New Year's Eve

We went to my parents' house for dinner, where we were joined by my sister, her husband and their new puppy, Uncle Frank and Aunt Theresa, and my cousins Jennifer and Jessica. Did I remember to take the camera? Ha ha - no. Again, I forgot. Sigh.

In the meantime, the knitted kittens have doubled.


Instead of finishing the shawl-that-is-sucking-the-life-out-of-me, I procrastinated by making this quilted throw out of old college shirts.

The sashing is made from leftover bits of my sons' flannel receiving blankets (I used the bulk of them to make quilts for each), the cotton batting is from an old blanket, and the backing is a worn pillowcase. Yep, except for the thread, it's made entirely from recycled materials.

I like the idea of quilt-making, but I don't currently have the space for it, ideally an off-limits room where I can place the sewing machine, a cutting table, and bolts of fabric. The other thing that's prevented me from serious quilting is that, for me, it feels wasteful to take on a craft that requires buying lots of raw materials. I mean, if I really needed a blanket or throw, I would just buy the finished object rather than purchase the raw materials required to make it. Of course, I buy yarn for knitting, but for each skein I get hours and hours of knitting enjoyment, and I don't "stash" yarn as many knitters do. I don't mean to make myself sound virtuous, but even when my scrap yarn pile gets too big, I make little things like toys - hence the stuffed kitties - to use up as much of it as possible.

I haven't been reading, so much as flipping through various books looking for crafty inspiration. Why do I love the public library? Because it has many out-of-print craft books full of retro designs. This is The Splendid Soft Toy Book (London: Pan Books, 1988), ISBN 0-330-28746-x.







Check out the dachshund on the right page, below. I like its curvy, stylized lines.


A book I picked up before Christmas that I've been enjoying much is Christmas Days. It's printed by a small Toronto press, and is an advent calendar. There's a short 5-10 page section on each topic (e.g. Fake Snow, Christmas Crackers), which describes its history in Canada.


What sold me on this book were the end papers, showing a denuded forest.

I also very much like the illustrations by Toronto artist, Seth. Here is his contribution for the entry on Christmas crackers.

Christmas

This year, there aren't many pictures.

On Christmas Eve, the children decorated the tree and I strung on the lights. Is there a picture? No, I forgot to take one.

For Christmas dinner, we had my parents, older sister and husband, spouse's parents, and two friends, OS and RG, over at our place. We ate prime rib roast with mashed potatoes, gravy, yams, squash, rice and veggies. Did I get pictures of the guests or the meal? Of course not! Again, I forgot. However, in the days after Christmas, I did take pictures of my knitting, and of my new favourite place to knit (y'know, the important things!).

But first, to show that I'm not a totally negligent parent who forgets to record everything, here are the kids a few days before Christmas, at their school daycare concert and party.



This is Christmas morning.

After a few fuzzy snaps like these, I gave up trying to photograph the unwrapping of gifts.




Santa must've been high on his asthma inhaler when he decided that it was okay to give a 6 year-old a complete set of real karate weapons.

From left to right, there are kamas, nunchuka, sais, throwing stars, child-sized tonfas, and a child-sized bo staff.


Right after this picture was taken, I went upstairs to put away the camera. I heard loud banging and ripping noises. Yes, he was stabbing boxes with his sharp sais.

We got a new sectional sofa right before Christmas, the anniversary furniture I blogged about. Here is my new favourite place to knit. You'll have to imagine the couch without the kids' blankets draped all over it - it really is a very nice-looking set in dark blue corduroy.



With aikido and karate closed for the holidays, I've had more time to knit, and this is what I've been making. The boring, never-ending shawl (which is, at last, almost finished), but also this octopus water bottle holder that was requested by someone These are WIP pics. When it was finished, I was in such a hurry to get to the post office to mail it off that I didn't get a shot of the FO.



This is a belated Christmas gift for my niece, the kitten toy from Knitty.




