I Love a Paradkp

 

We went down to the town Christmas parade yesterday. I took some photos to post and I wanted to use this one but there was a lady standing in front of the banner. I used the erase feature on my phone for the first time ever and it worked great but look how it spelled parade on the banner. So much for AI. 

It's a cozy little parade where the local politicians get a chance to show themselves off and hand out candy.

We always look forward to the librarians. They do this little cart dance that gets a lot of applause from the crowd.

The bookmobile was manned by a familiar face.

The high school band was very good. They had a baton twirling snowman walking along with them.

And of course the big event is the arrival of this guy on the fire truck. Pup hates the noisy firetrucks so The Mister takes her back to the car so I can stand there gawking like a 5 year old. 

I came home with pockets stuffed with candy. It was a good day in spite of all our beautiful snow melting away in the afternoon sun. It was pretty while it lasted.

Later that night Santa came around on the fire truck. He doesn't come down our road but I get two different views through our woods as he circles the neighborhood. I guess I better get that tree up tomorrow. I think Christmas is here to stay. 

Snow Day

 

The weather people were hemming and hawing with their maps on Thursday about whether we would get snow yesterday. They could have saved themselves the trouble if they had just called me. I had my snow headache all day. It's a sure thing and it kept me up all night until the snow started at about 4 am.

It seems we skipped sweater weather this year. We went from tee shirts to winter coats overnight. My poor mini roses got caught out in the cold. 

We rarely get snow this early in the season. Maybe it was all those snow socks I knit for myself and the Grands. Maybe it was Mr. Frosty here that I found in the rug stash. I'd been looking online for a winter rug project and didn't remember I had bought this guy a few years ago. I found him in the closet quite by accident. I've got too much going on right now to start working on him but I did get some of the wool cut into strips. I'll get serious in January. 

Assembly Line

 

There's a lot going on in the downstairs craft room right now. I'm halfway through making Christmas cards and just starting making invitations for one of the Grand's January birthday party.

I've enlisted the help of The Mister who never minds doing some coloring. He's also very good with the Cuttlebug. He'll have a pile of the base paper cut out in no time. What he won't do is the die cutting of the critters. It's tedious and exacting but it still beats cutting them all out by hand.

I know what he'd rather be doing. He'd spend all day on his puzzles if I let him. He couldn't wait to start his Advent puzzle. I even bought him a new puzzle board for it so that........

...he can still work on our Santa puzzle. We've been getting this puzzle out since 1994. It's battered and worn. It even has a piece missing but it wouldn't be Christmas without it. 

Advent Knitting Pt 2

 

Since I was pretty sure I wasn't going to get my Cozy Knitter Advent Sock yarn here on time I went ahead and pulled some holiday themed yarn out of the stash and started my own KAL. That was what the other knot bag was for. This is Felici in the Buddy colorway and as you can see I made an almost fatal error. I DIDN'T REWIND THE BALLS to check for knots and there WAS A KNOT in one of them. Ugh....I HATE knots when I'm trying to match socks. This time I was lucky. I pulled all the green out and measured it and the knot wasn't taking up too much of it. I did knit the green stripes on both socks after I took the photo and you can't see the difference. Whew. I never gift spliced socks so these will be mine which is fine. My old holiday socks look pretty rough.

My other Advent knit in progress is the 2025 Christmas Stocking by Arne and Carlos. I had to wait for the KAL to end and the pattern to be completed so I could reverse it and knit it cuff down. You do six rows a day. If I can keep that up by Christmas Eve I should have another stocking to hang by my non-existent chimney with care.

The Tomte stocking that I was knitting along with the Arne and Carlos KAL is finished. It still needs blocking but right now it's nestled among my mini Advent sweaters where it will most likely remain until after Christmas.

While not exactly an Advent knit, The Mister's sweater is finally starting to look like something. I've got it up to the underarms so tomorrow I'll be casting on the first sleeve. It's been a great project for when I'm watching Stranger Things or Welcome to Derry. I can't do gore so having something to keep my eyes off the screen has been a good thing. I find I knit pretty darn fast when I'm on the edge of my seat. 

Wednesday WIPs: Advent Edition Pt 1

 

I swore last year, after watching all of the vloggers opening up their Advent packages, that I would have one this year. I signed up for the very popular Cozy Knitter 24 Stripe Advent Sock notifications so I wouldn't miss the pre-order window. I missed it. Then I saw on her website that she was going to send out her overstock and I missed that too. I checked back last week and saw that she was dyeing more and would have it out when she could get it out so I went ahead and ordered thinking it wouldn't be here until later in the month. It was here on December 1st. Squeeee...

That's what one of the holiday project bags was for. I didn't know the colors yet but looking at her past Advent colors I bet on jewel tones and I was right. How perfect is that? 

Monday night I was furiously winding so I could catch up with the day's stripe. I was very happy to see that the skeins were marked as to where you should start to get matching socks. Much appreciated and a huge time saver. I'm caught up but they don't  look like much yet. I'll show them off after I get a few more stripes on.

TNT: You Can't Have Just One

 

It's December so it was time to get the Christmas Quaker back out. My goal this week is to fill in that empty box on the right. I had to stitch it twice last night because counting is hard.

I was really excited last year to find this old kit in my stash and planned on using it for an Advent stitching project but when I started working on it this week I realized it was BIG. Too big. I also didn't like the 14 count Aida it came with. I'm going to order a 16 count and see if I can shrink it up but none of that will happen this year so it's back in the stash for now. 

While I was digging around in the stash I found this old project that I had started ages ago. I have several of these Santa kits. I finished the one on the left a while back. I'm going to try to get a few grid squares done a week. It's very slow, tedious stitching but it keeps my brain busy while I'm watching those brain numbing Christmas movies on Netflix after dinner. This year's crop is really bad.
 

