It's starting to look a lot like Christmas!

I finished my handspun, handknit little mittens ornaments, and hung them in the tree today. I think I need to steam iron them to get them to be a little flat, and I'd like to add a few more, but overall I think they are cute.



Here they are all 22 of them: used up ~ 450yds of my yarn, only enough for half a mitten left over.





This is the second round:


And while I was busy decorating the tree, Denny and Maggie were checking out the gift bags.



I wish I know what Maggie was thinking here. Looking for Denny's opinion?



The decoration seems more interesting then the bags.



Nothing for me? Sniff, sniff.



♥ ♥ ♥

Handspun Friday - Otter Den

I've put it in my head to spin some yarn for mittens for my dad for Christmas. As it turned out, nothing was good enough, OR had enough yardage, as with this yarn. In the end I spun four different yarns until the last one finally made it onto my needles.

So here's the second try. It's Corgi Hill Farms 4oz Merino/Yak in the colorway "Otter Den".



I love how this fiber blend feels, but for reasons unknown to me, I never get great yardage out of 4oz of Yak blend. This time it's only 189yds/worsted weight, chain plied.



I devided it in half lengthwise, and spun for each mitten separately.



I love how it came out. Too bad it was not enough for full man mittens.



It can always become a hat now, because I already made fingerless mittens from such a fiber blend.

♥

BTW- last night started out crazy as well, but once Happy realized that there's no Boogy Man stalking him, he finally relaxed and slept. But I also think his paw hurt a little, they might be cracked. He's so sensitive in having people touch his feet, even me looking at them makes him fretful.

♥


Here he's sitting on my foot stool, well aware that it's Denny's favorite spot, enjoying his "victory" for a few seconds, or until Denny realizes it. Note his ears, tuned in on Denny's location. Poor boy, it sucks to be at the bottom of the pack.

♥

That's so unfair!

I feel like a Zombie today. I didn't get any sleep last night, and it's Happy's fault. He was so nervous, he just could not settle down all night. Besides keeping me awake, it made me also worry, that something was wrong with him.
Several trips outside, left me standing in the cold, while he was gazing at the stars so to speak, but nothing else. Of course all that coming and going woke up Denny, who had to take a trip outside as well.

Every time I was dozing off, Happy stood beside my bed, breathing heavily in my ear. Little pervert!

Anyhow, I'm just glad I haven't had anything important planned for today. Bedtime can't come fast enough for me today. Meanwhile HE is snoozing the day away. Snoring too!



But isn't he cute nevertheless? Can't be mad at him for long, unless I fall down the stairs in my hazy state, and brake something. Uh, I better stop imagining all those awful things that could happen to me ....

A Fun Christmas Project

Christmas Rippit!

FatCatKnits fiber sent in by whoever wanted to participate, and ripped to pieces by Daniela in France. We got back the amount we sent in, in my case 4oz, in little pieces, like that.



It's different colorways, different fiber bases, and the big question is always, what to do with it!
Since it's called Christmas Rippit I thought, I'd add some red fiber as one ply, which I dyed myself. It's on Falkland. It's not quite red all through, but pinkish in places.



Here's my finished yarn. It's bleeding red a little. My fingers were quite red while spinning, but now that I'm knitting with it, they don't get stained anymore. So I guess I got most of the red out after several rinses.



I added the red color, because I knew I wanted to knit these tiny mittens. Well they are not THAT tiny. One measures 4.5inches high, and 3.25inches wide.



I've made ten so far, and am about halfway through the yarn cake. Ten weight 106 grams, and I have 140grams yarn left over.



It's really fun knitting these.



I just started at one end of the yarn cake, and knit one mitten after the other. I will continue to do so until I used it all up.



I'm using 3.75mm needles.



Oh, and the pattern for these mittens is called Smitten and is free.

♥

First Christmas Tree in Years!

Since Denny arrived we haven't had a Christmas tree put up. Now, that he'll turn three years old in February, we thought he'd matured enough, that we could have one without a major disaster. DD and I schlepped the tree out of the cool room in the basement, as well as boxes of decoration. And Voila! Here it is!



I LOVE it!  I made that tree skirt ages ago, in lovely patchwork fashion.



The Whities were spooked for a day or two, kept their distance, ran by real fast like. Especially when the lights were on. Waaaah, what huge beast from hell is this? By now Maggie is comfortable enough to throw up right under the tree, what progress!

It took Denny maybe five minutes to get used to it though. He invented a new game, by nudging the decoration on the tree with his nose rather forcefully, so they either fell down on the floor and bounced away, or it made the whole tree jiggle and wiggle, and I swear I could hear Denny giggle. He liked it so much, that he did it again and again.



He only found one ornament hook, which escaped my clean up. I couldn't figure out what he was chewing, but he gave it up rather easily for licking a finger tipped in cafe late.



I think if it wasn't for DD I would not have decorated this year either, but now I'm so glad we did. We even got the Christmas CD's from storage.

Where's Denny? Can you spot him?


By the way, I LOVE gift bags. Some of them are so beautiful, I wouldn't care if nothing were in them, just for the joy of looking at them. (Hehe, I know I'm easy to please.)

Wishing you all a peaceful Advent Sunday!

♥ ♥ ♥

Cookies!

