Grannies for my Granny

I'm pleased as punch to say that I am done with my granny square pillowcase and that is AWESOME in so many ways! I'm willing to bet that my granny approves, but I'll have to wait and see until Saturday, when she gets it for her birthday. In the meantime though, have some pictures!

Grannies! 25 in total, none the same, surrounded by a gray-green-blue border.

And the back! I sacrificed an old green sweater for this pillow, because it seemed like the easiest way to make the back! Both the granny square pattern and the idea to back it with an old sweater come from Attic24. The buttonband was improvised because, well, Lucy of Attic24 crocheted through the sweater and that wouldn't work, so I simply did a blanket stitch and crocheted into the holes. The buttons are felt buttons I got from a cheapass store once, I used a number of them to revamp a guys' sweater (replaced the stupid black buttons with brightly coloured felt buttons, voilá, girly sweater), these were the once I had left after that.

I think it turned out awesome and I'm thinking of making one for myself as well, since there's still a truckload of yarn left from making the Lucybag for my mother, as well as the large part of that old sweater.

And something completely different, although I also gave this one away: A tiny owl for my niece's tiny little girl (who is a complete darling, and so tiny!) I kind of improvised, and it's basically an eggshape in two colours with a beak, two wings and two eyes.

I made this one in 2 hours time, got up at 7 am for it, but I think it turned out adorable and fit for tiny baby hands.


There. Now that that's all done, I'm going back to listening to sixties' soul and relaxing.

Show-off-and-tell

I'm on a crochet-stop. Full stop. Cold turkey, even. With a wrist that says 'TWITCH' 'PAIN' 'TWITCH' at every move I make, I thought it would be best not to pick up my trusty hook and hook away like I like to do. In stead, I've focused on photography the past few weeks, and put some shots together for your entertainment. And yes, I am indeed showing off. There's some shots here I really, really, REALLY like!

Sunset and Sunrise

Don't you just love Autumn evenings?

Or crisp, cold, beautiful Fall mornings? I think this was shot at 7 am when I was camping out behind my computer after a night of not sleeping and a lot of sneezing (I don't know why, or how, but I do know that I didn't want to wake the boyfriend up, so I got up and dressed and crawled behind my pc when it was dark, and found this when I looked up a couple of hours later)

Forest Walks

Boyfriend's grandmother had her birthday a month or two ago, and we gave her a family day out as a present. It involved a rather awkward ride through the forest in a horse-drawn cart and us getting out in the middle of the forest, but it was a beatiful day and I took tooooons of pictures. The prettiest ones:

(don't you lovelovelove that red colour?!)

(this one currently resides on my desktop as my background image)

(I kept thinking that faeries might just pop up out of the nooks and crannies or from behind the wood stump)

Crochet

What, you thought I hadn't done anything in the past few weeks? I may have given up crochet for the time being, but that doesn't mean that I didn't make something! I made 25 somethings, even! All I need is my wrist back to normal, and then 11 more of these tiny little babies, and I will be able to make it into a pillow cover.

Colour, colour everywhere! OOOO!



Question to you, my dearest readers/lookers/lurkers/passers-by! I tagged my pictures with a little 'Tecrin Tries' in a corner, purely for copyright reasons. Does it bother you? Do you find the mark distracting? Or do you think it's common sense or are you not bothered by it at all? Do you think I shouldn't be so paranoid and don't bother with them in the future because, let's be honest here, who on earth would steal these pictures and use them as their own? Be honest! I can take a little criticism! Or do you have a better idea to ensure nobody uses these pictures as their own? I'd love to hear it!

Geekery

This post has nothing to do with yarn, cooking, baking, crafting, or anything like that.
Nope. This post is about geekery.

I think you may know this by now, but I play WoW in a wonderful, amazing guild called Vintage. Last night, Vintage took down the Lich King, earning us our Kingslayer title after 4 whole months of wiping. Needless to say, I'm very proud of us all and feel the need to shout it off the internet-rooftops. WE DID IT! HE'S DOWN! Check out our homepage if you want to see how we did it (and aren't afraid of a few cursewords and 15-minute videos)

ahem.

Now back to our regularly scheduled programme. And by that I mean hardmodes. GO VINTAGE!

Itty Bitty Camera: now with added pattern!

I decided that I'd try my hand at making a pattern for the crochet camera, hereby christened Itty Bitty Camera! If you would like to try it out, please report back on if it was doable or if you had any trouble understanding the directions. Or if you have nothing but praise, then you may report back too.

And show me pictures of your finished camera! I love pictures!
Without further ado: 

The Itty Bitty Camera Pattern!

 Materials:

Yarn: Black and Grey, dk weight

Hook: 4.0 mm.

Of course, you can also substitute yarn and hook size for any size you want.

You will also need some filling, a tapistry needle and, if you want to turn this baby into a keychain, a little ring or keychain hook.

