A Knitter's Christmas

Christmas was good to me this year!

I got four new knitting books.


Can't wait to start reading them and hopefully get inspired to design some new knits.

In the mean time, I also got lots of yummy yarn to knit with.

I got these four skeins of worsted weight yarn that I hope to knit into this lovely dolman sleeve pullover by Kirsten Johnstone. I really like this version that I saw on Ravelry.


I also got this yummy laceweight yarn that I hope to knit into this fun lace tunic by Melissa Wehrle.



Not sure what I'm going to knit with it, but I also got this delicious laceweight yarn from Sunrise Fiber Co. This is the same yarn, in a different colorway, that I used for my Lemongrass Island.

Other yarn waiting to be knit include my recent purchases.
To knit a sweater for N:

To knit a sweater for J:

For Paper Dolls or another colorwork pullover:
I'm currently knitting a Ripple Cardigan for my sister. It is a cream version of the one I knit during Ravelympics in 2010.

I have also mostly completed my Folded sweater which I have been slowly working on for the last several months. It's a little snug through the raglan and I am trying to decide if I need to frog and knit more or just block it hard. Will share once it is 100% complete.

So much knitting, so little time. The story of my life.

So did you have a good knitterly Christmas? What goodies did you get?

A new Christmas Eve tradition

On Christmas Eve, we hung out with two families of close friends in our neighborhood. It was a really fun night. One of the highlights was helping the children make gingerbread houses.


N had been eyeing the gingerbread house kits at JoAnn's and Michael's this year, but I had never slowed down long enough to buy one. Then I saw this great post on Pinterest about making gingerbread houses out of graham crackers and decided we had to make some. I bought and cut the graham crackers, bought chocolate bark, white icing and lots of candy. It is really easy to cut the graham crackers (see the link above to get the details). The other important tip I learned was to use melted chocolate bark to hold the houses together. It sets up in less than 10 minutes versus the 24 hours that some icings take.

As you can see, everyone had a lot of fun making their house unique.




J made his a "bird house"--thus all the toothpicks sticking out. Those are for the birds to sit on.

Anyway, if you are looking for a fun and easy way to make gingerbread houses, I highly recommend this tutorial.

I hope we will continue this new gingerbread house-making tradition for many Christmas Eve's to come.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

It's a little silly, but this was our Christmas card this year. The boys allowed me to take pictures of them for a total of about 5 minutes. These are the best from the bunch. One "Merry Christmas" picture with reindeer antlers, one "Happy New Year" picture with noisemakers, the girls, and one silly picture of the boys in their best super hero poses.

Hope your holidays were jolly (and a little silly)!

More Christmas fun

Reading Christmas stories:

Getting our Christmas tree at Lowe's (the boys loved watching the tree get trimmed and wrapped):

Driving home with our tree:
Our tree:
Riding the Christmas train with the boys while in Ohio:

Christmas Craftiness

Thanks to Pinterest and all the lovely craftiness posted there, I have been in the crafty spirit this Christmas. I want to do more, but here are a few ornaments I've made this year.

I made a bunch of cookie cutter photo ornaments for my mom and my sister. This is a Martha Stewart craft that I've been doing for several years. They are so easy and so cute! Here are a few of the ones I made this year:I like to get the pictures printed in Sepia tone as they give it a warm antique look and can pull a variety of photos together into one unified bunch of ornaments. I use pretty scrapbook paper for the back and always make sure to note the year they were made.


Inspired by a pin on Pinterest, I made this felt bacon ornament for B:
This link will take you to a free tutorial, if you want your own bit of bacon-y awesomeness on your Christmas tree. I used the template there, but simplified mine a bit. I did not put the wire inside and feel that it looks plenty bacon-y without it.

I also got some Martha Stewart glitter (SO lovely) when it was half price at Michaels. This ornament for my godfather and a similar one for my godmother were made with the glitter. I put their names and their children's names and grandchildren's names on them.


Finally, I saw a pin with a little snowy scene inside a clear ornament--so I made this. It has a little Christmas tree and "snow" glitter inside and a cute little cardinal perched on the outside. I swirled the glitter around quite a bit so it looks like quite the little snowstorm in there.

And, of course, I wanted to let the boys do some crafting too. Another pin on Pinterest, inspired these:
The top one is one I helped N make. The bottom one is one that J made. As you can see, J got really into making the antlers. He also wrote 2011 and his name on the back which may be my favorite part :). I bought a dozen of these little balls at the dollar store. We gave a few of the finished ornaments to grandparents and kept the rest for our tree.

That's all the craftiness we've had time to complete, but we have lots more ideas so we may sneak in a little more before Christmas.

May your Christmas be crafty too!

If you are a knitter...

You must read this post by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee and share it with those who love you (and Christmas shop for you). Enjoy!

Yarn Harlot: For the Others