Knitting and Baking some finished, most started!

Bertie!

What to start with! cute pic of cat in an empty knitting project bag OR cake?
Here are both!

David's birthday cakes

My brother was 40 last Sunday and on Monday he came round for cake!
Traditionally our late-Mother used to bake him a chocolate cake for his birthday and I seem to have taken up the tradition - adding this time, the lovely "mud pie" dessert which if I just throw in 600ml fresh double cream, 300g chocolate, 200g marshmallows .. you get the idea? FATTENING. very very fattening.  not one for everyday, but perfect for birthdays!
The chocolate cake is Delia Smith's sponge and her topping and filling "fudge" which is seriously yummy and I made two of these one for my step-sister and step-father to share.

BERTIE is a silly cat.
Bertie has a habit of finding crafty places to hide and his current fave is inside one of my empty - for now! - knitting bags.  He looks so cute? doesn't he? Not to be left out, Lilly attempted same but somehow got stuck and tangled and caught in the handles - we weren't fast enough to get a photo of her!

On the KNITTING front I'm pleased to say that my lovely gift set made for no.1.son's friend who has a birthday this month is FINISHED!
The sock pattern is the lovely Strawbs from the lovely Rachel Coopey and the "kit" can be ordered I think from the Knitting Goddess, here is her blog post.

Sorry the socks don't look their best, I didn't want to stretch them over my feet - I did get my son - cough! shhh! now! promised NOT to tell! - to try them on to see that I had the lovely left and right flowing pattern correct for each foot but he would NOT have his feet photographed.
I can't blame him.  he was good enough to model them for me to see so take MY word for it - they are LOVELY knitted and worn!

Sophie's gift set

This is the little gift set we made for Sophie's birthday.  no.1.son made the birthday card and I made the gift tag.

The gift tag was deliciously easy to make using card stock, papers and some fancy LintonTweed yarn - I used the directions from a free craft pattern for two sizes of gift tag from Amy Butlers website - free patterns.

At the beginning of the week I got the iron and ironing board out to do the lads' shirts and tees and found that dh had somehow burnt two holes in a shirt, burnt the sole of the iron and the ironing board cover!  He had attempted to keep this from me but with the evidence left tucked into the corner of the hallway in the form of his burnt shirt! he couldn't deny it was him.
WHY I asked, why? didn't you tell me!? I could have cleaned the iron! 
agh. errumm. cough. I cleaned it myself!
hmm. well not with iron gunk remove cleaner!?
no.
what then?
errrm. I might have dabbed a bit at the ironing board cover to wipe it away .. ?
aha. that explains the burnt cover!

to be fair, the cover did need replacing.  just now it really DID need replacing NOW.
Luckily I had some fabric that both suited and fitted and also a narrow long piece of natural fibre wadding to pad out the underside.
I set to and cut my pattern for both pieces, overlocked the edge and then used my no.21 foot and "couched" in satin stitch over the cord to draw up to fit tightly the ironing board.

simple job, it didn't take long and it was nice to get my machines out again!