Christmas Candy

I told you I'd write a post about our candy making session today - and so I shall. Of course, being the amateur blogger that I am, I forgot to take my camera along. But DBiL to the rescue! He was willing to loan me his and then emailed me the photos while I was still there so I could get this posted tonight! Awesome guy.

The blizzard has finally been wrangled under control by the local snow plows, so I was able to make it to Sis's house without incident. However, when I got there, the nephew was down for his afternoon nap (don't we all wish we still got to do that?), so we got to work pretty quickly. Mom, Sis and I had 6 pounds of chocolate to melt down and either mix things into it or coat things with. We started with my personal favorite, peanut butter balls (as seen below):

Mom immediately started work on her favorite, peanut clusters:

And I totally forgot to get a picture of Sis's work on the dipped pretzels...nummilicious!

Below you can see a shot of Mom getting ready to break apart the coconut she had coated all over the tin foil to make coconut bark. Can we say good?

(By the way, I told Mom I'd tell her if there were any eligible men out there - so if you're lurking out there, speak up! LOL)

Of course we had to have an official taste tester. And who better than the darling nephew when he woke up from his nap?? He kept asking for "nummies" all evening - I think they were a hit!

Below is the Mother Load of our work. We spent a little over 2 hours working on this and we figure we've got roughly 15 pounds of chocolate candy to enjoy over the various Christmas celebrations we'll be attending this year. Not too shabby!

We all had a great time today with much laughter and story-telling. And I got to see nephew's new favorite face. I secretly call it his Evil Face. Just don't tell him I said that!

I came home with those 3 little tubs you see in the picture above. I figure that will satisfy DH and my sweet teeth for at least a week or two ;) Oh shoot! I forgot to get some for the in-laws....well, I guess I'll have to make another trip down the road before Christmas to get that plate all set.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Snow Day!!

We have been under a blizzard warning since 1:00 yesterday afternoon. It's supposed to last until 4:00 this afternoon. We've got snow, wind, ice and more wind. Brrr, it's cold outside!!

DH and I piled in the car this morning to attempt our normal 45 minute commute to work, but after spending 20 minutes to get about 10 miles down the road, we decided to call it quits. Especially when the Interstate was covered with snow...we travel west to work, and it's always worse the closer you get to Lake Michigan. Lake effect snow and all that...

I'm back home now, in my pj's and fuzzy pink slippers and loving every minute of it! DH is out playing with his new snowblower, and looking to be loving that, too! Hehe, men are so weird sometimes. I'll stay inside, thank you very much!

I have one gift I'm planning to make this year for Christmas, although, if I don't get it done, it's not that big of a deal. My little niece certainly won't miss it for want of the amount of gifts she's getting from us. Yes, DH and I wen't a little crazy this year on the neices and nephews....well, crazy for us anyway. No, I think today I'll be spending more time with this little lovely..

I've been working on the quilting for this one for about 7 years now. It is the second quilt I ever pieced and it was supposed to go to DH when it was done. However, it's just too small for him. He likes long quilts or afghans over him when he's watching tv. So, I've asked DH to build me a quilt rack for our blank dining room wall, and I hope to have this quilt hanging up for Christmas. I doubt it will happen, though - I haven't even started the border yet! Oh well, it's a goal, and goals are a good thing right now.

Saturday I'm planning to go over to Sis's house and make our Christmas candy with her and Mom. DH has decided to opt out this year (so much for building a Christmas tradition). I'll try to remember to take the camera so I can post some pictures. It's always been a blast in years past, I hope we have a fun time again this year.

Ok, time to go wrap up in my quilt and stay warm!! Have a great day everyone!

How long has it been?

Wow - over a month! I didn't mean to stay away so long, but, well, you know how it goes.

I finally got my computer upstairs set up with wireless internet, so now I can surf and post anytime I want (no more waiting for DH to get off the computer downstairs). We're still working out the kinks up here, but we do have the basics.

I've been in a bit of a slump this week, not working on much of anything. Maybe I'm still recuperating from Thanksgiving. I know I'm about a week behind in getting my Christmas decorations up. I finally got the tree up Friday and decorated today. We usually have this all finished the day after Thanksgiving.

Well, this year, we hosted Thanksgiving here - we've hosted for the last 5 or 6 years I guess. Mom, sis, brother-in-law and nephew came over. It was small, but very nice. We had the usual turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes and gravy, sweet bread, homemade white bread, rolls, cranberry relish, Sis's green bean casserole, 7-layer salad, pink stuff (cottage cheese salad) and yams. All topped off with pumpkin pie and cherry cheesecake for dessert. It was wonderful. And the best part of the day? Sis wouldn't leave until all the dishes were washed! I think that was what I was most thankful for on Thanksgiving. Of course, having Mom in good health is a great blessing as well.

