Month: December 2013

A Christmas Gift 11 Days Late

Marie HaighLeave a comment

Poor Dan.

For Christmas, I made Elly a handknit flower hat, 3 lace cards, a hero mask and a jewelry box.

Heck, I even made hero masks for 3 of Elly’s cousins and 2 of Elly’s friends.

Dan got to open a half-finished Phillies blanket with the pins still in it.

Thankfully, Dan just laughed at the pins and thought the blanket was a great gift.

On the 11th day of Christmas, I finally gave Dan the finished blanket, which he promptly put to use.

It is super warm, being made of 2 layers of fleece. If I hadn’t opted to use one of the fancy stitches for the border, the blanket would have been finished on time. Those fancy stitches are pretty, but they take three times as long to sew as a simple straight stitch.

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Because She Wanted a Hat Like Mine

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On a recent walk around the block with Jake the dog, Elly complimented the headband I was wearing. It looks similar to the one found here. And perhaps because she knows I can and do occasionally knit, she asked if I had made it. I hadn’t though; it was a gift.

Elly continued to admire my headband, especially the flower on it. It was beautiful. What’s more; it would look beautiful on her.

Rather than ask me to give her the one on my head or ask me to buy her one just like it, she asked if I could knit her a hat with a flower on it. I said yes immediately.

It took me about a month to knit it. I sewed the flower on Christmas Eve – just in time to wrap it and put it under the tree.

Pattern: Fabulous Hat by Meghan Jones
Yarn: Manos del Uruguay in natural and Handspun wool yarn in green

May she always believe that any pretty hat she takes a liking to can be knit by Mom.

Sunday Snapshots (of Christmas trees)

Marie Haigh2 Comments

We have put up our Christmas trees.

Why yes, we do have multiple Christmas trees. 5 to be exact. Three are outside. Two are inside.

The artificial tree in our guest bedroom

The real Christmas tree in our living room

My first memory of picking out a Christmas tree was walking outside in our front yard and picking an evergreen tree. If Elly’s memory stretches back far enough, her first Christmas tree memory will be similar. The tree in our living room came from our backyard. Here is a shot of Elly when she was 2 years old standing in front of it. It was too big for the spot it was in and rather than just cut it down and throw it out, I thought we would get a little more life out of it by making it our Christmas tree.

Despite chopping it down, I still had a handful of evergreen trees to choose from when decorating.

 

I suppose I shouldn’t count the last tree, since it only has a single ornament on it. I am waiting for it to get a bit bigger before I start stringing lights on it. Until then, it can sport the Charlie Brown look.

The reason for so many trees: I just love Christmas trees. I love decorating them. I love looking at them. It is the best Christmas decoration. I would be happy if it were the only Christmas decoration we had.

Plus, by having more than one Christmas tree, I don’t care when the day after Christmas Dan is glaring at our real tree inside because it is now dry as a bone and dropping needles like mad. It can be tossed at will. I have 4 others to keep me company until the Wise Men Day.

Sunday Snapshots (of Thanksgiving food)

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It took me one week plus one day to cook everything for Thanksgiving dinner.

The main meal consisted of the following:
Cranberry sauce
Applesauce
Corn
Mashed Potatoes
Turkey
Risotto with pesto and roasted tomatoes
Green bean fritters
Whiskey carrots
Stuffing
Sourdough rolls

The only thing that came out of a bag was the frozen corn kernels. I also cheated on the risotto by using store-bought vegetable stock. I normally make my own stock, but the 2 vegetarians in our family frown on my using meat stock. Of course, that means they won’t touch the stuffing so I make it extra meaty by adding sausage. mmmm, sausage.

The dessert menu was as follows:
Pumpkin pie
Maple pecan pie
Apple cranberry pie
Turkey candies

It broke my heart when I saw Elly eating almost nothing from the Thanksgiving meal, but all was forgiven when she inhaled close to half of the pumpkin pie. 

I injured my shoulder on that pumpkin pie because I bought a neck pumpkin that was probably bigger than Elly. It was a beast to cut up! But, it was worth it. Fresh pumpkin tastes so much better than store-bought canned pumpkin. Yet, a lesson was learned. Next year, I will buy two smaller neck pumpkins.