New Website and Shop!

So if you used to read this blog you'd notice that I haven't updated Pretty Porcini for some time... That's for a lot of mostly pretty boring reasons and so I apologise! The good news is, that I've started up my business again, but under a new name....

I'm still Porcini, but now I've joined up with my little sister, Button!

Here are some contact details for the new business, we still sell some golden oldies, but also a new range of products. Check out the new blog, Facebook, website, Etsy and Folksy shops to see what we're up to and receive news of special offers.

We're featured in a growing number of brick and mortar shops around Edinburgh (UK) and appear in more and more craft fairs, so maybe you could come and meet us in person!

Porcini

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Knitting Challenge

A few days ago this was the amazing view from Arthurs Seat in Edinburgh. We went up to remind ourselves what it looked like to be above the clouds and I wore my Glarna so that we could get some photos of it!

Finishing this jumper and loving it so much has spurred me on to complete a few other projects. So here is one I've been dithering over for about a year. Some mitts! I had the yarn, I had a lot of patterns (couldn't decide on one though) but eventually, I was inspired to make these beautiful mitts by Michele Rose Orne. 

That's only the one mitt, so I better go and get started on the other!

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Sunday Sketch: La Vie Parisienne

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At Last!

It's done!

It's taken some time and not one, but two attempts... But it's done.

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Fika!

A friend of mine spent a year in Sweden as part of his degree, so during the winter I went to visit him with my boyfriend. It was only for a weekend and rather than spending our time wisely by seeing the sights, getting in a bit of culture, maybe taking some photos we ended up spending the whole time cooking, catching up and playing in the snow.

It was then that I was introduced to fika. A brilliant concept that should be put into practice everywhere! Fika is basically time to hang out, eat cake and drink coffee (or tea, if like me you can't hack coffee). What's better is that it's not just something your Grandma does, for students it's a normal way to hang out, which makes a nice change from Britain where if you don't drink excessive amounts of alcohol then you're more or less excluded from most student social occasions!

I hardly get to see my friend anymore because he moved away for his PhD, but he's coming up in april so in preparation for his visit, I practiced making something swedish and delicious so we can have fika next month.

In particular I wanted cinnamon buns. I searched the net for ages trying to find recipe I liked the sound of, but none of them quite did it for me so I combined them all and added a few extra touches to create my own Kanelbullar recipe that, it has to be said, is amazing....

I've included the suggestions from other recipes in italics in case you want to try them.

Kanelbullar for Chris

Makes about 24
Takes roughly 2.5 hours from start to finish (it's worth it!)

For the dough:
40g Dried Yeast (other recipes say fresh but it's no different)
1 egg
250ml finger warm milk
500g plain flour (Most recipes say "wheat flour" or "all purpose" this is the same as plain)
100g Demerara sugar (or muscovado)
75g melted butter
1/2 tsp salt


For the filling:
40-50g melted butter
2 tbsps Demerara sugar
1 tbsp cinnamon
1tsp vanilla extract


Decoration (optional):
1 egg, beaten with 1/2 tsp water and a pinch of salt
pearl sugar


Equipment:
Muffin trays (they are deep cupcake trays; the deeper the better so the mixture doesn't splodge out)
Paper muffin cases


Method:

1. Put the yeast in a bowl. Add a small amount of tepid milk and stir until the yeast is dissolved. Add the rest of the milk, half of the plain flour and the egg. Cover and leave to rise for an hour.
2. Add the rest of the flour, sugar, salt, and melted butter. Work into a silky dough (this works best with your hands but it IS a messy job!). Transfer the dough to a fresh bowl (or quickly clean your old one). Cover and leave to rise for 30 minutes.
3. Make the filling by melting the butter in a bowl, and into this put the sugar, cinnamon and vanilla extract. The amounts given are probably not what I finally used, as I altered it until it tasted the way I wanted. So mess around with this bit to see what it needs.
4. Roll the dough out into a rectangle onto a lightly floured surface. It should be about 4-5mm thick.
5. Spread the butter mixture all over this rectangle trying to cover close to the edges but not so much that it al squirts out the sides!
6. Starting from the longest side, roll the rectangle up into a tight roll. You might need to put some flour on your fingers for this bit, and take your time so it comes out looking great!
7. With a sharp knife, gently cut the roll into 2cm thick slices and put these slices into the muffin cases.
8. Cover and leave for 30 minutes (I know! It's hard to think you have to wait another 30 minutes when they already smell so good...)
9. Finish (if you want to) by glazing with the egg mixture and adding pearl sugar. I didn't bother with this because I'm not a fan of egg glaze.
10. Bake at 250˚C for 6-8 minutes until golden.
11. Make a yummy drink and try not to eat them all at once!!! My taste testers recommend hot chocolate, warm milk with vanilla, coffee, or tea as their favourite drinks to have with these buns.

If you're a busy person and pushed for time you can get cheats versions of these in Ikea, but they don't look half as cute, or taste half as good so I urge you to try making some for yourself! Good luck if you give it a go, 2.5 hours is a long time I know, but I promise you they're worth the wait...

