Christmas knitting in action

A pair of legwarmers being tried on Christmas morning. I'm halfway through the next pair already. Jill wants to have several so the girls can be warm in skirts or dresses this winter.

Cooking for Dogs on Thursday

Here's a recipe for dog cupcakes/muffins that has my pack hanging around the kitchen waiting for something to fall off the counter.

Ginger Banana Pupcakes

2/3 cup mashed bananas
1/3 cup oil
3 large eggs
3/4 cup water
2 cups Unbleached Flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 tsp ginger
2 teaspoons cinnamon

Beat together mashed banana and butter. Add eggs and water. Beat well. Stir in other ingredients. Beat until smooth. Spoon batter into oiled and floured muffin pan.(or into cupcake papers for party food) Bake at 350° for about 25 minutes. Cool on wire rack 5 minutes, remove from pan, replace on rack and cool.

If icing is desired, mix softened cream cheese with a dab of milk to reach spreadable consistency.

My Wish for You

Enjoy the frog now. May he visit us less frequently in the coming year.

Give it up. It's just too late.

All the things that I planned to finished knitting by Christmas are abandoned. I don't want to spend the last couple of days in a rush. Here's a guilt-free solution: the Christmas Knitting group on Ravelry. So instead of tossing all my unfinished knitting in a Rubbermaid tote until next Halloween, I'll have an incredible start on 2008. The moderator, pinchette, posted this link http://www.berroco.com/exclusives/minutia/minutia.html for a great motivating project. The sweaters are so tiny that I'm sure I could finish one each month. And unless elves come to visit, no one will be wearing them so gauge won't matter. Any size yarn bits will do. Stashbuster-Deluxe!

By the way, I am unfinishedknits on Ravelry. Be my friend.

Snowy Dogs on Thursday

By this morning the snow was melted, but I just had to share how adorable we looked in our sweater & coat. I'm not sure if Trixie was eating it or trying to burrow down to the grass.

Snow Day!

Here's the proof. It rarely snows before Christmas in this part of Missouri. The really great thing is that it snowed on the weekend when I didn't have anywhere to go. I've got my Blockbuster online movies from the mail, hot cocoa, and cute coats on the dogs.

I also finished another pair of fingerless mittens. This pair is for me to knit & type in. We're keeping it cool in the house to spare gas, so we're bundling up.

Cookie Exchange Party = Big Fun

The cookie party well really well. I made lasagna, so nobody had to get take-out afterwards (Bethanie). We had a great assortment of cookies. Sara's sweet potato cookies were the most unusual. JonnieBelle & Reagan's sugar cookies and Teresa's chocolate chips were the first to disappear when I took my platter to work the next day.

After we ate and swapped, we played Mad Gab. The youngest players had a distinct advantage. Maybe because they weren't offered any rum punch. The point of the game is to read aloud a series of words and guess what real phrase they suggest. Here is an example which DID NOT come from the game...

(WARNING: DO NOT ATTEMPT TO SAY THIS PHRASE IN FRONT OF CHILDREN OR ANY PERSON OF DELICATE SENSIBILITIES.) Say this aloud, preferrably to your boss. Repeatedly.

eye ham sofa king we Todd Ed.

Free Rice. NO, not for you.

Go play this vocabulary game. It's for a good cause. This link is over there on the right. And no, I don't know how to link from here. I'm not a techno-wizard. (although I am at level 43)

Christmas knitting

Simple sock hat for Grandma C. My grandmas are always cold. Grandma C. lives in an old farmhouse that her parents built. This hat is from recycled wool.

These are smallish sampler scarves for Jill's girls. The brown is mostly wool and the whites is mixed fibers. An adult could wear either as an under-the-coat-lapel-scarf, but they aren't long enough to wrap. My solution? I declare them to be children's scarves.

You're feeling sleepy... very sleepy...

Look, Ma...no hands!

Actually, we are very close to learning to give "high five." Trixie is down to one paw most of the time. She still wants to stand up, though.

Check out her bare tummy. At spay/neuter I was going to have Trixie & Gus micro-chipped. Our vet talked me out of it. He said our county doesn't have a reader at the pound or shelter, so they would have to run REALLY far for it to do any good. Instead he tattooed a phone number and initials on their belly.

Picture this:

Kid: "look at this pitiful stray puppy, Mom. Can we keep it?"

Mom: "Poor thing. It's awful how people dump unwanted puppies"

Kid: "Here, Scout, let me rub your tummy"

Mom: "maybe we should call that number."

Dressed-up Dogs on Thursday

Here's Mom with my three granddogs. The dogs aren't too thrilled, buy Mom is. Why?





Doggie Dress-up Day!!! We started decorating for Christmas & found most of the dog outfits.

My Angel

Don't be scared, Santa.

You are invited to Lora's 3rd Annual

Christmas Cookie Exchange Party

Thursday December 13, 2007

6:00pm - 9:00pm

Bring 6 dozen of one type of Christmas cookie. Bring another container to fill with an assortment of 6 dozen of our cookies during the swap.

Hearty Refreshments will be served.

Children & spouses welcome.

R.S.V.P. if possible

Infant & Toddler Legwarmers

Here is a toddler-sized leg warmer. Puddin's leg is too skinny, but you get the idea.


I just cast on 28 stitches,
worked k2,p2 around for 8 rows,
knit around until long enough,
& finished with a matching rib at the other end.
The yarn is Caron Simply Soft with size 8 dpn.




Same deal with these baby-sized legwarmers. "Cast on 24" and "stop sooner" are the only differences. For full scrunchie up the calf effect, these fit nb-12mo. And, no, Trixie wasn't happy with this modeling gig.

Starting another sock at the source

Sister Jill & Lora gleaning a cotton field for spinning fibers.

