I have never followed a large-scale cable pattern before, so after finishing Julie Hentz’ Cabled baby hat pattern I decided I was ready to tackle a full-scale cable pattern. I picked Sirdar pattern 3953 (Ravelry link here) which I’ve had sitting in my folder for years, and cast on.

That was my first mistake, because had I been a responsible and sensible knitter I would have knitted a test swatch in pattern where I would have noticed the problem…

Anyway. 40 rows in knitting with some godawful acrylic (this sweater was to be for Bailey, Stephanie bought the yarn, I cringed but remained silent because quite frankly she was terrifying during her pregnancy) and I realised that my cables looked, well, inside out.

I am so aware that I have trouble with differentiating right side and wrong side, back and front in terms of knitting and what I think I had been doing is cabling back when I should have been cabling forward and vice versa. So, I have frogged it and I will do a swatch this time before casting back on.

Morals of this story? SWATCH! And less speed more haste.

Click for embiggenisation

So that’s my failure. However, today I have had a success. I’m stuck at home this week with #2 as he recovers from chickenpox, so we decided today to bake some fairy cakes to have around the house because #2 has inherited my sweet tooth. Cleaning out the cupboards, I discovered a tupperware piping ball (looks like this) that embarrassingly I have owned for at least seven years but have never used.

So! I pinched some of the cream cheese frosting I had made to frost Nigella’s Guinness cake and had a little practice. I ended up making a plateful of these, but the plate doesn’t fit in the whitebox so here’s the best looking cake we could find


And because my hubby is such a bloody superstar and I love him to death, I made him this


They’re not the best looking cakes in the world and I’d be the first to admit that but I’m pretty chuffed for my first attempt. I think next time I’ll probably use a smaller nozzle and put the cake mix into paper cases so they’re neater when I’m icing them.

I’ll be back after Friday with a post about my latest knitting project and the guinness cake.

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Posted under baking, knitting, with the kids