Merino called Marina

I bought some beautiful blue Merino spinning fibre from Yummy Yarns UK.  How can anyone resist these gorgeous blues?

I spun it as single and managed to get 508m from my 124g of fluff.  A light fingering weight yarn.  I am so happy with this.

More Merino

I bought 2 x 100g of lovely Merino spinning fibre from Sara's Texture Crafts in shade "Anemone".

I spun each 100g separately and split each one down the entire length 7 or 8 times and spun a single making sure that I started with the same end each time.  I then plied to two singles together to created a worsted weight yarn of 212g with 324m.

I made this simple beaded lace leaf edged shawl with my yarn.

Corriedale

This Corriedale fibre came to me with my spinning wheel.  It is one of several fibre samples that came free with the wheel.

I spun it as a single and then navajo plied it to give me 78m from 98g.  It is lovely, smooth and soft.

Recipe for Cranberry, Apricot & Banana Tea Bread

A couple of weeks ago I done some home-baking and following the outcome of that hubby bought more ingredients and requested that I make some more of the delicious tea bread.  I decided to take photographs as I went along this time and share the recipe with you.

Ingredients needed to make 1 medium sized loaf

175g/6oz plain flour
1½ tsp baking powder
½ tsp freshly grated or ground nutmeg
60g/2oz rolled oats
250g/8oz light brown sugar
60g/2oz dried cranberries
60g/2oz dried apricots, chopped
2 eggs
120ml/4 fl.oz sunflower or vegetable oil
1 tsp vanilla essence
2 ripe bananas, mashed

Pre-heat the oven to 350°F/175°C/Gas Mark 7.  Lightly grease and flour a 8" x 4" loaf tin.  Sift the flour, baking powder and nutmeg into a large mixing bowl.  

Add the rolled oats, brown sugar, cranberries and apricots and mix well.  Make a well in the centre ready to add further ingredients.

Using another bowl, beat the eggs, oil, vanilla essence together (I used Flora Cuisine, in place of regular oil)

and then add the mashed bananas

 and mix well.  

Pour this mixture into the well made in the dry ingredients in the large mixing bowl.  

Stir well until combined and then put the mixture into the loaf tin and cover loosely with grease proof paper (baking parchment), as this will help to prevent the top of your loaf from blackening too much, and place on a low-middle shelf in the oven.

Bake until well risen and golden brown, about 1 hour, and when you insert a cake tester or knife into the centre to test it it should come out with just a crumb or two attached.  If it comes out wet then you need to cook it a little longer.  Once cooked, allow to cool in the loaf tin on a wire rack for about 10 minutes before turning it out onto the wire rack with the top side up to cool completely.  I made multiple loaves this time.

Slice as required and enjoy your home-baking.

The last of the Merino from The Rainbow Room

This is the final pack of small Merino samples that I got from The Rainbow Room.  These are all earthy colours, called Mother Nature.

I split the amount of colours into two, so both halves have different colours in them.  It then took them in order to spin from and spun two singles. which I plied together to make an ever changing barber pole yarn.

I got 147m from 155g of fibre.  I made a crochet cowl and the left over yarn, especially the blue/red was donated to my children's school for crafting.