DH and I ventured out on Black Friday to attempt to get some deals at 2 area stores. We managed to snag the things we were hunting for, but whew! What an adventure! We were up by 3:30, and at the first store by 4:30. We picked up the one thing we wanted there - a wireless router - and were out the door by 5:15. Not too bad. We then crossed the street to stand in line at Menards with the other crazies, I mean shoppers. After watching many people cut in line, 3 right in front of us (and oh yeah, I went and spoke with them sharply. They will just have to live with the karma they are earning), we finally were able to enter the store. Talk about rude people! I had one little lady shoving me from behind when all I could see in front of me was a mass of people. I finally turned around and told her to stop shoving me, there was nowhere to go. She attempted to explain that she just HAD to get through, so I informed her there was "NOWHERE FOR YOU TO GO!" She finally backed off. Sheesh! But we were eventually victorious there, too, and were out of the store by 6:15. I do believe these were new records :)

We then went home and I went back to bed. DH proceeded to return the wireless router as it didn't work, thus losing the sale price (I made sure to inform him before I went back to bed that if it didn't work, he should hold onto it until they got more in stock and we would exchange it). Oh well...what can you do?

We got our first real snowstorm of the season this week. It came down so fast Thursday night that we woke up to 3 inches on the ground when we had grass the night before. When DH went out to clean off the car, about 10 minutes later he came back in announcing we weren't going to work that day. Yay! He said he couldn't clean off one side fast enough before the other side was covered again...no way was he going to try to navigate the roads when it was like that! So we had another long weekend this week and did I get anything done? Not really. I mean, I got the tree up, and some cleaning done, but nothing spectacular...nothing worthy of three days of free time. Oh well...

Oh! We did make it to the big craft show in our town yesterday. We were able to get gifts for about half of our family in one swoop! And, we found 2 Jim Shore figurines to add to my collection for a total of $10! It totally made my day :)

Well, that about gets you caught up for the last month or so...Sorry about no pictures this time, I'll work on that and see how the new computer likes them. Meanwhile, welcome to my 2nd follower! I can't see who you are just yet, but I see there are now 2 of you!

Erin walks away mumbling to herself about getting DH to get this computer up to par soon.

What I've Been Working On...

I promised you an update on what I've been working on lately. Here it is!

While on breaks at work, I've been working on my cable scarf. I found the pattern for it here. It's a good beginner cable pattern, and I'm enjoying working on it very much. I'm using WoolEase yarn and it's so wonderfully soft. I'm not a very fast knitter, so I don't expect to have it finished this year - but as long as I'm still enjoying it, it'll still see some working time.

The other thing that's been on the work table lately is the Circle Quilt. I had found sticky dots that were the size I needed for the circles, and was in the process of basting the seam allowances around the dots. But it was going very slowly! And, I couldn't iron the circles with the sticky dots in there - they became permanent! So, one day, as I was working on appliqueing some more of the leaves, it occurred to me that I enjoy needle-turn applique. And why is a circle considered harder to applique than any other shape? Sure, getting a perfect circle can be tough, but if you have a perfect line to follow - it can't be impossible. Also, I was having some trouble getting the circle's seam allowances to stay tucked under (as you can see in the picture below). So....I changed my approach.

I've begun tracing around the sticky dots on the front of the fabrics and things are moving along much quicker! I got about 150 of these done last night while watching a movie with DH.

I also wanted to share with you a recent purchase I made. I found both of these glass jars at Hobby Lobby. I think they work perfectly for my spools of thread and my fabric scraps. And I just love the look of clear glass bell jars.

This last picture is included only because I felt it was time to introduce you to another of our family members. This is Boots. She lives with us both by accident and force of will. You see, her mother was a member of our family about 10 years ago. We rescued her and took her home. We lived in a 3rd floor apartment in a large city. We used to leave the sliding door to the balcony open for the cats to get in and out when they wanted to. One morning we woke up to a cat missing. Apparently she had jumped from one balcony to another and disappeared. Imagine my surprise when I spotted her hanging around the apartment building in the middle of winter the following year! After 2 or 3 days and nights of trying to catch her, we finally succeeded and brought her back home again - only to find out she was pregnant. Later that spring we welcomed Boots and 2 brothers into our family. We found a home for one of her brothers, and finally decided to take the rest of the family to my uncle's farm so they could live as barn cats (we were currently at 7 cats in a 2 bedroom apartment!) When we got to the farm, the mother and brother took off, happy as larks to be outside running around. Boots, however, hunkered down and started wailing. Well, soft-heart that I am, we ended up taking her back home with us. She's been with us ever since. And you can see, she loves getting involved in everything we do. In fact, right now she's circling my chair as I type, trying to find a way up on the computer table. :)

Halloween

I have been so bad at updating my blog lately. I blame it on the one computer we have in the house with internet capabilities and the limited time we both have to use it (it's called sharing). I'm sorry, so I hope you'll enjoy hearing about our Halloween last night.

DH decided a couple of weeks ago that he was going to be a pirate for Halloween. His work always does a Chili Cookoff for Halloween and his department was participating, and they had all decided on a pirate theme. Which meant that I was volunteered to make some of the props and costume....yippee (can you here the sarcasm?)

So, I made some sails for the pirate ship DH built - that was pretty easy. Then he handed me this fabric:

Any ideas what he wanted me to make with this stuff? It felt like plastic wrap....eww!! Here's a hint:

Yup! A sash for his pirate outfit! As you can see, he's pretty pleased with the result :)

They didn't win any of the prizes at the Chili Cookoff, but I think they still had fun, and that's really the point, right?