Oh and the knitting in the background is my second Glarna sleeve! Almost yoke time...

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Working hard...

... But maybe not at what I should be! I've got a university project looming over me at the minute, but my parents have been visiting, I've had a lot to do outside uni and I've also been way too excited about knitting my Glarna take 2!

So I have the whole body, and one sleeve done, just another sleeve and the yoke to go! Can't wait to get to the yoke part, plain stockinette stitch gets quite tedious...

Here's a quick picture of what I've got so far...

... not long now...

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Better late than never!

Well, I won't lie and say my new years resolution was to keep up to date with blogging. Good thing too, I would have failed catastrophically. It was however, to finish all the crafty projects I have on the go (which is errrr... an embarrassing amount) before starting any new ones.

She'll never do it! We've all been there before! I hear you cry. Maybe, but it's worth a go. I made good progress in the earlier part of the year before I started to get bogged down with Uni stuff. So here's a few examples!

I started this cushion as a way to practice my budding crochet skills last year, and finally sewed it all up, put the buttons on and tucked away all the ends! I also wanted to make a cushion that used the same colours as ones I already owned.  

Everyone loves a close up! The yarn is Louisa Harding Kashmir Baby by the way. So nice to work with, really springy, and extremely soft... Recognise this? 

It's the DNA scarf that I finally finished! (Including a key for fellow geeks) Technically It doesn't have a back yet, so the perfectionist in me doesn't really consider this finished, but it does function as a scarf! And it is a work of art!

Most people on Ravelry have knitted this up in a single colour, which would have been a LOT less hassle... But I wanted each base pair to be coded properly so I did it in colour. It meant a lot of crossing over at the back, more brain power than I thought I could muster and just tucking away the loose ends took a whole evening. 

But wasn't it worth it??

Oh I do love to be beside the seaside....

... Especially on Christmas day with Charlie...

...I hoped, but never really believed, that a Christmas walk in the snow could happen on the beach...

...But it did! It was so cold, and I spent the next two weeks hanging out with the flu...

...but it was worth it...

Hope you all had a nice Christmas and New Year!

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Ever had that feeling...

...When there is so much going on inside your head...

...That any second now it might just explode!?

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Oh Edinburgh...

I've spent a lot of time indoors working at the minute...

...So to remind myself of how beautiful Edinburgh can be I checked out some of my favourite art sellers on Etsy and this is what I found...

... Ahh much better now...

... All the snow is melting now but I did get to play for a bit...

...I can't wait for next week my family are visiting, all my work will be done...

Bliss! 

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Two long months

Ok. Not the best two months. I had to close my Etsy shop for a while, and abandon the blog, and neglect my crafting to deal with some tricky situations... So here's a smattering of photos from the many things I did these past two months that I never got a chance to share...

...A rainy walk to Musselburgh along the sea front...

...The most delicious pie ever made (Thank you Rachel Allen!)...

...Is it a treecow or a treepig at Roslin? I can't decide...

...The most lovely crisp in Darlington...

...And best of all, the cutest new cousin ever!

The coolest thing about my new cousin? 

Thanks to an unusual law in France that means the mother doesn't have to be present when you register the birth, my cousins middle name really IS Danger. 

So cool!

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Adventure is not always just bad planning...

... Sometimes it's just what you need.

Every now and then I like to go on city adventures, we live in an amazing city but occasionally when I've been so busy living in it I forget what it's actually like! 

So this week, on a lovely sunny day, we went on one of our explorations to try and go somewhere unfamiliar where we felt lost. We got lost alright, but look what we found...

...An unusually placed apple...

... A man buried up to his chest...

... And a sign to make everything better.

Our mini exploration was fun, especially this super slippery slope!

(Afterwards we saw a sign then said please don't slide on the slopes... woops! What do they expect if they construct a super steep slippery soft slope with a walkway up it??)

But as we sat on a bench watching other people slide down the slope, spot the sign and scamper away, we realised that what we REALLY wanted to do on such a lovely day was to spend some time in our garden.

We share our garden with 5 other flats, but no one else uses it except to hang up their laundry. It was a wilderness when we arrived and we have slowly tamed it over the past two years with help from a neighbour. So as a reward for our hard (maybe unappreciated?) work, we decided we were allowed to make one of the beds a little bigger and plant some vegetables in it, maybe our neighbours will be inspired to join in? I certainly hope so. 

First things first, I needed some new gloves...

... My old ones fell apart. So we set to work digging up the turf along the bed...

...putting my knot tying skills to the test by making a shelter for our spring onions...

...and finally relaxing with a glass of home made lemonade...

... yum!

Steve was inspired to mow the lawn so it looks really neat now. 

If only the mysterious vanishing builders would come and finish our wall then we could plant things out without worrying about having to leave enough room for them to trample over without destroying our plants!

=D

I hope you're all enjoying the lovely sunny weather and having some mini adventures of your own, whether they are far away or even in your own back garden!

xxx

New Camera!

Ok, so for a long time we'd been thinking of getting a new camera. The last few cameras we've had were found and repaired or bought second hand from friends, so we've never really splashed out on a nice one. 

