mirrormirror - Part 30

That Was The Week That Was

January 23, 2012 By Paola 3 Comments

Some favourite Instagram photos from last week. Come and find me, I’m ‘mirrormirrorxx’. (Going to try and do this every weekend).

As you can see it’s been a week of snow and soft pastel colours.

We had a massive snowstorm in Seattle last week which meant that the Minx and I were both trapped at home. What with that and going away on a jolly with the Husband’s job last weekend, I’ve still trying to catch my tail after Christmas.

Normal, hopefully better than normal, blog service will resume tomorrow.

Happy Keyboard

January 11, 2012 By Paola 2 Comments

This gorgeous craft project by MiniFanFan popped up in my Twitter stream last week courtesy of Nicole from Making It Lovely – guaranteed to appeal both to my love of washi tape and my love of pretty keyboards.

I think it’s gorgeous and I would love to emulate it, if only I had a cool small white keyboard and and not an ugly black ergonomic monstrosity. But I dunno, this might even be worth suffering the RSI.

Fortunately I can continue to indulge my love of pretty tape. This bowl of lovelies comes from Lotta Jansdotter’s new shop. And yes it is an Instagram photo.

Instagram – My New Obsession

January 10, 2012 By Paola 2 Comments

Over the last few months a lot of people have asked me whether I was on Instagram or not.

I wasn’t because I couldn’t really see the point – I was already taking plenty of iPhone photos and sharing them on Twitter and Facebook and I didn’t really need to be on another social media time-sucking platform, did I?

How wrong I was. As I mentioned before, one of this year’s resolutions was to try out Instagram, mostly because I thought it would be an easy way to do a ‘365 project’ and post a photo a day. On January 1st I posted one solitary photo from our New Year’s Day walk in Gasworks Park and thenceforth I have become gently obsessed. Instagram is like Twitter for photos. Follow some great photographers and you’ll have a constant stream of scrumptious eyecandy delivered direct to your phone. Take a photo with your phone (iPhones only at the moment unfortunately), or a upload a picture you took earlier, apply a suitably retro filter and then have it delivered to the Instagram network and also to Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and Flick.

It’s been a great way to reconnect with blogger friends away from the noise of Twitter and Facebook and of finding new creative and imaginative people online as they go about their beautiful business.

And it’s easy to produce lovely images. The camera on the new iPhone 4s is crazy good and the various photography apps and filters available (I’m using Camera+ and Picfx as well as the Instagram filters) make it fun to create all sorts of effects.

I’m enjoying the challenge of working within the iPhone’s limitations – wide-angle lens, tiny aperture, rubbish in low light, square format, not many pixels – and love the fact that the phone is usually to hand, when you see pretty lightshades at the opticians or a pile of soggy, but colourful leaves on a rainy trip to the dentist. It’s not a substitute for a fancy camera, but a very fabulous adjunct.

Already my Instagram feed is proving to be a cool visual journal of January 2012, and seeing all the photos grouped together has shown me that I do in fact have photographic style – colourful and graphic yet dreamy – which has never leapt out at me before.

Rest assured you’ll be seeing more Instagram photos on the blog in the days and weeks ahead (I’ll format them as Polaroids here so you can spot them).

And of course the whole network is riddled with cute pictures of cats.

Are you on Instagram? What do you like about it? Which apps do you use? What’s your username so I can follow you? I am mirrormirrorxx.

Christmas Pudding

January 9, 2012 By Paola

When we got back from Whistler we tucked into the Christmas puddings which had been gently maturing since November.

It was my first time making Christmas puddings, so I was somewhat nervous as to what they would taste like, but I shouldn’t have worried. They were delectable – moist and boozy with dark marmalade-y depths - and, like mincemeat, I will never go back to buying them again. Thank you America for your ridiculous ban on importing beef suet products, which has made me stretch my cooking horizons.

We shared the first one at a small family dinner. Here she is in all her moist and sticky splendour. I had to send the Husband out in the rain to get the traditional sprig of holly, so couldn’t be too particular when he came back with a sprig without berries.

And here it is anointed with warmed and flaming brandy in the traditional way.

The Minx was mesmerised.

