9 Days Later & Still Festive, Dammit!
9 days since I posted last, I have been too crafty to type. Well, aside from Facebook, but yeah, that can’t really be helped at this point. So sit back for heaps of pics full of crafty madness, domestic bliss, great friends and yummy food.Our first photo has a wee back story. For Halloween this year Richard invited Aunties Em & T to come trick or treating with us. I had told him about Auntie T’s horribly cold Halloween experiences, and he thought she should know how much fun it can be. This was also around the time they were both granted Auntie status, and they each picked out a little gift as a thank you for being invited, you know because at their core, they’re both polite Canadian girls. So Talea gives him grass in a little purple guy with candy. Sweet. We all honestly thought he’d lose interest and I’d forget about it – but no! Look at this thing now!
It has officially out grown the purple guy, (who now holds mini M&Ms in the play room), and is living in it’s own terra cotta pot on the windowsill in the kitchen. Good call, Auntie T!
Sunday was also the day we broke into the sidewalk chalk Auntie Em picked out for him for Halloween. Weather hasn’t really been working in our favor for using sidewalk chalk for it’s intended purpose (what with all the snow), so we went hunting for black construction paper instead and made some masterpieces. Behold.
Monday we made a whole lot of Rice Krispie people, and some squares. I prefer to make people to the traditional squares because my Dad is a hippy that way and never cut them into squares when I was a kid. Also, my dear friend Brigitte and I used to make these while giggling and hunting for 2am snacks as teenagers, but by the time it came to cutting them up, we’d just roll them into balls, because we used to be lazy like that. Next time we’re going to go all sugar high and make them with chocolate features and royal icing clothes.
Tuesday I did a practice run of some special treats with the kids that I can’t post pics of yet because those secret confections are surprises for dear blog reading friends.
Wednesday and Thursday were spent knitting and ripping back and knitting and almost finishing, and cursing at and then reknitting and finally finishing exactly half of Talea’s Christmas gift. Naturally, I can’t post any revealing photos, (I love that this sentence would mean something entirely different on someone else’s blog!), but I can say that getting to the halfway point involved taking all of these pretty little beads and stringing them onto the thread for some hand sewing.
Friday involved a whole lot of knitting on socks for my mom. I finished the first sock and immediately cast on for the second sock, to avoid ‘Second Sock Syndrome’. It is a sight to behold, really, this sucker has taken longer than I thought and I had to edit the pattern to make it work. Here it is just before I shaped the toe.
I’ll now go into great detail for the sock knitters, feel free to scroll on by. The pattern is a 4 row repeat, and I love the way it turned out. What impressed me the most about this sock is the heel, I’ve never shaped a heel like this before and it’s fantastic. Not only do we have a little slip 1, purl 1 action going on, but there is NO SEAM between the top of the sock, the heel and the bottom of the sock. Usually I pick up the stitches on the side and make a sort of triangle where the heel meets the leg and the foot of the sock and then keep knitting in a circle. This pattern worked the decreases differently, so you still pick up the stitches on the side, but you skip the triangle step and keep knitting in a seamless circle. Am I excited about this sock? Yes. Is that a bad thing? Jury’s still out on that one.
Saturday we spent the day getting ready for the Stitch n Bitch Cookie Exchange! You know that sounds like fun! I made Martha’s Checkerboard Cookies, I’ve been making them since I was 17 and the recipe was first printed in the magazine. They are fiddly to make, and involve a ruler, but who doesn’t like busting out the rulers while baking?
This of course set me up for an entire day of baking these, butter cookies and a practice run of salt dough ornaments.
Sunday was the Stitch n Bitch Cookie Exchange, and it was even more fun than I had psyched myself up for, if that’s even possible. My dear friends Cait, Talea and Emerald were there of course, along with more dear friends, Lindsay, Manda, Gillian, Andrew & Magda.
Here’s the spread minus Cait, Lindsay & Manda’s cookies (I took the pic before they arrived).
It was a yummy day full of laughter and good friends, which always leaves me feeling warm and fuzzy.
This is me with my BFF Cait! She’s not fond of this pic, but it really puts across the cheer.
Naturally, there were cute friends posing with their cookies, and of course there was knitting, being a Stitch n Bitch after all!
Talea’s Butterscotch Chocolate Chip Cookies and knitting that will become a bag.
Gillian and her Candy Cane Shortbread, and Andrew with his Chocolate Chip Cookies, unforch I did not get a pic of them knitting. 
Emerald and her Amaretto Cookies, she was not having a good time purling at all.
Cait with her Buckwheat Surprise Cookies! Surprise! There’s Buckwheat in them! This pic of Cait knitting is a really big deal to me because she’s knitting on double pointed needles and that, my friends, is my most loved type of knitting.
Manda with her huge spread of goodies and her striped scarf. This needs some background, when Manda came to her first Stitch n Bitch, she was really lost. The wine didn’t help the knitting, but it did make for a fun evening, now that she’s knitting without wine, it’s coming together! I’m so proud of her!
I love my dear friend Lindsay for so many reasons, but things like putting on the Optimus Prime mask and declaring Optimus Knitting is one of those gems that really puts it over the top. She’s working on a Christmas gift that I wont spoil by writing about. I will say though that two weeks ago I really wasn’t sure if it was going to work out and now she’s a Knitosaurus Rex!
Magda with the Peanut Butter Cookies that gave her so much trouble, and her newest scarf. She struggled to learn and has now knit more scarves than anyone else in the group! Go Magda!
Monday was the day I got into the glitter, mod podge and Sharpies. I made salt dough git tags for everyone, if you don’t see your name/initial, you’re in the next batch. 
First I rolled out the dough and cut as many stars as would fit on the cookie sheet, 2 hours later at 250, and voila.
Then after they cooled off (about 1/2 hour), I painted one side red, waited another 1/2 hour or so for that to dry and then painted the other side. Once they were all red and dry, I used a wee paintbrush with clear drying glue and painted on each person’s first initial. This one was made for Richard.
Then I covered the initial with glitter! I *love* glittter but free range use of it has been banned by the husband machine after an incident a couple of years ago with my sister. So I had to do it in a shoe box, but it worked!
Theeeeeen, I did that over and over (26 times, 2 are not pictured) and once the glitter was dry (not that it ever *really* dries) I covered them all in Mod Podge so no one has glitter in their houses. The inside joke would be ’so no one has a sparkle storm’, there are at least 8 people laughing their heads off at that right now.
So here we have Cait and Emerald’s gift tags, and I will show off the rest of them once they’re finished and maybe all strung up on something.
The rest of whatever time I end up with today will be divided between Mom’s sock, the second half of Talea’s gift, more salt dough gift tags and a batch of cookies or two to freeze till next week. Richard is having his party this weekend, so I’ll probably try to get in some of that prep work too.
Enough blogging, back to the crafting!
