The End of a Good Year

 Our tree is up for a little while longer.

I made microwave potato bags for little gifts this year.  I got the instructions at the fabric store.  It is really important to use all 100% cotton materials:  yard goods, batting and thread, since synthetics may catch fire in the microwave.  I wasn't sure how well they would be received until the older daughter squealed with glee:  "Potato bags, mom, how did you know I needed one.  My other one is worn out with use".  That sealed the deal.  She didn't know you can also do corn on the cob in them.

Now to my plans for the New Year.
1.  An old WIP sweater to be finished soon.
2.  Master Knitter program to be completed:  not much left of the program work, but an original hat and sweater to be created and knit.
3.  Once the first sweater is done, I will finish another Log Cabin Blanket to work through lots of scraps.  And immediately start another one.
4.  Finish Eeyore for Addilyn's last character in the set.
5.  2-3 baby blankets, one for a neighbor and a spare for Church prayer shawl
I think that's enough for January/February.
We will start in the Greenhouse in late February.

Till next time:  A prosperous, healthy, productive and happy New year.  May the world find a way to make peace. 

A Wish from Our House to Yours

Socks, Pickled Eggs and Gingerbread Men

Socks:  Kubota Man likes hand-knit socks.  They don't cut off his circulation at the top.  He has hefty calves and skinny ankles, so I modify the pattern by doing a few evenly-spaced decreases down the center back.  I like the Briggs & Little Durasport yarn for his socks.

Pickled eggs.  I went to the Hutterites for eggs and potatoes, and while at the Egg house, happened to ask the  young lady if they had any very small eggs (when young hens first start to lay, their eggs are very small).  The young lady said yes, but they are about 1 week old.  I was overjoyed because we all know that fresh eggs don't peel well when hard-boiled.  So I brought home two dozen eggs all smaller than 1.5 " long (3.8 cm).  I like small eggs for pickling.

Gingerbread Men  I got lazy this year and bought ready-made cookies at Bulk Barn, then whipped up some Royal Icing to pipe the outline and features.  Some Smarties (hate the new colors--they used to be so bright) and the cookies are well-dressed.

Tomorrow we are having the Christmas pageant at school for our Religion class, then on Friday evening--I'm going with the handi-bus and Nursing Home residents to see the Christmas light displays. 

I hope to have my baking done by the end of Saturday or Sunday, then it's time to start cooking and cleaning and the rest of the Christmas decorating.

Till next time:  We're almost there.  Remember, He's the reason for the Season.

 

Special Fairy Blanket for a Special Little Girl

I have finally finished the blanket, although it isn't washed or blocked yet.  I'm so picky about having the wrong side look almost as good as the right side.  So see for yourself.  The top photo is the right side, and the lower photo is the wrong side.  You can go to my Ravelry project page and there you can click on the photos to zoom in.

Till next time: Only 12 days till the feast of Christmas.  Advent is the time to quiet ourselves amid the hustle and bustle, in order to keep peace and calm in our souls.

Creeping Towards the End of Another Good Year

Finished these two lovelies for my dear neighbor.  Sweet Dreams from a Leisure Arts leaflet.

Now I'm working exclusively on the Tinkerbell blanket for Addi, the newest granddaughter. Kubota Man was laughing because I normally finish the ends as I go along, but didn't do it this time, because I was entranced by how the picture was evolving.

I also recently finished this baby blanket for a commission.  I do not like working with this box store yarn, but the neon colors were fun to work on.  The colors could have pooled better to show off the intense neon colors, but it turned out really nice.



Santa came early to Addilyn.  Since her mommy is an outdoors person, and it was hard to use the stroller in the snow, I felt they needed this sled.  Addi loves it--she just chills out and when they get indoors she "sleeps like a baby".

