Friday, December 24, 2010

Merry Christmas Eve!

Merry Christmas Eve everyone!

I managed to finish my project, get it blocked and photographed!  Yippee!  I'm pretty sure it's safe to share it with you.  The recipient is off from work and that's where she usually checks the blog.  Plus, she'll have it in two hours anyway, so I'm going to show you how it turned out.

From the front:


From the back:

 

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And hey look!   It's the Millennium Falcon!

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This is the Kathy Kelly Cabled Capelet by Renate Haeckler and it can be found for free here.  (Ravelry Link)


Mods:

Instead of doing the 3 in 1K (I didn’t like the way mine was turning out), I changed it to M1, K, M1. I like the division between the panels much better this way and it adds the feel of lace in between the pretty cables.


So, the big project is done and now I can enjoy my Christmas.  Hope you have a wonderful one! 

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

This Close

I am THIS close to being finished with my big Christmas knitting project.   Unfortunately, this is one of those projects that starts out with just a few stitches on the needle and grows exponentially until there's billions on the needles.  Okay, maybe that's a small exaggeration, but it feels like billions. 

I've only been able to work on it in small fits and starts.  I spent the majority of the day today laying down because I still feel awful.  The doctors still have no idea what's wrong with me and that totally sucks.  I just want to feel well again.  I have an echo cardiogram scheduled tomorrow and we'll see what that shows us.

But, I have about two and a half rows to go of the big project and then I can block it.  It has to be ready and wrapped by Christmas Eve.  Hopefully it will get done by then.  I hate that I haven't been able to share it with you, but the recipient reads this blog and I don't want to ruin the surprise.  This is the only the second project that I've been able to complete for Christmas this year.  Not the best record for Christmas knitting that I've ever had. 

How about you guys?  Did you knit a lot of your Christmas gifts for your friends and family?

Monday, December 20, 2010

Baking Christmas Cookies with the Kids - Don't Do It!

Every Christmas holiday, you hear how wonderful it is to be baking cookies with your children.  Well, I've got news for you:  It's not all it's cracked up to be.  I would only advise doing this if you have the patience of Job and only as an exercise in futility.  Really.

Why the bitterness you ask?  Just let me vent a moment, will you?

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My ever so cute little chef, seen above, begged to help me make cookies.  "Sure, why not?   It'll be fun!"  I said.   Uh-huh.

 First, he needed a chef's hat to match the elf's (which the elf made from a coffee filter at 11:45 pm last night.)  Since his head is a wee bit too big for a coffee filter to work, we had to come up with another solution.

To make the chef's hat:

1.  Take a sheet of paper and cut it in two pieces, lengthwise.  Tape those two pieces end to end, make sure it will fit the kid's head and then tape it closed in a full circle.
2.  I took three pieces of tissue paper (left together, not separated) and cut the squares into a giant circle.
3.  Taking the edges of the giant circle, carefully tape them to the inside of the hat, all the way around.
4.  Poof the center up slightly and you're done!

Moving on.

Incident #1:  This one was more annoying than critical, for that you'll have to wait til Incident #2.  I removed the bowl from my big Kitchen Aid Mixer and walked away to another counter.  While my back was turned, he poured about 4 tablespoons of flour into the little lipped part where the bowl sits.  Boy was it a pain to get all that flour from under that lip.   The child was banished for about 10 minutes before I took pity on him.

Incident #2:  The recipe called for separating the egg whites from the yolk.  I did this and had the yolk still in one of the egg shell halves, ready to be poured in the bowl.  The mixer was running full tilt at this time because I was creaming butter and sugar, the color of which was very, very pale yellow.  I told the little chef,  pour the yellow stuff into the bowl.  So what did he do?  Threw the whole thing, egg shell and all into the mixer that was running ninety to nothing.  I heard and awful crunching and raced to turn off the mixer, but the damage was done. 

Eggshell + creamed butter/sugar = an awful mess.  As I didn't have more ingredients with which to start over, I spent the next half hour picking tiny bits of shell out of the mixture while he spent the rest of his time in another room keeping out of my sight and hearing.   I've decided I'm going to add sprinkles on top of the cookies to disguise any mysterious crunching that these cookies may make once they enter one's mouth.  :)

All of this came though, after our Elf decided to make a huge mess in our kitchen last night.  Obviously, he was not happy that there has been no Christmas baking going on.  Just look what we woke up too:


My advice?  Don't stress yourself out this Christmas by baking cookies with the kids!  Of course, I'll probably forget this sage advice by the time next Christmas comes around.