Make the following pieces twice with black yarn:

1. Ch. 5, sc for 7 rows. (the sides)

2. Ch. 13, sc for 7 rows. (the front and back)

3. Ch. 5, sc for 13 rows. (the top and bottom)

Make the following pieces once with the grey yarn:

Lens:

Ch. 3, sl.

Row 1: Sc. 6 times into the ring, sl. Into first stitch.

Row 2: *sc x2* 6 times (12 st)

Row 3: *sc, sc x2* 12 times (18 st)

Fasten off. Leave a long tail, you can use this to sew the lens to the camera body.

Flash:

Sc 3, turn.

Row 1: Sc in middle stitch, sc, ch1, turn.

Row 2: Sc in middle stitch, sc.

Fasten off. Leave a tail long enough to sew the flash to the camera body.

Button:

Ch. 3, sl.

Row 1: Sc. 6 times into the ring, sl into first stitch.

Row 2:Change to black. Sc. Around.

Leave a tail long enough to sew the button to the camera body.

Assembly:

With black yarn, take two pieces of the body that fit together at the sides (for instance, one of the sides and the top or bottom, with their smallest sides aligned) and sc the parts together.

Keep sewing the parts together in this manner until you have a nice, boxy shape, leaving a long tail at the gap between the last parts that need to be sewn together.

Fill the body snugly but not so full that it starts to bulge (the camera needs to be boxy) and sew the gap closed.

Sew on the lens, flash and button, and attach the keychain if you want one.

You can also find the pattern on Ravelry!

(Look at me! I'm a designer and stuff! oooOOOoo!!)

(Oh, and apologies for the odd font. Apparently copy-pasting doesn't work too well with blogger...)

Tecrin tries... Baking! Again.

My kitchen life has its ups and downs. After the summer, I decided once again that I had to start watching what I ate again and left the kitchen and the baking for what it was, bar some delicious bread to accompany fresh soup every now and then.

But now that the weather has turned to more autumny temeratures, the baking-bug has been itching again and I spent both last weekend and this weekend in the kitchen, baking omnomelicious muffins and cupcakes. And the best part? Boyfriend dearest, the person that is the most difficult audience for anything baked, wouldn't stop raving about my apple-raisin-cinnamon muffins. So here's the recipes, try both, weep, and be glad they came into your life. Oh, and for the love of anything baked: eat them warm. Please.

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Apple-raisin-cinnamon muffins (makes approximately 9 muffins)

Ingredients:
150 gr flour
1.5 tsp baking powder
pinch of salt
3 tsp cinnamon
40 gr sugar (I used normal, but you can use brown sugar too)
1 apple, peeled and diced into reasonably small bits ( I used a granny smith, like I do in all my apple pie/cake recipes, because they taste divine in pies and cakes and keep a bit of a bite, unlike some apples that just turn into mush when you heat them up)
1 large handful of raisins, washed and dried (really, I just winged it a bit. If your apple is big, use a little less, if your apple was small-ish, use a large handful. I think it's slightly more than a cup.)
125 ml milk
1 egg
4 tbsp butter, melted

For the topping:
1 tbsp melted butter
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tbsp sugar

Here we go!

Preheat the oven to 200 C. Either grease a muffin-tin or line it with paper liners.
Mix the flour, baking powder, salt and cinnamon in a mixing bowl. Stir in the sugar, apple and raisins.
In a different container, mix the egg, milk and butter.
Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients until they kind of come together. Don't overstir! Make sure the flour is mixed in properly, but don't make it one homogenous batter!

Pour the batter into the muffin-tin.
Mix one tablespoon of butter with 1 teaspoon cinnamon and two tablespoons of sugar and sprinkle the mixture over the top of the muffins.

Bake the muffins for 20 minutes until they are nice and golden on the top. Take the tin out of the oven and let cool until they are not so scaldingly hot you'll burn your tongue, then pop them out of the tin, and dig in!


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Butterscotch-chocolate milk cupcakes (makes about 12 cupcakes) (pictured above)

Ingredients

3 eggs
4 tbsp chocolate milk
1.5 tsp vanilla extract
150 gr flour
1 tsp baking powder
pinch of salt
150 gr sugar
175 gr butter
75 gr butterscotch chocolate, cut up

Here we go!

Preheat the oven to 175 C. Grease a muffin/cupcake tin or line it with paper liners.
Mix the baking powder, salt, sugar and flour in a mixing bowl. In another bowl, mix the eggs, chocolate milk and vanilla extract until combined (it'll look disgusting, but it's for the greater good).
Add the butter and half of the egg mixture to the dry ingredients. Mix until combined. In phases, mix in the rest of the egg mixture until it is a nice, smooth batter. Stir in the chocolate bits until it's well combined and scoop into the tin.
Bake for 20-25 minutes or until the tops are nice and golden brown. Take the tin out of the oven, let cool until not scaldingly hot (you know, to save your tongue) and dig in!

You can save them in an airfree container. But really, you should just eat them all and not feel guilty for they are SO DAMNED GOOD!