Christmas Here I Come!

I finished the hat for my sister-in-law last night. I'm all done with Christmas presents and the husband gets home this afternoon for a week of fun and relaxing. May your Christmas be bright and full of cheer. See you in the next year.

Keep Warm

KEEP WARM

Today I've been spending the majority of the day cleaning. It's not what I really want to be doing but it HAD to be done. I'm trying to get the house all ready before all the festivities start to begin. I plan on spending the weekend cooking, relaxing and enjoying family. So today was my work day. So if you have a few spare moments of your own check out a couple of things I've been enjoying this last week.
Fabric Christmas Trees by The Small Object
Some great cookies again from The Small Object
I've made the pinwheel ones and they are amazing!
This great post about letter writing by Edward and Lilly
And a humbling advent through the view of the sky. This sight has been a lot of fun for the girls and seeing some spectacular photos of our universe.

Enjoy the Holiday week, I can't wait to see what the new year brings.

Christmas Photos

Last night I made my husband take pictures of the kids for a nice picture to put in the Christmas cards. Wow was that a lot of work! Getting a five year old, 3 year old and 18 mo. old to all sit nicely all at the same time was next to impossible. It took a lot of photos, some mild threatening, cajoling and general chaos but we did finally get one that will work and a lot of silly ones that are still nice to have.
And yesterday when I should have been doing other things, like cleaning, I decided to make Christmas dresses for the girls dolls. I thought I could get away with just one but when the younger daughter saw the dress she had to have one too. Why I thought they could share I'll never know. But now they and their dolls are ready for Christmas. And while I was at it I made a toy mouse for the cat. I used this pattern from PimpStitch for a mouse ornament and turned it into a toy by filling up the mouse with half batting and half catnip and left off the ribbon to hang it. The cat seemed to enjoy it for the photo shoot and wondered what happened to it when I took it away to wait for Christmas. If your wondering about the pirate fabric it's because the cat's name is Blackbeard, we're big fans of pirates in this house. 18th century ones that is.And now that all the silly things are made I've finally picked up my needles to start the hat for my sister-in-law for Christmas. I got the book "Last Minute Knitted Gifts" for my birthday so I'm using the hat pattern out of there and I bought some amazing wool by Malabrigo that's soft purplish merino wool that I'm in love with. I'm planning on making myself a pair of fingerless mittens from the same book with the rest of it. I better get it all going Christmas will be here in seven days! Whew.

Brrr..

It's finally starting to warm up around here, meaning it's finally above zero. I'm just glad I can go outside now without coughing because the air is so cold! And cold weather usually means lots of cocoa, lots of snuggles and a little bit of knitting.....
On Sunday I went to a cookie exchange, and it was great to get a whole assortment of cookies that I didn't have to make. I just made 6 dozen of one cookie then we gathered, ate, drank, and traded. Of course the cookies are almost already half way gone so I'm sure I'll be making more soon. I found this recipe yesterday for Lemon Cookies by oh, fransson and I think they will have to be made. I love lemon and these look perfect.
I made this knitting needle organizer as a custom order for a lady here in the area. It's for her mother and she let me pick the fabrics, which was kind of nerve wracking and a bit exciting all at the same time. She said her mother likes blue so I hope she likes it! It's already in the mail and off to its new home, whew.

One Christmas present down...

I sewed up this purse for my sister for Christmas last week. The fabric is a vintage napkin I found at the Salvation Army and I couldn't resist getting it and for a quarter who wouldn't buy it! My sister is going to Ecuador to visit her boyfriend for Christmas and I thought this would be the perfect thing for those warm days. I'm really jealous that she'll be nice and hot while I'm here freezing my butt off in negative temperatures! I sent it to her last week and then I had to have her take a picture of it because I'd forgotten to myself.
I'm slowly getting all of my Christmas projects done and will post pictures as soon as Christmas is done. I sold my first item on Etsy over the weekend so it's nice to have things going off to different homes. I sold this cute knitting needle organizer. I desperately need to find some more of this sheep fabric from Japan, it is just too cute! I found this at Cottonblue on etsy.Also, check out "oh, hello friend" and enter to win some fabulous things!

English Trifle

One of the number one reasons I love Christmas is English Trifle. My mom has made this dessert almost every Christmas that I can remember. And now I pass on that tradition to my family. The best thing about trifle is my favorite things are combined, raspberries, custard and whipping cream. I can eat homemade whipped cream on anything! So I was searching for an actual recipe to share since I just make mine off the top of my head and found this perfect one from the BBC. It's basically the exact same recipe as mine. It calls for sherry on the cake but I've also used raspberry liqueur which is just as good. You should really try this treat and maybe it will become your next holiday tradition. And since I don't have any pictures of the trifle, since it's yet to be made, I've included a nice wintery photo taken by my husband to get everyone into the holiday spirit.

Pandas and Gifts

My daughter's birthday is at the end of December, poor girl. Because this week was the last week of preschool we celebrated her birthday early, calling it her "fake birthday". Because she is in love with Pandas she picked panda cookies to bring to school. They turned out really cute and it was pretty funny seeing all the black lips as they ate the cookies. I'm sure all the parents loved me when they came to pick up their kids.I am also "lucky" enough to have my birthday in December and I got some very cool presents, like this stack of vintage linen from parents, as well as a really nice evening spent with the family. Here's a couple pictures of my goodies and most importantly was some money from my sweet hubby to spend on Etsy, my favorite place!
Also on a side note I made my first sale to a local knitting store for some needle organizers I had made! It's kind of cool to walk into a store and see my things displayed! It was pretty exciting and I have a couple of other things in the works for the new year.

Christmas Dwarfs

We're in full Christmas swing around here and I'm loving every minute of it. I mostly love the twinkling lights around our house. But this year I'm also loving the dwarfs on my buffet. I found a box of Christmas dwarfs from the 1950's at an estate sale this spring. It was one of those buy junk for a buck deals and this was buried in it. They are very cute watching over us as we eat. Now I need to start finishing up my Christmas presents before it's too late. I feel like I have all the time in the world now but I know the day for festivities will be here before I know it. Good luck to all of you finishing up those homemade gifts. Tis the season.