Christmas Card Recession-Style

I've been trying to get my holiday on whenever I have a day or two off work.  On Saturday, I made a winecork wreath-- the idea was to have somewhere to hang my Christmas cards.  I found several examples online being sold from anywhere between $70-90!  About a dozen hot-glue gun sticks later... I give you my (free) version:

Seriously, I had the worst hot-glue headache, and I no longer had fingerprints on most of my fingertips.  Now I guess I know why they charge so much... I had plenty of help with artistic decisions (and the wee one) since I made it at my in-laws' house.  If you want to make one, I recommend cutting the corks in half lengthwise and covering the entire wreath form before beginning to build it up with whole corks.  I used a foam wreath form that my MIL gave me, and I still have a whole bag of corks left if anyone wants them! My family will probably generate another bag-full with both sisters home for the holidays... hehe.

On Monday, my sis-in-law and I baked the gingerbread cupcakes with lemon cream cheese frosting from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World...  We had to makes lots of dairylicious modifications because that's all we could find around here.  I hope the authors don't mind me un-veganizing their recipe!  It's funny how I spent nine years veganizing things, and now I'm doing it the other way around.  They were delish... and with a neice and a nephew home & hungry after school, our dozen cupcakes didn't make it in time for Daddy Dana to get home from work.  Whoops.  They were a definite do-over.  We plan to make them again on the day after Christmas when we have our big Moberg reunion.  My sis-in-law and I make a good team because I love to bake but hate to do things like make frosting.  She made the frosting, frosted them, and topped them with crystallized ginger... while I moved on to mending my neice's favorite cat stuffed animal.

We also tortured the wee one with a Christmas photo shoot.  Enjoy, because I think this is my version of a Christmas card this year!

My little boy is eleven months old today!  You know what comes next... the big First Birthday... and then college, and he'll find a wife and leave me!  Look at this sweetness.  His little posture is just irresistable.   I know he must wonder why he gets scooped up and smothered with kisses when he is just minding his own business and playing with his toys.  But how can I not!?

Thanksgiving

I had five glorious days off work over Thanksgiving weekend.  I hope I don't see another casserole until Christmas...  I am proud of some of the productivity--

FO: Modern Cabled Baby Bib... I thought perhaps crappy pics were better than none at all!  I knitted the pattern as written, using some cheap-y kitchen cotton. 

two bobbins of handspun (rovings purchased at SAFF 2008)

a little embroidery...  A tea towel for my sister that I must have started four years ago...  It's finally finished... She has strict orders to use it, but not stain it!

We had a Thanksgiving celebration at our house on the Saturday after Thanksgiving to accomodate my work schedule.  I'm talking about thirty hungry people and a pool table covered in casseroles (please see above.)  Here are a few quick pics...  Two picnic tables full of family (from both ends of the table...)

We also found a little dachshund along-side the road over Thanksgiving weekend.  Dana had named her Phoebe before he even came through the kitchen door with her in his arms.  We tried to find her home, with no luck.  So, it seems like we might have a new addition to the family.  She is a total love-bug, and she is great with Little Dana.  Here they are like Romeo and Juliet.

We do have a lot to be thankful for, not to be a total cheeseball.  My father-in-law (aka Pop Pop) is doing great with chemo and radiation.  Here are the three bald Danas!  The little one either didn't recognize them at first... or wasn't sure why they were bitin' his style!

November's Best Pics

Re-cap

Not so sure where I've been & what I've been doing lately... Let's see if we can piece it together!

Before I left for SAFF, we had a wonderful family bonfire.  Everyone chipped in to create a feast, and we sat around the fire telling our "how we met" and "how we got engaged" stories.  That very day, I discovered something new about my son-- He had TEETH cutting through his gums.  (This picture was taken a week later when his little pearly whites were out enough to be photographed.)