My DD visits on her days off, and we decided to do some baking last time she was here. If nothing else, I like to bake simple sugar cookies. Many will know the recipe, but for those who don't I'll write it down here. It's the same one my grandmother used, and my mother, and now my daughter knows how to bake them too.
Here's my batch. I like stars best, and since I don't like eating cookies with decoration on them, I don't do it.



DD wanted more flavor, and added some dried Lavender to her feet.  No stinky feet around here!






Denny is waiting for something to fall off the counter. But lets be honest, he needs to eat dough like I need a hole in my head. In the spirit of the season, he still got the left overs though.



Simple Sugar cookies: makes about one baking sheet full of cookies. I always double the recipe.

250grams all purpose flour
120grams unsalted butter
70grams sugar
a pinch of salt
1 small egg
grated rind of half a lemon (dried Lavender if you like it, a little bit goes a long way)

Put the flour on your cleaned counter, add salt, and cut in the cold butter. Add the sugar, and lemon rind. Make a mount of it all, and dig a little dimple, then add the egg. Carefully cut it all together with a knife, and then knead it fast with your hands. If it doesn't want to stick together add a few drops of milk (or whip cream). Form a ball, put it into the fridge for 1/2 - 1 hour.

Roll out the dough (which will be hard as a stone at first) to a thickness you like, cut out the cookies, and bake at 325F in a convection oven, and 350F in an ordinary oven. Bake about 15 minutes, depending on how thick you cut them out. Out of the oven put them on a cooling rack. They benefit if they can stay in a tin box for a couple of days before eating, but lets be honest, who can wait that long?

Enjoy!

♥♥ ♥

Handspun Friday - fiber samples

When you order fiber from Corgi Hill Farms, there's always fiber samples included. I've collected them for some time now.



I've devided what I had into warm and cold colors. Then one day, I decided to spin the warm samples all together.
There are so many different fiber bases in there. Like this one: it's Merino/Camel/Silk



or this one: Merino/Angora



The yarn came out gorgoues. It's so soft, I want to squish it all day long.



I've got 570 yds, 2-ply yarn out of it.



Don't know what I'll do with it yet, but I think some kind of shawl or cowl for sure.

Fibers included in this yarn:

Merino/Tussah Silk 2x
Merino/Camel/Silk
Polwarth/Silk
Polwarth
BFL
Rambouillet
Shetland 2x
15.5Micron Merino
Camel/Silk
Merino/Angora 2x

Tea Advent Calendar

A belated birthday present arrived yesterday. And what a lovely surprise that was. It's a Tea Advent Calendar from my sister.
Since it's December 6th already, I have to catch up with tea drinking.



I've put on the kettle right away, and the first tea bag was Strawberry fruit tea. They come all from orangic farms, whether it's fruit tea or herb tea. Hmmm.
Thanks, Susi!
♥

Working with left over handspun yarns

I had a lot of left over yarns from my handspun Old Forge blanket # 3. I really don't like to have handspun left overs, since it's so much work to make yarn. I don't feel the same about commercial left over yarn.

I wanted to use it up as much as possible, and started with a Windhelm hat, which became two Windhelm hats, because, you know, left over yarn, and it was so much fun to knit this pattern.





I was beginning to think this yarn would never end, because, you guessed it, there was still left over yarn, so I made some mittens.





I only had a little of the Aqua blue yarn left, so I added it to the mittens. The yarn was heavy worsted weight, and the mittens are thick and warm. There's only a couple of yards left now, nothing I can use for knitting, so I think I'm done with this, and can move on.

Coffee!

Let me tell you something about this pup. He's a coffee addict. The other day he had the choice of unsupervised pizza and cafe late. He choose to slobber the cafe late, ignoring pizza! That was a new one for me too. I would have guessed pizza comes before coffee, but I should have known, since he's always so eager to lick out my coffee mug. Even licking a finger dunked in coffee, as a treat substitution worked always very well.
That's the face of an coffee addict.



He was running around like a squirrel on caffeine last night, but that's when he always gets energized after a lazy day anyways, so I didn't think much of it at first, until I saw the counter where the mug stood, all splashed with coffee. I found droplets even as far as one meter away.

He also likes to redecorate. He draged the dog bed in my studio throughout the room. This is were it's supposed to be.


Pushed right up the legs of my working table. Looks like he does not agree with me.

He dragged it to the right,


he pushed it into the left corner in the back of the room,



he draged it up close to my desk chair,


and in the middle of the room.





He only cared a little that Maggie used this prime spot for a nap, but then he fliped it over and claimed it for himself again.


What the ..., I think I hear the coffee machine hissing and sputtering. I wonder if he's ready for a refill?

♥

Waaaa! Where's the snow?

After a couple of snow dustings a few days ago, and below zero temps, we are back to warm temperatures and rain - and mud. I could be whiny about that all day long. I want snow! O.K. enough of that.

I've been knitting a lot of hats lately. Two of them are for DD. She picked the colors. They are good, all purpose hats. I like them, but I also like to wear colorful hats myself. So here they are.

First up is the Graham hat. It can be worn both sides. I made it with handspun yarn before. This one was made with Berroco Ultra Alpaca on 4.5mm needles.





The other one is the Kami hat. Can also be worn both sides. But I forgot to take a picture of the other side out. I made it with Grignasco Tweed yarn in charcoal, on 5mm needles.





Plus a picture of Denny, getting as close as he can get, while I've been knitting.


(It was too dark to get a focused picture, but I'd rather show this one then not. He's so cute, and his head weighs a ton.)

♥ ♥ ♥