Happy Easter! I am a bit of a heathen so these Hot Cross Buns were baked today – oops… Anyhow, I’m super pleased with them; they are light as a feather and nice and spicy – I link above to the recipe I used, with the only alteration being I used honey to sweeten them as had run out of sugar… They take a while to do as you let them rise *3* times, but if you’re pootling about at home anyway it doesn’t make much difference. The lemon zest makes them good and fruity too… yum!

Ok, so this pic is *just the yarn* my lovely spoiler sent…!
Can you believe it? There is also the lovely handmade bag, the patterns and the goodies*!

Picperfic has done herself proud I think! Each yarn came with a pattern in it’s own little ziploc bag (they are red with a cute flower pattern on – never seen them before). The notecards are her own photographs, the bag handmade and the Heart sock pattern her own design! lots of creativity and thought went into this package, and I’m so happy to have received it!

Thanks so much again

Also, thanks to Monica & Vikki for organising the UK swap in the first place – yay!

*My boyf particularly pleased as we’d just run out of Earl Grey, and he was about to nip out and get some

I sent off my parcel to A for the UK swap with these little fellas in them. She has a family, and as it is almost Easter thought I’d include a bit of craft for them too in her swap. I’d been meaning to try out needle felting for ages, and this was just the ‘eggs’cuse* I’d been looking for. I also received my parcel from M today… thanks so much!!

*sorry

Knitty is funny like that. Some issues just pass me by completely, with nothing tempting me to cast on and then sometimes, like the latest Spring issue, there are 4! Yosemite, Honeycomb and Marjorie are all quite fitted knits with enough detailing to keep me interested, Lace Ribbon a great little project to use single hanks of any posh yarn I might have in my stash. Or, more likely, this way I can justify buying that one hank of silk / linen / other luxe fibre yarn I’ve been eyeing up

Well kind of.

I finished the sleeves of the Magnolia jumper, and haven’t yet cast anything else on
Next on the list are the blanket squares for Easter craft club – need to do as many of these as poss, but they’ll be more manageable than that other WIP – the Swing Jacket. erk.

In other news; the package for my swap-ee is almost ready to send – yay! Had fun making this knitting needle case (hope I’m not giving away *too* many clues!), and doing it gave me ideas for making a combined needle / project version. I did a bunch of step by step pics, as I always forget the backwards logic when placing the pieces; right side facing, inside out, etc . At one point this project had 5 layers of fabric in a sewing-sandwich!

So; Leap Year, St David’s Day and then Mother’s Day – a jam packed weekend that was! and it involved a lot of baking…
The Welsh cakes for Offline were a success (after I realised that making them is along the same lines as doing pancakes – the first few are either burnt or a bit raw; then you get the temp. sussed and it’s plain sailing!).
The Lemon cake for Mother’s day exploded somewhat. It tasted ok, but looked crap, so SK got a box of chocs instead! We had a lovely afternoon, going to see the extravagance that is the Wallace Collection (the over the top Rococo can make you feel a bit ill after a while!) then wandering up Marylebone High St, window shopping and spending a good hour *smelling* in Terre d’Oc. I highly recommend it; they have these big coloured glass bell jars over scented candles that you lift and inhale; and little cupboards to open and do the same… heaven! Ended with tea and cheesecake in Eat & Two Veg then a walk through Regent’s park… lovely!