Going home to the bootheel of MO for Thanksgiving, I was hoping to find a cotton field that hadn't already had it's stalks chopped. I read about spinning cotton from the boll, that is, without ginning out the seeds first. It said that you got less fiber breakage and therefore longer fibers this way. You also sidestep the awful task of picking out the seeds. My grandma told that when her mother was a child they still picked the seeds by hand. Each evening all the children had to fill one of their own shoes with seeds before bed. Small child, small shoe, less seeds. Seems fair.

The universe sensed my need for cotton. This field was next door to cousin Sabrina's house. It was the only standing field of stalks that we saw, and the last few rows had been skipped on the final picking. Sure... it was wet and the bolls were stringing out a bit. But hey, if you ask for cotton and the universe answers, ya don't look the gift horse in the mouth.

Eatin' good in the neighborhood.

Some of the girls took me out to celebrate the fact that I quit my job with them and left them hanging at the busiest time of the year.

From the left: Paula, Gloria, me, & Traci.

Guess which one of us is suffering from alcohol flush.

They gave me this.

Check out the business name on the right. I got so excited when I saw that. If I ever get a yarn shop I will name it that...with the extra "pe" at the end & everything.

Another hat

I am a slow knitter. After 10 minutes, my fingers get numb and have to rest. Socks take forever and a sweater...forgetaboutit. So I got this book "knitting workshop" which tells me to knit a hat on a 16" circular needle. For whatever reason, I can knit all night on the darn thing. I can't express how freakin' exciting this is for me. So here's another hat made entirely from my handspun.

Bad dog-hair day on Thursday

They are either too embarrassed or too annoyed to look at me. "Save a couple of bucks" I thought. The inevitable mom sin: the home hair cut. Of course I decided to try it right before the holidays. My only recourse is to shamefacedly return to their groomer. Her only available time between now and Christmas is...the day after Thanksgiving. I guess nobody else wanted it.

I must be sleepy, 'cause I can't stop yarning.

Did you yawn when you read the post title? How about now? Amazing isn't it?

I found these sock yarns in the bottom of a basket. Totally forgot I had them.

Some new sock yarns that I bought. At yarn shops. Which I visited for the first time this YEAR.

The kicker is that I only want to knit socks for myself and I'm woefully behind on my Christmas knitting. Which means that I can't touch this for another MONTH AND A HALF. But I can pet it.

Dog on Thurs & 1st attempt at earflap hat

Puddin posing nicely with a decorative pumpkin. Her worried expression is from being posed on a couch that it not "hers".
Getting caught up now... a while back I swapped some yarn with Holly from knitwithsnotforyou and received these tweedy tan and beige yarns. Before I could get a picture of them, they leaped onto my needles and attempted to become a chullo. For a bit of color I added some of my blue handspun. It is chunkier than the tweed so it is mostly separate. The pattern is loosely based on the hat in "Knitting Workshop". Being as I am, I started the matching fingerless mitts before going back to add the earflaps and cords. Katie specifically requested braids for the cords so I still have to find how to do that somewhere. Simply braiding the yarn doesn't seem durable. A knitted braid? Anyone? The fingerless mittens are a K4, P2 rib with a touch of cabling. No decision yet on whether to have a thumb.

I hunt the elusive Chullo

My friend Katie asked me to knit her fingerless mittens and an earflap hat. I lost the picture she sent me, and so searched world (wide web) far and wide for inspiration. Here are some towards whom I am leaning.

#1 Lose the pom pon, keep the textured rim.

# 2 Like the color work, too loose around base.

#3 rims good, crazy ears & pointy top...no.

#4 I like

#5 I really like.

# 6 Katie the Kitty?

Much too busy...and Dog on Thursday

Brain addled from... what was I talking about? Breif synopsis of my week:

Get off work Saturday night at 10:30. Drive to Kansas City (sister in car accident). Arrive @ 5:00am. Baby snot, baby poop, cook, clean, city traffic. Drive home Wednesday, pick up mail, go to work until 10:30pm. This morning: pay tax, oil change, car inspection, register car, work 2-10:30. Tomorrow work @ 6am. (that's right- the best I can do is 5 hours sleep) Constantly remind myself that next Thursday is my last day at this job.

Too busy to take pictures, so here's an oldy but goody. Puddin, Bitsy(my first Shih tzu), and me on the 4th of July.

Oops! I almost missed Dogs on Thursday.

It's not midnight yet, so I haven't missed it. I spent the morning getting a new crappy job and the afternoon/evening at my current crappy job. Leaning over the chair to snap photos got me this:

I give up. Here is a lovely photo from last Christmas.

Speaking of black cats...

A neighborhood cat has been tearing up our trash. We work to prevent it's access to said trash. Then I mention that the cat looks much thinner. Then we notice that the home of the elderly couple down the street has an auction sign in the yard. Crap! They were the stray cat feeders. So we save our scraps and put them out at night when we lock up the trash. Only... last night we both forgot to save part of our supper for the d@*n cat. So Mom scrambles him an egg! This morning I asked the next door neighbor if she has adopted it. No, but she did cook an extra piece of sausage for him this morning. Yeah, we're screwed.

WIP, handspun yarn, and spilling the beans.

A work-in-progress update: log cabin baby blanket & ball-band dishcloth baby blanket.

Today I spent some time filling my lists on Ravelry. Here are some of my handspun yarns as I cropped them. I still don't have the hang of cropping appropriately for ravelry, so only bits of the pictures survive to the stash file.

Pictures of the knitted Halloween cat that I made to swap with Veronica at Berry Faerie ( http://berryfaerie.blogspot.com/ ). I think it is safe to post pictures because I mailed the package last Thursday.

The candy corn hat really does it for me.