jack
Originally uploaded by Flyingsquid.
I don't usually like cooking, but this year I did something I've always wanted to do and made iced sugar-cookies for Halloween. Boy, are they sweet. So sweet they make your cheeks hurt when you bite into one. Maybe that's why Mom was never into icing them when I was a kid.
The icing was fun though. To get the black, I thought I could just mix some of each of the four food-colours in my set - blue, red, green, yellow - well I did the white, then made the rest orange, then thought it would be easy to add a bit of green and get brown. What I got, no matter how I tried, were various shades of vile green which would have been ideal if I'd been making iced zombies. Then I had the genius idea (if I do say so myself) of adding cocoa powder. Result: perfect colour. And the black cookies will make you even more hyper than the other ones!
They are presided over by Jack, who I carved earlier. The Cyberman is just always there though.
See how the little fluffy creatures worship their idol. If they are good, one day they too will get to be knitting...
This week, I have been learning to knit on double-pointed needles. I'd never tried it before, but in the bundle of knitting needles passed on from my grandmother to my mother to me there are several sizes of double-point sets. And I'm still feeling bitten by the knitting bug. So I searched around on-line until I found some advice on knitty.com and socknitters.com and found a pattern for fingerless gloves, which the onset of fall weather has reminded me that I need, and set to.
I believe the interesting spiral-effect in the towering idol is due to my having got the stitches twisted when arranging them after casting on. It's pretty cool how the knitting stands up all on its own.
This appeared last spring. (I've been meaning to blog about it for ages but have only just got round to taking a picture.)It sits just past the steep bit of Parliament Hill, on Hampstead Heath. For scale, there is a person (who just handily happened to be standing there) at the right of the photo - you may need to click and look at the full-size version to see.
Teenagers are reputed to have been caught having sex on the table-top. What I want to know is: how did they get up there?
Also, it looks OK, in a surreal sort of way, in my photographs. In person, it's hideous, and spoils one of my favourite views. I believe it's not a permanent addition, though.