We shared pudding number two at a drinks party for friends on the second day of the new year. It was fun to see the kids and Americans all equally excited by the idea of setting dessert on fire. The actual taste of Christmas pudding is more of an acquired one though it seems.

Christmas Pudding

January 9, 2012 By Paola Leave a Comment

When we got back from Whistler we tucked into the Christmas puddings which had been gently maturing since November.

It was my first time making Christmas puddings, so I was somewhat nervous as to what they would taste like, but I shouldn’t have worried. They were delectable – moist and boozy with dark marmalade-y depths – and, like mincemeat, I will never go back to buying them again. Thank you America for your ridiculous ban on importing beef suet products, which has made me stretch my cooking horizons.

And here it is anointed with warmed and flaming brandy in the traditional way.

The Minx was mesmerised.

New Year, New Photography Me

January 4, 2012 By Paola 4 Comments

I got a Christmas present that made me so happy it brought tears to my eyes, I’ve wanted one for so long.

As a weight-loss incentive the Husband said he would buy me a Canon 5D Mk II and this Christmas, since I am so close to goal weight (or I was before Christmas), he decided to put it under the tree for me.

This baby is fabulous and terrifying in equal measure – it has pixels and ISOs and features a go go and can produce some ridiculously amazing images. Most of the professional photographers I speak to use it and love it, so I now no longer have any excuse not to produce top quality images.

And therein lies the rub. I no longer have any excuse. Before I could blame crappy images on my not so stellar camera, but now the only reason not to produce amazing photos is because I’m not a good enough photographer.

Because I have to admit to myself that I am a photographer, albeit not yet a very good one. There is nothing, apart from maybe knitting, that gives me so much pleasure and satisfaction – how with the press of a single button, you can tell a story, capture a mood, transmit an emotion, or, as is too often the case with my photos, convey absolutely nothing at all.

So this is the year when I start to take this craft seriously – when I upgrade my kit, study hard, practise tons and put myself out there. I still have no idea where, if anywhere, it all might lead, but I’m going to bust my ass getting there.

To kick things off I’m going to finish up my Christmas photo book, have signed up for an online Food Photography course with Lara Ferroni, am committing to posting at least a photo a day to Instagram (I’m @mirrormirrorxx come and join me), will read the stack of photography books next to my bed, will start using Flickr again and build a photography portfolio website. One day I want to be worthy of my new toy, in a way that I’m just not at present.

This year I’m only making positive resolutions, no more thoughts of ‘giving up’ or ‘losing’, or ‘stopping’. Instead I want to do things that help me grow and develop, take me to new places and bring me new opportunities. I want to throw a metaphorical stone into a metaphorical lake and watch where the metaphorical ripples end up, and am super intrigued and excited to find out where this photo journey might take me.

Are you starting any new journeys this year? Where do you hope to get to? What do you want to learn or achieve? Spill the beans and we can hold each others’ hand along the way.

I was just about to press ‘publish’ when this post by Tara Austen Weaver popped up on Facebook. Of course she talks about following through on all things intriguing so much more eloquently than I can. I think she must have been reading my mind.

A Very Happy New Year

December 31, 2011 By Paola 2 Comments

Christmas, packing for Whistler, being in Whistler, returning from Whistler and unpacking from Whistler put paid to all my good blogging intentions over the last week or so. Ho hum. I hope you all had a marvellous and stress-free holiday season.

And yes, I know I should be leaving you with an eloquent elegy to 2011 and divulging all sorts of self-improving resolutions for 2012 but I’ll be doing that tomorrow, as I have to make blinis for a party tonight.

Instead may I encourage you all to wear your red underwear for luck in the Italian tradition and eat plenty of lentils.

And if you have time watch this video. I wish you all this and more in the New Year. Thanks for all your comments, emails, advice and encouragement over the least year. It means a lot. Mwah!

"May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you’re wonderful, and don’t forget to make some art – write or draw or buil…d or sing or live as only you can. May your coming year be a wonderful thing in which you dream both dangerously and outrageously.
I hope you will make something that didn’t exist before you made it, that you will be loved and you will be liked and you will have people to love and to like in return. And most importantly, because I think there should be more kindness and more wisdom in the world right now – I hope that you will, when you need to, be wise and that you will always be kind. And I hope that somewhere in the next year you surprise yourself."