I like this pattern very much. I'm wondering if I can modify it to make a knitted kokeshi resembling this one.


My younger sister in the UK couldn't celebrate Christmas until her in-laws arrived on Boxing Day. I expect she'll send me photos of the happenings at her house, and I'll post them here in January.

Finally, I leave you with some onigiri I've been making, from a recipe I blogged about previously. Mmmm... onigiri.

Another Finished Object

I finished the second hot water bottle cozy. This one's for my niece. With this project, I experienced knitter's black hole for the first time. This phenomenon was first described by popular knit-blogger and author, the Yarn Harlot. You'll know you've encountered it when you knit for several hours, and have only an inch of fabric to show for it. You put it down for a day or two, pick it up and knit for twenty minutes, and miraculously, your knitting grows by ten inches. Such was this cozy.


I knitted a pocket with a chicken, as my niece was born in the Year of the Rooster. Sadly, the intarisa motif from Zoe Mellor's Double Knits turned out looking more like a deformed lizard.


But, not for nothing did I go to art college! It was saved by some quick embroidery.


This is how much I love my little niece, even though I've yet to meet her - I sewed a lining to the pocket so that her tiny fingers won't get tangled in the intarsia.


Here's the FO, ready for its trip to England. I finished it tonight, just in time to deliver it to my sister's in-laws tomorrow morning. They're spending the holidays in London with my sister and her family.


Here are more gifts that are going along with it.

Gingerbread

I can’t remember where I got this gingerbread recipe, but it’s very good - dark and spicy, and not too sweet. In fact, my kids won’t touch it because it’s not sweet enough for them, which means it’s just right for the adults in the family.



2 ½ c. flour
½ c. sugar
1 ½ tsp baking soda
2 tsp ground ginger
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground cloves
½ tsp salt
½ c. vegetable oil
1 c. molasses
1 c. fresh dark coffee
1 egg

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Mix all ingredients together. Pour into a cake pan, the square kind if you have it. Bake 30-35 minutes. Cool and serve with whipped cream.

The Nephew Has Been Busy, Too

One of the reasons I keep a blog is to share photos with distant family members. I've been remiss in posting some of these lately, so without further delay...

My nephew went to his first Thomas Day Out.


My sister writes: It was an hour and a half drive from London, and a lot of it was outdoors so the baby and I didn't go (both sick). Thomas was the only train that actually looked like one of the cartoon engines. Most of them looked like this - normal steam engines with faces stuck on the front. He also got to see Santa in one of the passenger cars. All the kids get a gift and it's a bit random. He was quite pleased because he got a wooden train set. His friend, however, got a book so there was a bit of fighting over who would play with the train. His father gave the friend one of the cars to play with (there was an engine and two cars), which satisfied no one.

Here he is in costume for the Christmas play. He was the camel feeder.


There was a party afterward.

Party, Party, Party!

First, a finished object, ready to be shipped to London to warm some little toes.


We went to three holiday parties this weekend. I'm so exhausted I'm already yearning for another weekend to recover. There was a children's party at the kids' old dojo on Saturday afternoon, my friend Juanita's shindig that evening (highly enjoyable and with very good food), and my spouse's employer's children's party the next day (wow, that's a lot of genitives in a row). I brought the camera only for the latter.






Next weekend will be better - we have only one party to attend. The weekend after that is the big family Christmas dinner of course, hosted by me as usual.

I made some onigiri (rice balls) this weekend, using a recipe from a blog I read once in while. Here are some of the ingredients.


I got the only brand of rice that the little Japanese market sold, Kokuho Rose from Koda Farms, the same brand that came highly recommended by another popular blogger. You gotta love a rice that's pre-washed!

You're supposed to stuff the balls with something savoury. The spouse wanted avocado so I made some of those, and I wanted salmon but used lox instead. Even though the fillings we used were non-traditional, we thought they tasted pretty good.