{Christmas Decorations}

I've done some new things with our decorations this year and I wanted to share with my friends and family who live far away.  So here goes!

I'm very happy with the buffet this year.  You can imagine it smells amazing with the wreath, the rosemary and the mint all right there. The little bud vases were a steal from Pier 1 last week and I adore them.   The little silver bowl has jingle bell ornaments that I can't trust my cats to not climb the tree to get. hehe

This is the front door of the house as seen from our living room.  The natural garland came from the farmers' market and I cut out all those snow flakes and hung them from the ceiling.  The little wreath hanging from the bookcase was an experiment from last year.

And finally, the Christmas tree with all the gifts wrapped and ready to go underneath.  We tried some new things this year: we used 5 strands of tree lights instead of the usual 2, and we used silver beads instead of the fluffy garland.  This last one felt kind of like betraying everything I've known about how to decorate a tree since the day I was born.... but I kind of like it as something different.  We'll see if we keep it going next year or not.

Tomorrow I'll come back and show you how my knitting is going, but if you're just dying and can't wait, I've uploaded new pics to my Ravelry project page.

{Christmas Knitting?}

I got a call from family back home that my camera is on it's way , so that's good.  I'll be able to have pictures for you of my FO's from the last month and maybe get this blog up and going soon. :)

I'm also thinking ahead to Christmas Knitting.  I'm definitely cutting back this year because I think there are certain family members who just aren't *thrilled* with hand knitting. And I want them to be overjoyed and EXCITED to get my hand knit gifts.  It's not like they save me a bunch of money or time or anything. *scoff* 

IF you aren't a family member, check out my Christmas 2011 tab at the top for my first planning thoughts and then let me know what you think!

{Fall Cannot Get Here Fast Enough}

Remember the other day when I said I was totally in the mood to knit fall wear?  I knit a fair isle hat!

Norway with Love

I love it!  I've already cast on another one.  I'm loving this planning for fall here in this hot hot weather.  It's a tad small for me though so it'll go in to the Xmas 2012 file I think. :)  Anyone in my family wanna call dibbs? hehe

{The Christmas Haul}

Hi folks!  I hope your breaks are all going just lovely.  Did you have a good Christmas?  Mine was really wonderful over here. We had snow on christmas eve and then a little more on christmas day, which was just beautiful.  Not very much... just a couple of inches, but I'll take it. :)

I had a very fibery Christmas, too!  My mom bought me some GORGEOUS hand spun undyed alpaca from a little farm back home.  The alpacas name is Hamlet. hehe Any suggestions on what to knit from this?  I really don't know the yardage, and it varies from bulky in some spots to more like dk in others.  Maybe a cowl of some kind? Where on Ravelry would I search for patterns that are good for hand spun yarn?

The Mr. Pie bought me some yarn I've had my eye on for a long time now!  It's 100% cotton Color Changing Yarn from Wolle's Yarn Creations on Etsy.

It's really neat yarn and I LOVE the colours.  It's made up of 4 very small threads and the colour changes happen by changing one thread at a time to the new colour.  Pretty cool.  What I'm not a huge fan of is that the yarn isn't plied, which is kind of strange, and they just kinda tie in the new colour so you end up knitting with 6 threads for a little bit and you have ends to snip off.   I'm super excited about this one and knew immediately what I would cast on - the Lace Christmas Rose scarf by Susann Hajjar.   

What I love about this pattern is how there are so many different lace patterns, but they all blend so beautifully in to one another.  It's very fluid.  You can see I chose to knit green on the ends and it'll be the light tan colour in the middle.  I love waiting to see when the changes will come!  It's exciting knitting.  Also, I never get bored of the lace pattern, which is my typical problem with these long lace scarves.  I just finished the first of 6 sections! 15% done!

The first pictures of well received Christmas gifts are trickling in, too.  Here's one of my baby niece and god-daughter Alora in her new sweater (the baby body armor) and the tutu her Great-Grandpa bought her. Oh my goodness it's WAY too cute!

The sweater fits nice! The arms were a tad long, but my sister just rolled them up for her.  I suppose they could be rolled down if her hands are cold.  And the cables look great!  At first my sister didn't think it would fit but it's way way stretchy!  I'm calling this one a success.  I hope I get other photos of my knitting being worn and loved!  The pictures mean so much to me because I spend so long wondering how my creations will fit and if the recipient will love it and wear it.

