Hats and hats.

I have a bit of a thing for hats. I always have. I have quite a collection of hats; glastonbury hats (a type of brimmed hat), ski hats, even a rabbit head hat (it even has big floppy ears)(and isn't made of rabbit). One Christmas I heard on the radio about a company which made unique beanies, you went to their website, picked the colours you wanted your hat, and bam, one of their army of grannies made it for you. The thing is, the hats are very expensive. At about £30 a hat, that seemed a bit much to buy on a whim.

So this is where my urge to learn knitting came from. My nans always knitted, my mum can knit, and my Little Nan used to try and teach me when I was little, so I knew I could do it. So I bought a book and started with the basics. I've made a scarf, wrist warmers, socks with no toes, one regular sock (I will get around to doing the matching one soon), baby bits and then I got addicted to making tiny toys. So, nearly two years after learning to knit and a conversation with a friend, I remembered why I wanted to knit.

Hat 1 - Etta

This was a fairly easy hat, it's got a really nice lacy sort of pattern, which once blocked opens up and  looks really good. I was just going to do it in the red, but as I was using an open ball of wool I didn't think I would have enough to do the whole hat in the single colour, but I think the red looks better next to the orange, especially as the orange isn't exactly solid, it's slightly variegated. I had a bit of trouble when  I started it because I've never been bothered to make tension squares before, so after a telling off from a knitting friend, I upped the needle size and it started to be the right size.

Hat 2 - Star crossed beret

I'd had this hat on my 'to do' list for a long time. It's got cables working their way around it, which give it a really nice, natural, organic feel. I'd not made anything with cables before, and one of the reasons I wanted to make this hat was that so many people that had made it recommended for beginners. This was also the first time I'd knitted on a circular needle (needles connected with a wire) rather than working on 3-4 short needles in a circle. I think it went really well, I was a bit worried there were holes by the cables, but they seem to have sorted themselves out during blocking.

I'm very pleased with my hats, I picked slouchy ones thinking they might be a bit more forgiving if I made a mess, but also I don't have any hats like that. And as they say in "A song of Ice and Fire": Winter is coming. So hopefully I won't have to wait too long to wear them out.

Not actually a blog about shit.

Ok, so you may wonder why my blog has such an odd name, but it's because I knit, crochet, paint tiny men, cook and do other bits and pieces that tend to fill my house with shit.

So, I thought if I'm going to keep doing all these things I might as well share them so it's not just me enjoying them.  But for my first blog post I'm not actually sharing something that's going to clog up my house, but something I'm making for the first time. I try and make something new once a month so I'm not just eating the same thing all the time, to learn new skills, and just try new things. So this is probably this months.

Stuffed Marrow

So I get a veg box every fortnight and this week contained a marrow. Not the monster you see at country fairs, but an awkward size to do something with. Luckily Abel and Cole have a recipe section and Stuffed marrow was in there.

Not happy with just following some instructions I've messed about with it. Normally it would feed 4-6, but as there's just me and my husband, this is useless, so I feel I added enough so that half the marrow would be dinner enough without needing any sides.

Ingredients:
1 marrow
250g beef mince
1 diced onion (or I used 3 very small ones)
3 cloves of garlic
2 grated carrots
some veg (I used spring onions and mushrooms, but use what you like or what's in the fridge)
1 tin of chopped tomatoes
1tbsp mixed herbs (I used fresh sage, rosemary and thyme out of the garden)
1 cup of couscous, cooked

• Cut the marrow in half lengthwise and scoop out seeds.  
• Cook couscous. Normally it's 1 part couscous, 2 parts boiling water. I also like to add saffron, herbs, salt and pepper.
• Fry the mince until cooked.
• Add the onion and garlic to the frying mince.
• Add grated carrots, herbs, tin tomatoes and any veg you're using. Season!
• Let the meat mix simmer for 5 minutes. Turn on oven at about 180C.
• Put marrows in a roasting tray, top with meat mix and cooked couscous on top of that. I had a bit left over so that's now lunch for tomorrow. Cover with tinfoil and bake for 30 mins.
• Remove tin foil, turn oven up to 220C and cook for another 10 mins until the marrow is tender.
• Eat!

You could easily split the marrows to make it feed 4, but I'm not sure what side you'd want. I think you could maybe replace the couscous with some cheese melted on at the end and serve it with potatoes, or make it veggie by replacing the mince with chickpeas or quorn, although I'm not a fan of quorn, it's like fluff, it has no bite and I think with the marrow it needs a bit of solidity.