We knew a fair bit about photography but not enough for our liking so we bought this great book to help us figure out the more complicated aspects of it.

During a quick trip home my Dad gave me a couple of old SLR cameras that he doesn't use anymore. They were gifts so he didn't really want to get rid of them, but my parents are moving house and so rather than give away his cameras forever we are taking care of them until further notice!

Olympus 10

Zenith 11     

So we played around with these for a while, and our book came in very handy for understanding what everything does.

We looked around for about a month and read a lot of reviews (and I mean LOTS)... but eventually we settled on this one. It's probably not perfect, and probably not what a professional would go for, but for an entry level camera it's pretty good! So far we've not found anything wrong with it at all.

We haven't had much of a chance to play with it yet, but these are a couple of photos from our garden for you until I go out somewhere exciting and take some really nice ones!

xxx 

   

Summer Showers...

The weather is dark and gloomy outside today, so to make myself feel better about it I decided to look up lots of dark but beautiful things on Etsy.

See it's not so bad!
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Busy Busy Busy....

DIY... Graduation... Work... Gardening... New Camera... Catching up with my Blog and Etsy (oops)... Friends... Family... Old Photos... New Cousin!... 

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Guide Camp Green...

I've been very busy finishing up uni, catching up with chores and getting ready for guide camp the past few weeks and have neglected my blog and shop for a wee while... I am now back from Guide camp and filled with a renewed love for the colour green in all its varied glory! I also remembered how much i love my waterproof trousers, but let's not focus on that...

I've spent a lot of time recently lamenting the lack of tea and cake in my life so I've gathered lots of tea party and picnic things to make me forget the rain and feel calm, in lots of lovely shades of green like the field and canvas tents I've spent the last few days in...

Ahh I feel better already....

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A cause worth fighting for...

Today I heard news of a person who has been disowned by his family because of his faith. Tomorrow he will fight for his right to stay in a place where he is loved and respected. He will not be fighting alone, he is surrounded by the loving friends who have helped him to build his new life, the friends who place their faith in God in protect him, whatever his fate may be.

I am not a particularly religious person, but I am loving.

If his God is out there, I hope my love and the love of others are proof enough that this man deserves to live out his days in a safe, loving environment where he can be respected and happy.

Spare a thought for him this week if you can

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Time is an illusion, lunchtime doubly so...

For the past few weeks I haven't had a minute to myself. Every spare moment has been filled with lesson planning, report writing, sorting out playground tiffs and trying (or rather failing) to keep the flat in an acceptable state. Despite having no time to do any cooking, or even to grab a sandwich for lunch most days, there are a lot of dishes around... 

...Worse still, in the most severe of times when all I can fit in is a cup of tea, I will invariably discover that all the mugs and teaspoons are gone...

The last week in particular I've felt more like a mother than a girlfriend. I wont dare to admit to how many loads of laundry I had to do the other day I could almost hear the polar bears crying out in despair...  

I've been so busy taking care of everyone else and the flat that yesterday, I managed to wash, dry and pack a 4 day rucksack for a certain someone else (who had more or less forgotten about their trip), before realising that I had no clean clothes for myself!

So now, with no formal lessons tomorrow to plan for, only myself to take care of, and a tremendous 5 day weekend on it's way (thank you Victoria Day!) I can finally relax...

What will you do with yourself?? I hear you say... Why, knit of course! I did a few more twists on my Begonia DNA scarf (only 11 more to go, and 6 weeks to do it in) before deciding to treat myself to some lovely yarn that looks like this:

from which I want to make a set of crocheted cushion covers. The picture is from the wonderfully cheap website that I bought it from so it isn't the best... But the yarn is Louisa Harding Kashmir DK in (clockwise from top left) Olive, Burgundy, Plum and Rosebud. I already have some cushions in these colours so it should fit in nicely on my sofa.

=)

Next Thursday I have my observed lesson which is fairly nail biting stuff, luckily I have those immortal words in large, friendly letters to keep me company.

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Fantastical Botanical Exploration!

Oh the last few weeks have been so busy... Lot's of university deadlines, my first school placement (one week down, 3 to go!) and lots of preparation for summer jobs and maybe a visit home if I'm lucky! So I decided to skive for a few hours, and meet my best friend where he's working at the minute, the Botanic Gardens!

A few more daffodils first, they are so relentlessly cheery, I wish I could be that colourful...

...and some Fritillaries to match...

...a whole mini green house of colour, too bright for my poor little camera to cope with...

...we went to the Glass houses next, to look at some slightly more exotic plants...

...and found to our surprise and delight, that due to important maintenance work...

...it is free to visit the Glass Houses at the moment!...

...I am growing some of these Begonias from a cutting, but they'll take a long time to look this nice...

...I really like this metal frog, it looks so real...

...I think I'd like some of these epiphytes in my bathroom, so I could pretend I was under a jungle waterfall and not a shower head... Though I'm not sure my flatmates would agree...

Visiting the Botanics never gets boring, everything is different each time I go there and there is so much of it to see! I'm so lucky to have this on my doorstep.

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