So yesterday we decided to get everything set up for Halloween. I carved a pumpkin for the lap of our scarecrow:

And DH set up his scary ghoul that popped up by remote (some of the littler kids didn't like him at all - especially our nephew!) and his fog machine. Mom, DSis, DBiL and nephew came over for dinner before the trick or treaters showed up (they live in the country and get no kids coming over), then we spent 2 hours handing out candy to roughly 250 trick or treaters. Wow - that's a lot of candy!

Next post I'll show a pic of the scarf I've been working on, as well as an update on my circle quilt.

I hope you all remembered to turn your clocks back!

This Time Last Year

Since I've been lazy lately about taking pictures of the things I'm working on, I decided to show you something I finished last year about this time.

Our neighbor, a.k.a. The Insane Gardener, has a deep love for all things Halloween. She likes the scary, ghoulish stuff, none of the cutesy things...So of course I had to find something to stitch for her. I came across this lady designed by Mirabilia and thought it fit The Insane Gardener perfectly. I used the recommended fabric, but took some liberties with the pattern itself. For instance, I took the owl on her shoulder out of it completely, as well as changed a couple of the swirls at the bottom of the picture.

I wanted to frame this piece, but didn't have much funds...I also knew that The Insane Gardener preferred the look of large frames...so that added to the dilemma. I got very lucky and stumbled across this frame at Hobby Lobby (complete with mats and wood inlay) for half off! I was able to lace it myself and I think it turned out quite nice (if I do say so myself!).

When I gave it to her, she was speechless - which is just perfect :)

The Knitting Class..

I know you are all waiting with baited breath to hear how my first knitting class went at the local library. Well, I'm here to assure you, it was everything I had hoped for and more!

There were 8 of us in the knitting class (the crochet class was full - at least 15 people!). We had 3 teachers with us, one of them VERY experienced ;) All of them great.

The evening started out a bit chaotic (as every class does, probably), but we eventually found a technique that worked and soon we were off. All of the students came to class with different skills or needs and the teachers were great about accomodating all our wants/needs with grace. We had students who were rank beginners to those that had knit extensively many years ago and wanted a refresher. We even had a man in the class!

The first thing I learned was how to cast on stiches by knitting. I had been taught how to do the loop method of casting on and doing it with knitting makes a much nicer beginning row! So, once I picked up the technique, I helped the women on either side of me learn it, too. Then, I knitted a couple of rows for a base (because that's the only thing I came to the class knowing how to do), then asked one of the teachers to show me how to purl. Well, it was definitely awkward at first! I felt like I was trying to knit left-handed. But, after doing 2 or 3 rows of purl, it started to get a bit more familiar. Then I tried a couple rows of knit 1, purl 1. That was certainly adding more wrinkles to the old brain! LOL But, I actually had a couple rows of stockinette stitch! Whoa!

So, then I asked one of the teachers to explain to me how to reload the work on your needle if you need to take it off for one reason or another (i.e. dropped stitches - but none of us do that!). She happily took my work and pulled the needle out - didn't even bat an eyelash! So, she started to show me how to load it back on, and as it was a knit 1, purl 1 row, she was loading stitches one way for this stitch, then a different way for the next stitch...back and forth, and I was lost as to how she could possibly know how to do this. So, she handed me back my work and told me to work the next row. And, quietly informed me that she had purposely done a couple wrong and for me to find them. Um....right.

So, of I go, knit 1, purl 1....clickity clack, clickity clack....the teacher watching over my shoulder. And suddenly, I hit this stitch that just wasn't right. Can I explain what the problem was? No, not really, other than the right-hand needle didn't slide into it like it should have. The teacher quickly explained that she had loaded that stitch backwards and showed me how to take it off and turn it around ("be careful not to lose the stitch!" she cautioned). After doing that, I moved on...clickity clack, clickity clack....til I found the next backwards stitch. I fixed that one, too, to her great praise. And then I noticed this long string between the next 2 stitches. When I mentioned that it didn't look right, she beamed at me and told me she had purposely skipped that stitch to see if I would find the "dropped" stitch. Heh. She then showed me how to pick that stitch back up (not quite sure if I can do that again yet...might have to practice that later)...

Anyways, as much as that last paragraph makes it sound like I'm trying to praise myself, what I'm really trying to say is that I really appreciate the techniques these teachers were using to teach us. I really took to the method.

We didn't pick a pattern this week, it was more of a time to get a feel for where everyone's skills were at and to get the students comfortable holding 2 needles at once again. So, next week we're supposed to bring in a pattern that we might like to try and the teachers will give us the pointers we need to tackle it. I've got an afghan pattern that I really really want to try, but it's the most complicated cable pattern I've ever seen, so I know it's out of my skill range right now. So, I'm on the hunt for a cable scarf pattern that I can work with for this class to get the skills I need. I do plan to take this afghan pattern to class with me next week, though, to show the teachers where I'm aiming. And to see the looks on their faces :)