Easter

We had a lovely family Easter, both the children were home plus Bobbin (dog). Alice and I baked, knitted, crocheted, made organza flowers and shopped, a bit of mum and daughter bonding. This is the recipe for the Banana Cake we made for Easter, this recipe is great if you want to use up very ripe bananas. For the topping we melted chocolate then decorated it with chocolate animals and Maltesers.

BANANA CAKE

There's still time to knit these 'Just Hatched' chicks for Easter. The pattern is so easy and takes about 30 minutes to an hour to produce a fluffy bird, to contain a Cadbury's creme egg. My free chick pattern is easy to follow, give it a go!

For this Easter decoration I took the basic Scandinavian woven heart basket pattern and instead of using traditional red and white felt I used felt cleaning cloths, in pastel shades. I decorated the baskets with flowers, made from the same felt, and placed a piece of tissue inside to nestle small eggs in.

You will need: Facecloth, rubber band, ribbon, small amount of white wool and black embroidery thread.

This is a bit like origami with a facecloth. First fold the facecloth in half diagonally.

Tightly roll the facecloth triangle up, start with the pointy corner so that you end up with the long fold at the end of the roll.

Fold the cloth in half.

Fold in half again, this will form the head and ears. Place a rubber band tightly around the cloth about 2/3 of the way down.

Adjust and play with the cloth until you are happy it looks like a rabbit's head.

In Poundland I found some silicone ice cube trays, in the shape of really cute animals. In the pack you get two sets of animals, I chose the ones with ducks, dogs, squirrels and rabbits. I looked at them and thought the moulds would be perfect for chocolate. I melted some chocolate, in the microwave, poured it into the moulds and left to set. Because the moulds are made from silicone it was easy to remove the shapes from the trays. The animals are just the right size to decorate a cupcake or you could use a few of them to decorate a cake.

For this Easter basket I bought a 99p packet of cleaning cloths, the pastel colours are perfect for this Easter project. In The 99p Shop I found a packet of 15 pearlized eggs, they open up, you can put sweets of your choice inside. Alternatively you could put chocolate or decorated eggs in the basket . For the basic basket I found this comprehensive tutorial on Maya Made Maya has made a beautiful basket, I have just tweaked it a bit for this project.

Using my basic Free Pattern for Knitted Easter Chicks (containing creme egg)  I made some additions. To make the chicks I used Fancy Yarn (Fur), instead of the DK yarn and a pair of 3.75mm (9 UK, 5 US) size needles, you may need larger or smaller size needles depending on your knitting tension. I'm very pleased with the resulting fluffy chicks, they just look so comical. For the hatchlings eyes I used beads.

This egg cosy is a bit of nostalgia, a smaller version of a 1950's tea cosy.

For this project you will need Double Knitting wool in two colours. A pair of 4.5 mm (UK 7, US7) needles

Cast on 64 sts with Main Shade (MS). Join in Contrast (C) colour and work as follows:-

1st row *K8 MS, draw C across back of work to 2 cm (3/4 in) and K8 in C, draw MS across back of work in same manner and rep from * to end.Twist MS over C before starting next row

This bunny would make a lovely gift anytime of year but particularly at Easter. These are very easy to make. Print off pattern attachment.

You will need:

Base of basket

With basket colour DK, cast on 6 sts on 4 UK No. 9 (3.75mm, US 5) dpns.

Row 1 (and all odd-numbered rows): k all sts

Row 2: kfb into each st (12 sts)

Row 4: [kfb, k1] across (18 sts)

Row 6: [kfb, k1] across (27 sts)

Row 8: [kfb, k2] across (36 sts)

Row 9: k all sts (36 sts)

Rows 10: p (36 sts)

Body of basket (knitted in basket stitch)