I also finished a project over Christmas!  Mr. Pie's socks that I was knitting out of a great dark green Araucania wool yarn.

This was a another pattern out of the Toe Up Socks book that I got for Christmas last year. I think it's my third or fourth one!  I'm thinking the other books might be coming my way soon!  I had a TON Of this yarn left over because after my last incident where I ran out of yarn, I was wary of it happening again.  Mr. Pie bought me my very own yarn scale though, so never again! YAY!

Did you guys get as spoiled as I did this Christmas?  Do you have snow where you are?  I have one week of vacation left, and I intend to knit my heart out! :D

{The Perfect Sunday}

The perfect Sunday began by sleeping in WAY later than normal (like 8 o'clock people. It's unnatural for me), then a pancake breakfast!  Shortly after, with a cup of hot chai in hand, I began my final exam for International Politics class.  2 1/2 hours plus 8 pages type written later, I was finished with the whole day ahead of me!

Mr. Pie and I made a quick grocery store run and I came back to chat with two of my favorite people ever - Jenny and Anna - on Skype.   (do you Skype?  I kinda heart it hard.)  Then as the sun was going down the Christmassy Spirit arose!  We made bread bowls from scratch and some clam chowder to go in them for dinner, plus homemade eggnog for dessert.  SO easy and SO SO SO much better than store bought eggnog!

Bing Crosby went straight in to the cd player and some tree decorating begun!!

It was really hard to get a good picture of the tree, so it looks kinda bare. I'll try again tomorrow in the natural light, I promise. Here's a few of our favorite ornaments and our angel topper too. :)

I also have an FO to show you!! How exciting is that?  Mr. Pie asked for a balaclava to wear to work next week since it's going to be in the teens in the early morning and he'll be working outside (!!!) so of course I was happy to oblige.  I pulled out some cascade pastaza, which is 50% wool and 50% llama, VERY warm!

This is a super simple knit, just a 2x2 rib, I cast on 88 stitches and knit it in the round until it was long enough to cover his nose.  I cast off about 32 stitches, knit two rows back and forth, then used the backward loop method to cast the 32 back on.  From there I did about an inch and a half of rib then switched to stockinette so that the decreases were easier.  I knit 6, knit 2 together, all the way around, knit one row straight, then knit 5 knit two together all the way across, etc. 

I ran out of yarn so close to the end that you may notice the very tippy top is a slightly mixed green. hehe I think it's kinda cute!  This knit will certainly be super warm and functional.  That's one of my favorite parts of knitting I think, just knowing the things I create help keep my loved ones warm and cozy. :)

{ I Sewed A Tree Skirt!}

This afternoon, after a long day of shopping in the big city of Roanoke, Mr. Pie and I stopped at our favorite locally owned tree dealer to pick up our Christmas tree!  She's a beauty!

Oh my goodness! What's that wrapping delicately around the base of our tree? 

Well well well.  That's the new tree skirt I sewed ALL BY MYSELF!   Yep, you read that right!  Isn't that fabric to die for?    I absolutely adore it!  The tree skirt reversible too with a solid red linen texture fabric that's just as gorgeous!  Both fabrics were bought at Joann.com on Black Friday when they were 50% off, so with shipping two yards of each was $36.  Mr. Pie also bought me the pretty red thread and some new heavy-weight needles for my sewing machine.  I got to figure out how to install new needles! hehehe

I'll be the first to admit that it isn't perfect, but I love it.  This tree skirt is just the kind of project that I like - simple and beautiful.  Nothing fancy, just two doughnut shaped fabric sewed together with some ties to close it up.   This is also the first time I've had to sew circles!

What do you think?  Can you tell I'm happy as a clam and proud as a peach?? :)

{More Frogging than Knitting}

I'm not traditionally a frogger.  I loathe the idea of undoing hours of time and work and starting from the beginning, so instead I usually try to make do.  But I tried on my bottom-up sweater only to find that it was about 6" too large in the waist for me, which isn't really fixable, so two skeins of Sundara Silky Merino made their way back in to cakes and I recast on for a much smaller size.  This yarn is just too good to not wear when my V-Neck sweater is complete! The frogging had an added bonus of allowing me a second chance at the cast on since I found it was rolling something terrible.  I restarted with an I-Cord cast on instead of a few rows of garder.  It took two days to do, but I really like the result.  I'll talk more about the project when I'm a little farther along and have something to show you.