SAFF was sooooo much fun and a much-needed girl/yarn weekend.  I will have to do a SAFF stash line-up later.  I haven't taken any photos of my new yarns.  On Sunday morning, Morgan and I took the class "Wonderful Wool" by Rita Buchanan.  It was more about properties of wool and wool preparation than a spinning technique class.  I learned a lot-- especially how to be a better shopper when it comes to buying wool for spinning...  Here is a picture Morgan snapped of me at my Lendrum spinning wheel.  I'm wearing my Noro Kureyon entrelac scarf... If you are dying to see all the handknits me and my friends sported at SAFF check this post on Knitty Nikki's blog!

To be honest, Halloween was a bust.  I had to work.  Our porch light was burned out.  We had no candy.  The boy's costume was a bit... make-shift.  His daddy didn't take him trick-or-treating.  His mother wouldn't let him have candy anyway.  He was supposed to be a lumberjack.  Here is the only picture taken of him on Halloween.  Told you it was pretty lame... His dada allegedly could not find his crocheted chainsaw to complete the costume.

The Friday before Halloween was lots of fun, however.  We carved pumpkins with my neice and nephew... Here was mine...

Morgan came over last weekend for lunch and knitting.  While the baby napped, we knitted and had tea...

I finished one Fetching (fingerless mittens with a cabled pattern) and she knocked out a hat and worked on a sock.

On the value and function of hats...

Little D. learned a lesson this weekend about hats.  He learned the 'why' of hats, let's say.  It turns out that they are especially important in the mountains and to people with no hair and nice, soft ears.  I did manage to snap one pic of the boys in their matching hats.  I love my boys.

LEAF was awesome... great group, great music, and our campsite was like a living room, complete with a plastic oriental rug, purple glider, end tables with candles and lanterns, teapot on the stove, and about seven coolers full of goodies...  We had lots of reasons to celebrate-- three engagements, a baby on the way, and a 30th birthday!  LEAFing with baby is a bit trickier than I thought it might be.  I didn't get to see as much music as I would have liked to between managing naptime, feedings, and keeping baby warm enough.  He rocked out to Cowboy Junkies on Friday night, and Soul Feather (New Orleans Indians in full regalia with horns and everything) on Saturday.  Daddy tucked baby in bed on Saturday night so mama could go dance to Zap Mama.  I thought he would sleep in the wagon at the main stage (haha!)  The weather was kinda rough-- rain on Friday and winds on Saturday-- but on Sunday the sun came out.  Baby could crawl in the grass again!  Without mittens!  All our friends were wonderful helpers with the wee one.  On Saturday night, six of us piled in the camper and sang an endless chorus of "Twinkle, twinkle" until he nodded off to dreamland.  The verdict: Spring LEAF, here we come!

On Monday, a new toy arrived in the mail... A surprise from Aunt Carol in Florida-- Baby's First Chainsaw!  She designed and crocheted him a chainsaw "stuffed animal."  I'm not sure if it is a Husqvarna or a Stihl, but he loves it!  All he needs is a Carolina Tree Care t-shirt, and he can be daddy for Halloween!

Off to LEAF (with everything plus the kitchen sink)!  Have a great weekend...

a-choo!

Click here to view this video

Boy Meets Apple

Still no teeth... but those gums can chomp!

FO: Hats for the Danas

How bout some actual knitting content?

The pattern: Basic Cable Hat from Stitch 'n Bitch Nation

The yarn: mystery acrylic

The needles: US 7s and 8s for the daddy hat and US7s for the baby hat

The story: Pictured above are the two acrylic hats I knitted for the boys. (Since I can't get living & breathing actual models, you shall see them as pictured on my doorstep.) It's not my style to knit with synthetic yarn, but I did enjoy making these. In 2000, I bought this yarn in Maine when I was a mere twenty years old, dreaming of learning to learn to knit or crochet a hat for my boyfriend. For years, I never learned, but I couldn't bring myself to donate the yarn to Goodwill. When I did learn to knit in 2004 and became a lover of wool, I still never threw out the mystery acrylic. The ballband is long lost. At least it's tweed acrylic, right? Nine years+ later, the boyfriend is the husband and the father. I knitted his hat first, while pregnant with our little boy who was very late in coming. I decided to boycott baby knitting and cranked out a few hats for the family. It only seemed appropriate now to finish up the leftovers into a matching hat for my little guy.

