Cold Weather Knitting

Cold weather seems to encourage me to knit or to crochet, so I have been somewhat busy doing that. I just finished a scarf to give to my Hubby's friend. Hubby kept hinting, well, hinting is mild, he kept TELLING me how much he wanted it, even though he has 2 that I have already made for him. His rationale, "Well, those are DARK colors, I really like this LIGHT one." I couldn't argue since it was so accurate, so I am half way through an identical one. They will have matching scarves. Okay, together now, say "Awwwwwww". Not that you can see it very well, but I crocheted and felted the bag that my in progress projects are in. It's quite durable and can handle having my knitting needles stabbed into them. Although, in hindsight, bigger would have been better.

This really turned out well, not that you can tell the dimensions, but it is more than 5 feet long not including the fringe and if you stretch it out a bit (since it scrunches due to the ribbing) in terms of width roughly 7 and a half inches. I used 2 skeins Lions Brand Yarn Wool-Ease Thick and Quick in the color "wheat". If interested, here are the instructions:

1. Cast on 21 stitches on size 11 needles (Finished product will differ in size depending on how "loose" or "tight" you knit, adjust needle size to whatever you want your gauge to be).
2. Knit 3; Purl 3 all the way to the end of 2 skeins. BUT don't forget to reserve some yarn to make fringe. I cut off 42 pieces for the ends before I started my second skein so I wouldn't forget.
3. Enjoy the warmth. It's a pretty heavy scarf and it went really quick, about a week since it was such a thick yarn. It will easily wrap around neck twice, yet, if left dangling, goes past your waist, at least it did with me (Shorty alert).

As of now, going to finish off hubby's scarf, and working on a knit bandanna for girl. She keeps insisting on wearing a blue one that was from October's pirate costume, and the lack of girlyness is starting to bug me. It's in cotton, a lot tinier yarn than I am used to, and I plan to embellish it with crocheted flowers. Will it entice her? Who knows, but worth a shot, and if she won't wear it, maybe Mommy will..... inside the house of course.

Christmas

As you may have noticed, or may not, that is, not many people read this blog, yet (hooray for positive thinking that my family/friends will post eventually).... *rambling* I haven't posted for a bit. That is because we have been busy with all the holiday procrastina... I mean PREPERATIONS. *cough cough* Been eating, and decorating, and eating, and wrapping, and eating, and writing, and did I mention eating?

We finally got all the presents wrapped and under the tree last night. My girl cried a week in advance when we first started putting stuff under the tree because she wanted to open the "pwesents" right then and there. Our son kept asking, "whose this for and this one and which one is mine?" over and over. There is a shot of the presents before demolition, and a couple shots of old ornaments with our kid's pictures in them. Of course, there is also shots of the ACTUAL demolition of the gifts. It took the kids less than a minute to rip off all the paper, and it took 30 minutes for Daddy and Mommy to remove all the "stuff" that attached the gifts to their respective wrappers.


From Daddy and Mommy, Little man of course got his transformers and makes the sound effects for them, naturally. He has one figured out, and is having Daddy transform the other one until he gets the hang of it. Girlie pants got stuff for her dollhouse (the dollhouse was a past birthday gift from Auntie and Uncle, lovingly and neurotically painted by Auntie aka Momma Pajama http://momma-pajama.blogspot.com/) From Uncle and Auntie, our son got rubix cube toys, and girl got princess heels (with Daddy looking like he was going to cry when she put them on). From good friends, there was an Ariel book and nightlight and Spiderman school supplies and puzzle. My hubby surprised me with an ipod. Now, I just have to get used to it. They are so tiny, sometimes I feel like I might break it.


We went to a good friend's house for dinner and had a great time. Ate a lot, of course. The two teenage daughters have been baby sitting for us for years now and we have known this family for years, even years before our son was born. How time flies. So, in the group shots with just the "young'uns" it's our kids, our nephews (my husband's brother's two boys) and the two sisters.

Knitted Cowl

Knitted a cowl, at least, that is what I think it is called. I am not an experienced knitter, I have more dexterity with crocheting. General instructions since I was just playing with this. This is just knit on front, purl on back on needle sizes 2 larger than recommended for yarn you would like to use. Whatever your gauge ends up being, it's roughly a little over a foot wide and I just kept knitting until it would wrap around my shoulders twice with the drape I thought looked good then just joined the edges. It also could go over my head like a hood and still wrap once around the neck, although hubby said to wear it like that I would need very large square sunglasses and a convertible to match. It's very warm and I used it today while giving out plates of cookies to the neighbors (yes, some finally DID make it out of the house).

Shortbread Sea

Still attempting to put together plates for neighbors. This time, it's shortbread. A whole sea of it. 54 of them to be exact. I baked them yesterday afternoon. We are already 1 dozen less. This is even though the kids didn't touch them. I will put the recipe for them here as well. Traditionally, it calls for just white granulated sugar, but I substituted half of that for powdered. It makes for a slightly crunchier, less crumbly version which I prefer. You can always just use the regular sugar instead.

Ingredients:

• 1 and 1/2 cup butter
• 1/4 cup granulated white sugar
• 1/4 cup powdered sugar
• 4 cups flour
• 1 tbsp. vanilla

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cream softened butter with sugars and vanilla. I find that you can use the mixer to mix first 2 cups of the flour in, after that it's better to add the rest and mix by hand. Roll out and use cookie cutters. Bake for 2o minutes or until light brown. If more than one tray in oven, half way through switch and rotate trays for more even baking. Cool on rack. This makes 54 (4 1/2 dozen) 2 inch diameter round cookies.

Hairy Escapades

Growing up, my hair was pretty short and I got mistaken for a boy once in awhile. So, to compensate, my girl's hair is a bit long. It is completely straight, I don't think there is any wave or curl whatsoever. However, downside is that it get tangled at night. No, she won't keep ties in, also she burrows under her pillow resulting in, well, THIS. Takes me 15 minutes to brush out. The other picture was taken on the same day. I tied up her hair, and her brother thought it would be great to clip on every clip they could find at one time. They both got a giggle out of it.

Kids

This is what my kids look like. Big man is going to be 6 in January, and Girlie pants just turned 4. I am going to see if this will work better for keeping my family and friends up to date in terms of updates instead of email. This was taken earlier this year in March after much coaxing and sweat by photographer, Daddy, and Mommy. Of course, you don't see that in the pictures.

Baking Season

Tis the season to be baking, and I have been. I had these great plans of making these cookie platters for neighbors, make a different kind every few days and put them together at the end of the week. I started out with pecan crusted thumbprints (2 different flavors). I made about 4 dozen. Other than the dozen I gave my brother and sister in law's family, they never made it out of the house. Two days ago, I baked a quadruple batch of orange pecan biscotti, my 5 going on 6 year old son loved them (my 4 year old girl didn't care for them though so at least that slowed down them disappearing), so does my husband and so do I. A fourth of that is gone. In fact, I am wiping crumbs off the keyboard since I just had one with my early morning coffee. Yesterday afternoon, I made a tray of the ever easy, every popular rice crispies treats. A third of that is gone. Do you see a pattern here? Maybe if I just bake larger quantities I can follow through with the cookie platters......

On your mark. Get set. GO!

Well, I guess I am going to start to try to catch up to the rest of the world and have a blog. I had one before, but I didn't do anything with it, didn't know how to use it, and basically lost all information to get access to it. My bad. So, I suppose this is a new start. Wish me luck in trying to figure this out. Who knows how it will go?