Adventures in Knitting – Big Snowy Owl

December 31, 2011 By Paola 12 Comments

Thought you might like to see the Minx’s knitted Christmas present – that you managed to guess so cunningly - in all its final glory.

Snowy owl on snowy balcony in snowy Whistler

I have to say that this was a rather frustrating knit.

Being my usual organised self, I’d left it until Christmas Eve to finish the top of the head and the face when disaster struck and I ran out of white yarn before I’d even managed to finish the ears. This despite having purchased the recommended yarn, used the recommended size needles and knitted to the recommended gauge.

So I had to rip the head back, miss out some rounds without giving him too truncated an appearance and reknit. This time I managed to scrape through to the end, though I still didn’t have enough white yarn to add a white circle to the eyes as in the pattern. You can imagine how thrilled I was by this at 3 am on Christmas morning.

All, however, is well that ends well. The owl is gorgeously soft, smooshy and snuggly and big enough to make for very satisfying cuddles (here he is sitting next to a standard-sized cushion). The Minx is also very fond of ‘Owly’, which makes a change.

More details on my Ravelry page. You can find the pattern here courtesy of the Purl Bee. I DON’T recommend using their suggested yarn though.

Stir Up Sunday

December 15, 2011 By Paola 2 Comments

A couple or three weekends back, while I was also in the throes of Thanksgiving baking, it was Stir Up Sunday and I also had to get going with my Christmas baking.

The name apparently comes from the collect from the Book of Common Prayer which begins ‘Stir up, we beseech you O Lord’. This was said in Anglican churches on the last Sunday before Advent and reminded cooks and bakers throughout the land that they should be making a start on their mincemeat and Christmas puddings, so that they would have time to mature before the Christmas festivities.

It’s a good job the Puritans objected to Christmas puddings and so never really brought them to America as I have to say the combination of Stir Up Sunday and Thanksgiving is enough to drive anyone to drink.

After the success of my mincemeat last year, and since the wonderful RainShadow Meats in Seattle is now rendering beef suet, I decided to make Christmas puddings for the first time as well as the mincemeat. After reading through several recipes I decided to stick with dear old Delia and make some minor tweaks.

Her detailed recipe is here. Tweaks I made included adding substituting some glace’ cherries for half of the mixed peel and replacing the orange juice and zest with a spoonful of the Husband’s fabulous homemade Three Fruit Marmalade as suggested by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall.

As is traditional we also added some foil-wrapped coins to the mixture, to be found when we cut into the puddings – and yes, I really ought to get myself a more photogenic mixing bowl.

Since this is mostly a mix of dried fruits, beef suet, breadcrumbs, spices, beer and brandy, the puddings look surprisingly pale and anaemic before being steamed.

The Husband, being an engineer, was then commandeered into covering the puddings with a double layer of greaseproof paper, covering them with tinfoil and manufacturing string handles for them, so they could be lifted in and out of the steam bath.

The Internet then informed me that Christmas pudding can be steamed in the slow cooker, a Christmas miracle indeed. No more having to keep an eye on the pudding and making sure they don’t steam dry.

The larger one was steamed in the slow cooker for around 10 hours on HIGH and the smaller steamed overnight or for around 8 hours.

I don’t know what the alchemical process is that makes them come out all dark and moist and sticky at the end, but they sure looked good and smelled unbelievable.

The Husband then re-wrapped them so they could be steamed again at Christmas and now they sit ‘maturing’ in my cool closet, and delighting my heart every time I walk in there and glance at them.

I shall report back.

Here’s this year’s batch of mincemeat. I’ve already used a jar to make mince pies and can report that it is very delicious indeed.

Picture the Holidays–The View from Here

December 11, 2011 By Paola 4 Comments

Our next prompt was to remind us to take a few moments to enjoy the view.

This is the view I have from my desk in a corner of my bedroom as I work. The chair is my knitting chair. We had some lovely sunny days in Seattle last week so I decided to render this in black and white to emphasise the beautiful wintry light.