It's beginning to smell a lot like Christmas

I've made three batches of these Christmas biscuits to give to friends and family. The recipe is Nigella's butter biscuits from Domestic Goddess with the addition of a teaspoon each of ground cinnamon, ground ginger, and a good grating of nutmeg, plus a zigzag of chocolate with orange oil. The bonus for me is that it makes the whole flat smell like Christmas.

DIY update

If you follow me on Twitter or happen to know me in person (actually I think that's more or less the same group of people) you'll be aware that casa del thomasinaknits is undergoing a bit of a revamp. It started back in June when we got new carpet for the hallway and spare room and like a set of dominoes this triggered a series of renovations throughout the flat. Once we had the carpet we needed some new doors which would close over said carpet and the doors had to be painted. And once I'd started painting I realised it wasn't as scary as all that and decided that the rest of the flat could do with a lick of paint too. Which brings us up to today.

I now have a green bathroom.



It's a somewhat blotchy, streaky green bathroom as yet as the paint's still drying and it's only the first coat. The odd thing is that I'm rather disconcerted by the fact that I now have a green bathroom. Despite buying the paint and painting a swatch (which has been on the wall for the past month or so) I don't think I was ever truly able to realise (or visualise) the fact that once the paint started going on in large quantities the bathroom would be a completely different colour*. I expect to be doing a double take every time I go in there for the next week or so.

Right, must get on now as I have a whole list of things to do whilst the paint is drying none of which include blogging, checking Twitter, or generally messing about on the internet.

* Previously it was blue and I'm afraid I don't have any before pictures because I didn't think to take any this morning and it wasn't such a nice bathroom that I would have taken any in the past.

Serendipity (or a last hurrah for Wovember)

After a very jolly evening knitting and eating Thai food with the Sticks'n'String knitting group in Reading I was walking back towards the train station with Felix, discussing the merits of tweed for skirt making, when we came upon this display in the window of Jackson's department store.



You can't quite read the tiny label on the equally wee jacket but it says "Not for sale". Presumably in response to or anticipation of the hordes of people enquiring whether they could buy said jacket for their wee tot or teddy bear (it's like a 6 month old size!).

Further up the display there's a rather splendid picture of the current Doctor with the slogan "He chose Harris Tweed, why don't you?".



The display even references the sheep whose wool is used to weave the tweed. It's a far cry from all the fake woolliness to be seen elsewhere on the high street.

Starting them young

At the weekend my 4 year old niece said the words that all knitters want to hear. Not "Lizzy, can you make me some cosy bed socks?" (although she said that too) but "Lizzy, how do you do your knitting?". It's not quite an outright request to teach her how to knit but it's close enough for me to pick up some chunky yarn with a decent amount of pink in it and suitable sized needles to have on hand should she express such a wish again over Christmas.

She's already got the hang of baking (at least she knows about stirring and licking the spoon afterwards) so I think she's ready to start playing with yarn.