Fave Friday: Haircut

Part 2 of luxurious London.

I've been getting my hair cut at Stuart Phillips now for a bit over a year. Because I am so sporadic with my haircuts, this equates to three cuts and the blow dry I wrote about last year in January. It's a long way to go for a hair cut, and not very convenient, but totally worth it.

My hair is cut by Mitz, a Japanese stylist who always seems to know the right thing to say. My absolute favourite conversation with him ever went like this:

M: ...and maybe a fringe?
Me: Er...mmm....
M: They are very fashionable right now (holds some folded hair across my forehead)
Me: (remembering the bad old days of growing out the doorstop fringe from my teenage years) No, no, I don't think it would suit me...
M: Yes, yes, you're right - too young!

Still makes me chuckle when I think about it now.

He has given me some excellent tips. GHD straighteners are too hot. Mix together mousse and Moroccan Oil. Use the cold shot at the end of a blow dry to get rid of frizz - practically life changing! Last week he twisted the bulk of my hair into a rope at the end and did extra cold-shot work on it, saying it would make the style last longer, and it did. He is also full of good stories and recommendations for London; this time he told me about cutting Anita Roddick's hair and not knowing it was Anita Roddick until she had sadly passed away.

The thing I like the most about Mitz, though, is that he makes me feel really good about my hair. He regularly murmurs during the post-cut blow dry that he loves styling my hair, and even though the haggard old cynic in me is pointing out that I am paying him to style it, a bit of me still believes him. He manages, mostly, to hold off scolding me for not getting my hair cut for months at a time. At the end of the appointment he fetches my coat and then waits to hold the door open for me on my way out. And I do leave feeling like I can go out and conquer the world with my new haircut, even though nobody else notices it has been cut - or perhaps especially because of this.

Now, I have had hairdressers before whose work has pleased me, but this is something else entirely.

Fame At Last

Yesterday when I checked my phone at lunch, I thought for sure I must have been hacked - I had dozens of Twitter notifications. Turns out I made it into the Guardian! They've also bigged up my work blog, where you can read me attempting to sound professional and not talk about cake and shoes and holidays and stuff. I try not to write about work stuff too much on here, but sometimes something so amazing happens it has to make the jump onto my personal blog.

I got 200 new followers in a day. The pressure is intense - now I am over-thinking every tweet I send.

Poppies at the Tower

During our visit to London, Tutt, Caroline and I decided we'd go and see the poppy installation at the Tower of London. With less than a fortnight to go before November 11th, the display (which will number over 880,000 poppies by the end) was nearly complete.

It really was amazing to look at. I must go back and visit the Tower one day when they are gone so I can get an idea of what the moat looks like when it's not a sea of red.

My only issues with it was, it was SO busy. Literally thousands of people, pushing and shoving and all trying to get a good shot. It turns out we had decided to visit on London Poppy Day, which may be why there were so many people in attendance; it took us about 15 minutes to get out of the tube station and across the road. It was a bit overwhelming; I would have liked to have spent longer wandering and got a few pictures from other angles, but I will have to make do with these.

We found a spot where the crowd was thinner and I could get right up to the railings, allowing for a good shot of a making table. My mind was a bit boggled by the logistics of making nearly a million ceramic poppies so it was good to be able to see this close up. I thought they might have coloured the clay ahead of time, but Caroline told me they were glazed separately. She's the art teacher, so I bow to her wisdom on this. Time consuming or what!

I managed to convince them both to pose. This will be a good visit to look back on in future.

There was somebody on the radio today talking about how he's started a petition to get the installation in place for longer; the Tower folks commented that the transient nature of the exhibition was part of its essence. I think I agree with them. It would be good if more people could see it, sure; but the temporary nature of the poppies, and the fact that they then go "home" with people, adds something to it for me - like soldiers fighting in a war. 

Stash Enrichment

I'm afraid The Stash is becoming a bit overwhelming, so I don't get the same joy from buying yarn that I used to. I mean, sometimes I do; Wonderwool is always quite thrilling. But, as with all the things I have horded over the years, it becomes a bit oppressive because there's just a lot to get through. Really, I should put more in destash on Ravelry.

Anyway, this means that when I have a project that I need yarn for, I get super happy because I can just buy it and not have to worry about fitting it into a box. This is why all the hat knitting is such a pleasure. This little lot turned up today -

I managed to get some of the marshmallow pink softie, after accidentally buying two skeins of beige, because I transposed a number when looking at the shade. It actually wasn't that bad as colours go, but when you're expecting pink and you get beige...well, it looks pretty awful. The Softie came very cheap from ebay, which is really the only option for this now-discontinued shade of pink (why would you discontinue this?! Surely this yarn was made to be pale pink!) and the seller vacuum packed it flat to save on postage, which was amazing - it arrived totally flat. Magic. AND she refunded some of my postage. V good.

The rest - Cascade Pacific Chunky (yum), and green Rico aran for the brim of the strawberry hat, when I eventually wrestle its red brother out of the stash. This came from Love Knitting, with a 10% off voucher for my next order. Like Boden sending me a £15 voucher just as I'm sharking their website looking at the penguin jumper for Mother Hand's birthday present, they know a hopeless case when they see one.

You might spot two without labels there. I wanted to finish the seed stitch border on the wave jumper but I just couldn't resist casting on number 15, the Charlotte. Shortest Hat Hiatus ever.

