Easy peasy

The other day, through the Craft: blog, (as so many things), I came across this nice top making tutorial. I immediately thought of this fabric, which I bought ages ago, and love dearly. Which is also the reason why, for ages, I couldn't decide what to do with it.

Well, now it's been turned into a top, and I'm awfy chuffed with it, even though the under arm binding is a bit lumpy, and the picture of it is a bit crap. It took about an hour or so to make, which is another big bonus, and I've got the funny feeling there's going to be a few more of these to come.

Cinnamon goodness

A friend lent me Sunshine, by Robin McKinley recently, which got me making cinnamon rolls. Does that confuse you? Then you obviously haven't read the book. Go and do it.

I enjoyed it enormously. Initially, the sentences' tendency to change direction about 5 times before ending annoyed me ever so slightly, but the story took over pretty quickly.

As for the rolls, I did look at some recipes, but ended up making a version that resembled what was in my head most. Here's the recipe. It's very easy.

Dough:
Mix 350g flour with
100g sugar (Although, if I was to make them again with the same filling, I'd prolly half the sugar)
Rub in 150g margarine
Stir in about two thirds of a sachet of Fast Action Dry Yeast (doesn't need pre-mixing with sugar)
and about 200ml of lukewarm soyamilk.

Leave to rise in a warm place for about 90mins.

Filling:
Mash up about 100g marzipan with
2 tsp cinnamon
and some warm soymilk.

Roll out the dough into a rectangle. Spread filling on top. Roll up. Cut into about 4cm thick slices. Place on baking tray. Bake for about 25 mins, gas mark 5.

They're best fresh, though you can dip them into your coffee the next day for more yumminess.

These are a few of my favourite things...

Somehow noise really seems to be getting to me today. Maybe it's because I was woken up last night by an idiot throwing a TV out of his window, followed by several glass bottles. Sometimes I just can't believe these people actually make it into university.
It didn't help that I was actually just in the middle of a pretty disturbing dream about people punching babies. But the topper was, really, that afterwards he decided to clean up. With bare hands. No brush or anything. Which resulted in a lot of moaning to his friends about how 'sliced as fuck' his hands were. Moaning, interspersed with bragging about the fact that he threw a TV out of his window, of course. You just gotta love it.

So, today, cars and people and our radio, which is broken and suddenly goes very loud and can't be turned down when it does, really get on my tits, and once again I envy people not living here. Which makes me feel a bit cranky. Just in case you didn't notice.

Anyways, to counteract this mood at the start of what is, after all, the weekend and therefore the end of the embargo on chocolate biscuits, I shall concentrate on things I like, a few of which I was reminded of this week in particular.

Let's start with Liz McGrath, an artist I came across for the first time recently in Craft: magazine. Her website is very flashy, but in a very amusing and wacky way, and her art is freaky and funny and cute and a lot of all the good things in life.

Looking at her stuff got me doodling, and suddenly I noticed that I hadn't done any drawing without purpose for a long time. It's nice to do that sometimes, and I ended up getting my colour pencils out again, which was very nice, and another thing I hadn't done for a very long time. The best things happen when the random doodlemagic takes over.



Also this week, I realised why I like getting a veg box delivered. You just get the wackiest shaped stuff in them.



And finally, I'm also pretty fond of rasterbation.



(Unfortunately it's already fallen off the wall... aah well.)