich & re-fill water, LEAVE.

Obviously I can cut out the internet time (especially now I have the boy's old smartphone to check my e-mail on) and do things like decide what to wear and assemble handbag contents the night before, although I have tried this and not wanted to wear things the next day (or found that vital pieces of clothing are in the wash). I don't really like the idea of sandwiches that have been left in the fridge overnight but it may be a sacrifice I should try for the sake of improved productivity. Making a smaller cup of coffee would lead to less dead time that I'm liable to fill with the internet, but then there are days when I finish my coffee but then feel the need to lie down for a bit and daydream.

Any tips for a more useful morning? What order do you do things in? Why?
I'm interested in the logic in these things - Do you have a very strong order or do you mix things up? Do you find it easy to add new parts to your routine?

I always eat first as I don't like having an empty stomach and know I get all hypoglycemic and sad/angry/useless (the boy once took me to Sainsbury's with no breakfast and I had a self-checkout related meltdown, now he knows girl needs bread to function). My flatmate, on the other hand, will happily go half a day before eating or drinking anything.
I've noticed I've adopted some of the boy's habits too, there is always coffee these days, and he's a great one for making sandwiches. Truth be told I never used to brush my teeth in the morning, it's just a thing my parents didn't do. Now though I feel icky if I don't.