Cakes and China

Something I do quite a lot of and really enjoy, is baking. I bake for Mr. Knot Garden and myself, and also for other members of my family. I'm a firm believer in the wholesomeness of home baking with good quality ingredients. Synthetic, mass produced cakes just aren't the same.
Having said that, these are probably highly calorific, but who cares. I wouldn't eat them every day. Naughty but nice. The recipe is Peanut Butter Cupcakes from this excellent book.

We've got some rare sunshine today. Isn't it lovely when the gloom lifts and there's some real light in the house? I was going to take some garden photos, desperately seeking signs of spring, but nothing much is happening out there so I'll show you some recent charity shop purchases instead.

The charity shops in the town where I live are very few and not very good, so I sometimes travel further afield in my search for charity shop goodies. That's how I found these, but not all at the same time. If I can find one thing I'm happy.

Splashes of Colour

I finished my hottie cover and it turned out to be a perfect snug fit for a standard hot water bottle.
I'm not so sure about my Fair Isle skills though - it seems ok in the middle but not so good at the edges. Maybe I need more practise. One thing I do really like is the stripe pattern at the top and bottom. There's something about nice clean regular stripes, and I like the element they add to the design.
As mentioned before, the pattern is from the Fall/Winter 2009 Debbie Bliss magazine. I did find a couple of minor errors in the pattern, in the shaping of the top edge and in the cast off (this one was just the placement of an asterisk), which was slightly annoying, so I just did what I thought it should have said and it seems to have worked out.

The ripple blanket is one I made a couple of years ago but didn't blog about at the time. I recently dug it out because of the very cold weather, and I was glad I did because I'd forgotten how nice ripple blankets are. I remember it consumed a huge amount of yarn, but it's quite a good size. I think it was worth it for such a nice cheery splash of colour to brighten up these grey winter days. Where has the sun gone!

Multicoloured

I had a lot of fun taking these collage-style photos. I hope you enjoyed daydreaming in colour with me.

Pink

One more tomorrow.

Blue

Red

ETA: The pattern for the row of cherries is called Cherry Jam from Crocheting On the Edge by Nicky Epstein.

Yellow