The mods: I knitted the ribbing of both hats using a 2x2 rib, instead of a K1,P1 as specified in the pattern. I think this flows into the cables nicely. I completed several more pattern repeats for the daddy hat, as I found the version in the book to be too short. I cast-on only 72 stitches for the baby hat. I would say it's a 9-12 mos. size.

The boy has been a real fashion animal lately... Here he is dressed to go to church last Sunday. He likes the contrast between fancy john-john and bare legs and feet. Rockin out in his African safari PJs (a gift from Aunt Lolly) this morning.Playing in the hay/"carpet" in Morgan's tent at Campmeeting. Like those pumpkin stains on his onesie? This is our normal day-t0-day look.

Every little boy needs a pair of railroad striped overalls. Out cold.

His newest wardrobe acquisition is a rib & cabled hat knitted by mommy. Unfortunately, he HATES it and snatches it off his head so fast that I can't get a decent picture. I knitted it out of *gasp* acrylic that was leftover from an identical hat that I made for his father when I was pregnant. I can't wait to see the boys in matching hats at LEAF.

Back to Aunt Lolly's jaywalkers... One down, one to go.

Little man serenaded us on our 5th wedding anniversary yesterday. Enjoy!

While in the Charleston area last weekend, we also visited the nearby Charleston Tea Plantation on Wadmalaw Island, which has been on my to-do list for ages. We made it in time for one of the last trolley ride/tours on Saturday. Little Dana got boisterous and very vocal toward the end of the tour, and I plugged him up with his favorite chew toy, my cellphone. So if you don't get any return texts from me, that's why! I learned so much about tea (Camellia sinesis) at the gardens. I had no idea what a sustainable and unique plant tea is! Once planted, the land never has to be tilled. The tea shrub can produce delicious tea leaves for 600 years. Tea doesn't require pesticides or herbicides, and because of the way it is harvested, most of the weeding is done by hand. I got the impression that only the new plants required much irrigation. I was fascinated by the place and would love to return for a flushing or when the plants are in bloom. The only tea grown in America is right down the road in Charleston.

Here are the boys on the trolley. Note that Little D. is wearing his feather romper. We have been getting lots of good use out of it, but next time I will definitely use the snap tape for easy access during diaper changes.




Hedgerows of Camellia sinesis.The nearest tea plantations are far, far away. The tour guide said that tea is not grown elsewhere in the US because it's not cost-effective, not because the climate is not right. It blows my mind that we can import a product, prepared by a thousand hands, from around the globe for cheaper than we can harvest it right here at home. A close-up in the propagation hut.
Tea is related to Camellia japonica and Camellia sasanqua, which Southerners are used to seeing growing down here. There is a tiny bloom on the plant... In a few weeks, the fields will be covered. I would love to go back and see this. Wouldn't you love to have honey made from the nectar of tea blossoms? Does this exist? If so, I need some. Here is the plantation's custom-made tea harvester... and my cute little boy and his grandmother. This machine does the work of five hundred men.







Little Dana helped host a tea party picnic for his cousins after school one day last week. It was pretty muggy before a thunderstorm, but everyone enjoyed several cups of tea... The menu included edamame, blueberry snacking cake, and little mock-chicken salad sandwiches.

Last weekend we stayed on Seabrook Island and went to a lovely wedding on John's Island. It was a big weekend for the little man. Baby D. got to crawl on the beach for the first time... He went for a late September dip in the ocean with his grandmother... He rocked his "nailor nuit" (as my mom calls his sailor suit) for the probable last time. Even though it was his second wedding, it was the first time he was held by a bride! As always, I wish I'd taken more pictures! We tried various ways to keep him entertained throughout the reception... stroller, baby Bjorn, any available arms, but his favorite time was crawling around under live oaks. He is his father's son.