She has excellent colour taste. I am sort of making this up - looked at a couple of other patterns for top-down hats; re-read the instructions for jogless stripes on Knitty; just got going. Two more increase rounds and I'll beready for the plain knitting, I think. I had to make myself stop because I am urgently in need of an early night and I have no pressing work to do tonight, so I should get it now.

I am quite pleased that I am not yet bored with the hats; this bodes well. I remember it becoming a bit of a chore last time.

Tuesday Ten

Ten things I hope to achieve by the end of the year

1. All tutor group hats knitted in good time.

2. Wave jumper finished.

3. Travel by Eurostar...it seems I am going skiing for New Year but the flights are eye-watering and the overnight sleeper train sounds a lot of fun.

4. Y11 coursework marked. This is a big ask: I've got two classes, so over 50 essays. That'll be something to do on the train.

5. My first assignment for the assessment course I started last week. Three thousand words! I'm actually quite excited about writing an essay. It'll be like being a student again, although with 1% of the time and 400% of the money.

6. Take Nanny Hand shopping for a dress to wear to her 90th birthday party.

7. Plan a leaving do for Tutt, because she is deserting me and moving across the country for a new job.

8. 127 blog posts, of course. There may have to be a few double-post days between now and then. Can't believe I said in my final post of 2013 that I would space them out a bit this year. That was an epic fail.

9. Create a super hero outfit for Children In Need next Friday. The return of my old alter ego, Soft Furnishings Girl.

10. Do my tax return! I don't think I will want to do this on Boxing Day this year, if I'm off skiing the next day.

Weekend WIP

I have had to order more yarn to continue with the Big Hat Project; well, there is some yarn I am going to be using in The Stash, but this will involve some weight-lifting as I attempt to lever open the stash trapdoor without removing the stash boxes on top, resting the weight on one elbow as I desperately rummage, trying to find red aran-weight yarn by touch alone. I will save that treat for another day.

Anyway, the end product is the same - a Hat Hiatus, and finally time to get started on the Lopi project I've had in mind for years. I've always loved the Great Wave off Kanagawa by Hokusai -

So, the sweater I am going to attempt will have a fairisle motif inspired by this painting, partly in memory of the amazing waves we watched rolling in during the trip to Iceland where I bought this yarn. We visited beaches on the south coast of the island: there's no land mass to break the waves between the Antarctic and Iceland, so there is some power in those waves.

 I test knitted the garment as last year's Christmas jumper so I have the numbers all ready, and I spent a happy Saturday afternoon charting the wave in Excel earlier this year, so I am ready to go. I have several colours of the Lopi - a navy for the body of the sweater, and then two blues and two greys for the rest; and I have a ball of green I bought from a knit grouper's stash just in case, but I don't think I am going to be using it.

So, yesterday, I cast on and knitted a bit of the seed stitch bottom. It's going to be a lot of st-st before I get to the fun bit, but I am looking forward to it; and it's good mindless knitting. The Lopi is pretty rough, but I expect it will soften up when it's finished and washed; and anyway, I don't intend to be wearing it next to my skin.

Sunday Baking: Cherry-Apple Crumble and Banoffee Cupcakes

It took me a long time to get my crumble perfect. It has always been my favourite pudding. I remember being a child and wondering what the difference was between Mother Hand's crumble and Nanna's Crumble: the latter was marginally more delicious, but both were made to the same recipe (as poor, exasperated Mother Hand must have pointed out to her ungrateful daughter a dozen times or more). Yet the former had a much finer texture that created a more solid top. What gives?

Over the years I think I have figured it out. A finer texture, when pressed down, creates a better seal on the fruit and stays together in one, big, shortbready lump, which is soft underneath from the fruit. Delicious; but not, in my book, right. Nanna made hers by hand instead of in the Kenwood and it had a rougher texture, which I found preferable.

So now, I blend all the crumble ingredients together in the Kenwood; when it has finished, I bring it altogether by hand into one lump of dough and then I rub the mixture between my fingers until it becomes crumble again. The layer over the fruit needs to be quite thin so that it cooks all the way through before it burns on top.

This is one of my favourite crumble combos. Two medium cooking apples, sliced; the grated zest of half a lemon; about 150g of dried cherries; an amount of sugar that looks right. I just sling it on; it varies in sweetness. Turn the fruit over in the sugar and lemon rind. Blend 20z sugar, 4oz butter and 8oz plain flour, as described above; spread over the top. oven bake until golden - probably about half an hour but always feels like about four hours when I'm waiting for it to come out.

I had resolved to go sugar-free as far as possible between now and Christmas (hence the swan-song crumble) but then realised I had bananas that had gone over, so I had a go at some banoffee cupcakes. First, I made my regular condensed milk caramel and put it in the fridge to go hard. Then the banana cake:

8oz butter
8oz caster sugar
4 eggs
4 mashed bananas
8oz self-raising flour (or 8 of plain and 3 tsps of baking powder)
1 tsp baking powder

Beat the butter and sugar togather; add the eggs. Fold in the bananas and the flour/baking powder. Place a generous spoonful into a cake case. Top with a square of chilled caramel -

..then a tsp of cake mixture - just enough to cover. Add a pecan nut, because who wouldn't want to eat pecan nuts?

Bake at 180 degrees C for 20ish minutes. This recipe made 22. They're not lookers, but that is sort of a theme for my baking. I'm sure they will taste very good.

I've started baking for my Y13s on occasion, because they are so very appreciative; I anticipate these will go down well.