I'm still in the midst of Christmas baking--finished only what I had to send overseas since I wanted to be sure to meet the mail deadline for Christmas delivery.
After processing all those apples, we were overrun with fruit flies.  My trap really works.  They love orange peels and apples.  I put these in a disposable container, stretch plastic wrap tightly across the opening, hold in place with a rubber band.  With a skewer punch 8-10 holes spaced around the stretched plastic and wait while they come to the buffet.  The bowl of cider vinegar doesn't work as well for me as this method.  When activity stops inside the container, discard and make a new one if necessary.

Till next time:  As we are in the pre-Christmas season we call Advent, we remember that peace starts from ourselves.  Peace within, peace in our relationships,  then reaching out in peace and charity, until we  receive the greatest gift from the Creator of Peace.

Perogies, Varenyki, a Yummy Tradition

We are "immigrants" from the city who bought land right in "Ukrainian Country" in north-Central Alberta.  We love all foods Ukrainian.  For some reason (maybe easier to buy them, even if not nearly as yummy) I got out of the habit of making the perogies from scratch.

Many cultures have filled things:  Chinese have dumplings, then there's ravioli, there are pot stickers, perogies, Austrian and German potato Knödl (balls of dough that have sweet or savory fillings).  I've always wondered how these came about.  I envision a hard-working pioneer woman having to feed a family with very little.  Maybe she got tired of mashed/boiled potatoes, so to make cooking a little more interesting, she started putting surprises into dough pockets.  Was it a way to break the monotony of  the same foods for her family?   As a way to express her creativity?

Our favorite is cheddar cheese/potato filling, but I really like cottage cheese (dry cottage cheese with eggs and dill), or potato with cottage cheese, or chopped onions fried with fresh cabbage, or mushrooms, or cooked and finely-chopped sauerkraut. Then for sweet perogies, you can use apples or blueberries.  This photo is not of my perogies--downloaded it.

My mouth is watering.

Back to the present.  Yesterday I made sauerkraut perogies to go with the home-made headcheese (not made from any heads--I don't like fat meat or rind in my headcheese, so I cook pigs' feet and a  lean cut of pork--the feet provide the jelly, but I give the feet to the dog when they have served their purpose).

I made the dough early in the afternoon so it could rest and become very elastic.  The first few were rolled by hand, and that's no easy task with a very elastic dough.  Then I remembered that I used to use my pasta roller for this purpose.  Then the job was done in no time.

Getting out the pasta roller reminded me that I also used to make home-made egg noodles.  So today I picked up  extra eggs, and next week I will make  noodles.

Food for thought:  What if you woke up tomorrow without everything you did not thank God for today?

Kopfzerbrechen, Casse-tête, in other words, a BIG Problem

I'm making DGD5 (the baby) a Tinkerbell blanket using a crochet technique called "crochet intarsia", or "graphghan".  This is worked in single crochet, from a chart similarly to a cross stitch chart.  Each box is a sc.  I'm starting with a coloring page, from which I created a chart by photocopying the enlarged picture onto graph paper.  It is 134 sts wide and 170 rows long:

I was going along just fine, when on the right side of her leg, the untidy "feathering" happened.  If you notice on the photo, the lower part of the leg has feathers, the upper part forms a nice smooth line.

Well, that is common in this type of crochet, but I wasn't satisfied.  I discovered that the feathering requires 2 conditions to happen:
a.  a diagonal line in the pattern formed by 1-stitch shifts,
b.  if the diagonal line leans to the right (as in the photo), and the 1-st shift is on the WS row or if the diagonal line leans to the left, and the 1-st shift is on the RS row, the feathering occurs.

So I stopped, played with swatches and came up with this:  The feathering is greatly reduced on this right-leaning diagonal.

And now the left-leaning diagonal--first a bad case of feathering, then greatly reduced feathering:

 I'm so happy to have solved the problem.  The solution is published in my Intarsia Crochet Tutorial, a free Ravelry Download.
So I ripped out 18 rows of 134 stitches each, and am working my way up again.  I'm happy as a pig in mud.

Note:  some of the fine details will be embroidered on later.
Until next time:  Let there be peace on earth--please pray!!