I have had significantly more success in doing small projects around the house!  I found the inspiration for this 5 minute project on Design Sponge where they wrapped yarn around balls to create their snowmen, but when I first saw it I just thought it was stacked cakes!  So that's what I did! 

The buttons are just attacked with two stick pins and the arms are tiny twigs.  It was just what I was looking for in my display!  I love the textures beside each other (cotton, wool and linen) plus the slightly different cream colours and fun too.

Mr. Pie and I also made our second annual Gingerbread House!  We had such fun last year that we decided to give it another go. 

We struggled with our dough in the morning and by the afternoon I'd become so frustrated I ditched it for a kit from the grocery store.  I like the simplicity of just putting it together and decorating it, but it lacks personality I think. So next year the secret will be to refrigerate the HECK out of the gingerbread dough so it's not sticky.

 And we got our first snowfall this weekend!  Always an exciting time!  We took the opportunity to do a teensy bit of baking. What you see are some chocolate covered almost and pecans setting in the cold because the cutting board didn't fit in the fridge. hehe 

They were super easy - just melt some chocolate chips in a double boiler (or a metal bowl and a regular soup pot, as it was in our case) and then toss the nuts in the chocolate until you feel like you've got them covered without too much chocolate left over, them spoon them on to some wax paper and allow them to cool. We were a bit impatient. hehe

I hope your December is coming along as nicely as ours is here!  The final projects for the semester have been turned in, but that hardly means I'm done.  I have two big final exams coming up that will be the bain of my existence for about the next week or so.  Wish me luck!

{More Decorating}

I really liked my fall table top display.  The sideboard in the dining room is the only flat surface in the house that isn't totally functional, so I feel like I can go a little crazy with the decorating there.

Here's how I've changed it up for winter:

It's a little different from last year's when we exclusively used the miniatures.  The books that were part of my fall mantle have been wrapped up in the red plaid fabric, and of course you get to see my wreath transformation too!  I really like how it looks all lit up. :)

I'll probably fuss with it a bit in the coming weeks.  Lower the wreath I think, and I want something with more pizazz over on the right instead of those little candles and the extra lantern, but they'll do for now.

Here's a few more closeups:

 

How is your holiday decorating coming along? :)

{The First Christmas Decorations}

I went to the dollar store today and bought a few things to do the first of the Christmas decorating.  My fall wreath was pretty, but it was time to move in to the new festive season!

I spent $4 this morning to change out my wreath!  Here's what it looks like:

The supplies you'll need to do something like this are...

- A Grape vine wreath
- some $1 stems of holly and $1 stems of white flowers (I only needed 3 stems total for my little wreath, but you may need more).
- a $1 roll of red velvet ribbon
- glue
- wire cutters
(ignore the tape, I didn't end up needing it!)

Step 1:
  (Don't forget to attach your preferred method to hang before you get started!)
Don't forget to attach your preferred method to hang before you get started!I started by wrapping my grape vine wreath in the red ribbon in a kind of candy cane pattern, leaving some spaces blank. 

I finished this off by gluing the ends of the ribbon together behind the wreath.

Step 2:
Cut all your holly off the stems using the wire cutters and leave two inches or so of the stem.

Step 3:
 Push all of the individual pieces of holly through the back of the wreath at the bare spots between the ribbon and bend the stem behind. I don't like to use glue for this because I want to be able to disassemble it and use the wreath again.

 For the three white flowers I just bent the stems and hooked them over the back of the wreath, layering on top of the holly.  So really they're just kinda hanging there.  Shh! You won't tell anyone, will ya?

Step 4:
 Hang it up.  I used a bit of twine for this, but you could of course use more ribbon or a hook.  Take a step back and admire your work!

This weekend will be more decorating around the house so I'll show you how it fits in to the overall scheme of the dining room as soon as the rest of it is done. :)