New Year's Eve

We celebrated Christmas with family out of town between Christmas and New Years and came home to a kid-friendly blow out. Big fun. Here are a few glimpses of the end of our 2008.

Cousins celebrating at Grandma's:



My daughter snapped this pic at the Nutcracker after party:



Feeding the chickens their Christmas feed:



Nothing says the holidays quite like taking out the mountain of gift wrap trash:



Really, the kids had fun on New Year's Eve:

My favorite present also sported my favorite wrapping paper:

Out with the old and in with the goofy:

Happy belated New Year!

Merry Christmas to All and to All a Good Night

From my family to yours (l to r: daughter with buttons, plaid dad, santa mom, wrestling singlet son, center: red Tubby):




a very Merry Christmas and wonderful 2009!

Dirt Knitting

Christmas knitting is finally finished!

Here are the convertible fingerless gloves/mittens for my Dad:



And the socks for my Mom (two - a whole pair!):



And while I was on a roll, I knocked out another Kim's Hat from Last Minute Knitted Gifts out of the spare Christmas knitting Manos for my husband:



It fits nice and tight, just what he wanted and it a reverse color-way of his brother's Dirt Hat. I couldn't help notice that there is a drab colorway going on in my current knitting projects. In fact, this hat matches the mud that is half of our front yard.




Mud is everywhere as the garage continues to limp along toward completion. It is everywhere and on everything. It shouldn't be a surprise that it has invaded my knitting.



And see that skein of Lion Suede - another dirt-colored project. I hope I can cast out all the mud and dirt out of my house when I cast off with this last dirt knitting project.

Holiday Traditions Exchange

With all the Christmas knitting and stomach flu going around our house, I've been a bad blogger. A week ago I received a marvelous box from my Holiday Traditions Exchange partner, Sara. What a wonderful box of goodies we received! Even the wrapping was fun - bits of Christmas-colored fleece remnants. Genius idea.






The kids' ornaments were so nice and are on the kids' tree now. I LOVE my felt wreath - just the kind of sweetness I was hoping for. And look at her son's precious recipe card!








How did she know our shared affection for Tasha Tudor? She even included a copy of A Doll's Christmas, a book I had been hoping to add to our holiday book collection. The extra recipes were also a nice surprise.



And do you see that red scroll tucked in the box?



What a wonderful letter she included sharing her family's holiday traditions and explaining a bit of what was in the box. I was sorry to have run out of time before we got to make the cookie tree - but it is so on the list for next year!

Thanks so much, Sara - and Merry Christmas!

Calling it Quits for Christmas Knitting

I made most of my goals this year, so it time to call it quits for Christmas knitting. I finished Mom's pair of socks, and I'm only short one and a bit of dad's convertible fingerless mittens, but have been given an official pardon from the 'rents. When I tried to excuse my tardiness by accusing them of not being very ramped up for Christmas, Dad got a little defensive. So I asked "Do you have a tree?". "Sure" he says. Ceramic trees don't count, Dad! In fact, I let him know that you are officially "old" when you only have a ceramic tree up. Is it any wonder I don't get invited home very often!

But I did get the last of the presents completed for Tim's family. Here is the hat I made for his brother. It's Kim's Hat from Last-Minute Knitted Gifts, knitted on size 7 circulars and dpns out of the recommended Manos de Uruguay.

I ran a bit short, so I swung by Unraveled to pick up a coordinating color. They helped find the perfect color - sort of looks like soil layers - but I really don't like how they have all the yarn organized by color. I came in looking for Manos and needed professional help just to figure out what they had in the store.

I tightened up the gauge to make the hat fit the recipient (the final dimensions seemed big), but didn't really think about adjusting the inches of height. I knitted the men's size, but got the women's dimension for the circumference. Perhaps I should have knitted the women's height as well. I have the same head dimension as my brother-in-law and it is comfortably snug. The men's size at gauge would have floated on his head.

On my daughter it looks very much like a top at, don't you think?

It's not so bad in person, a little funky edge to a ski hat design. And by getting extra yarn, I have just the amount for another hat for my perpetually cold husband. Win-win for everyone - except my Dad!