December!!!

 

I don't have any festive decor to show off yet. The holiday weekend wore me out but I did make two holiday knot bags last week before all the crazy started on Thursday. I've got planned projects that will go in them but one is not here yet. I'm watching that tracking carefully.

I also made a holiday grime guard for my biggest Q Snap. What a nightmare that was. The math wasn't mathing for me and neither was threading that elastic through that long casing.

I ordered a set of bodkins after reading about them on one of your blogs. I haven't tried them yet but I have high hopes. Anything is better than safety pins.

I'm going to try them out on this old drawstring bag that needs a new string. 

I ran out of steam in the sewing room but I've still got the material to make one more bag for January projects. Right now December looks over planned with new holiday projects. Let's see how far I get with any of them. If December goes by as quickly as November did, I'm in trouble.

Lighting Up the Town

 

Brrrrr.....last night the town had it's annual tree lighting ceremony and holiday marketplace. The only problem was that it was COLD. Wind chills in the 20's. We were lucky enough to get a nearby parking space so we went back and forth to the car to warm up while waiting for the countdown. Pup was bundled in her stroller with no complaints.

In spite of the weather there was a big crowd.

There were a surprising number of vendors who came out to brave the winds. The Mister bought this collection of fancy whiskey. I bought some kettle corn.

Since Halloween, we've been watching the city workers put up the displays all over town. 

The koi pond park turns into a fairyland for the season. 

If this weather keeps up we'll be ice skating on that pond. 

It was so cold that the usually long winded mayor just did a short countdown and flipped that switch so we could all head back home.Thank goodness for that. I was freezing. The weather changed so suddenly here that I never had a chance to dig out my really warm things. I guess I'll be doing that today.

Giving Thanks Pt 2

We left early Thursday morning to get up to Daughter's so I could see the end of the Macy's Parade. I turn into a kid the minute Santa comes on the screen. It's always nice to have one of the littles around to share the excitement. 

Up in Detroit the other Little Grands had a bird's eye view of their parade. That whole city was rocking because of the football game being played there. They didn't win the game but they did win the half time show competition. Jack White AND Eminem? Yes, ma'am.

My artichoke dip was a bust but dinner went off without a hitch. SIL smoked a turkey and there was a honey baked ham. It made it very hard to stay a vegetarian but I stuck to the carrots, green beans and Brussels sprouts. 

We had arts and crafts time after dinner with the Really Big Grands. We made glittery turkeys.

There was a baby's idea of music but only when he wasn't running around the room. I can't believe how well he's walking now and how long he could keep it up. He rarely sat down all day.

After everything was cleaned up The Mister and SIL had a fire while watching the last of the day's games while sipping on Black Walnut Old Fashions in the 30 degree weather.

While the babies were in bed and the men were outside, Daughter and I put up her Christmas tree. When Big Grand came down in the morning he was very surprised that Santa had dropped off a tree for him to decorate. He liked the tree but said it needed "rainbow lights". It wasn't long before he discovered the switch that changes the color of the lights. It's going to be a battle between him and his mother from now on for control of those lights. So far, he's been winning.

And...I was asked about what went wrong with the dip I made. I think it was the addition of sour cream and Parmesan cheese. I've made this before and it was good but I think I pulled up a different online recipe this time. I do believe the recipe I have used in the past had no sour cream and used mozzarella instead of the Parmesan. I do know I spent a lot of money on the ingredients for something that went right in the trash. It was that bad.

Giving Thanks Pt. 1

 

Pup and I slept on the couch Wednesday night so I could be up bright and early to get food prepped. First was my grandmother's infamous jello salad. Carrots and pineapple in orange jello topped with mayonnaise. Everyone in the family hates it but I love it. It tastes like Thanksgiving memories to me. 

Then it was some Spinach Artichoke dip that had to be mixed. I was hauling all this up to Daughter's to be baked. I should have just chucked this whole thing in the trash before I left because it was terrible. I’m never making that again.

I gave a big sigh of relief when I was done chopping vegetables for a relish tray. I was certainly giving thanks at this point. I was thankful that this was all I had to do other than knit 2 hours in the car on the way up.

Gobble, Gobble

 

Old Tom Turkey wants to wish everyone a happy Thanksgiving before he gets packed away until next year. I might get a little more done before the calendar turns over to December on Monday but I doubt it. We've got a long weekend packed with things to do. 

Wednesday WIPs: Something Done, Something New

 

I just made it. I wanted the last of the Halloween socks done by Thanksgiving and I pulled it off. The yarn is Static in The Bookhouse Boys colorway and now they are in the gift box. These are man sized so they did take me a bit longer than the others.

I'm past the waste yarn for the afterthought heel on the Christmas Stocking but I've run out of KAL podcasts to knit along with so that's no fun. Arne and Carlos ended their KAL on Sunday but will be back this Sunday to begin their Advent shows. That's a good thing because I need the company.

What's keeping me the busiest this week has been this. Remember my blankety blank Riddari? I complained for an entire year about it.  I got it out of storage last week and started wearing it again and The Mister could not stop harping about how I've never knit him a sweater and could I make him one like this one. Argh....Luckily for him I like my sweaters big and baggy so except for needing some added length in the sleeves mine fits him perfectly. I only agreed to this folly because I'm pretty sure he will wear it once and hate it so it will end up coming back to me. 

And....someone asked me if the new camel project was needlepoint and it is. I hadn't opened the box yesterday but I have now and this is what I found. As much as I love Funky Flowers, the yarn is cheap and old so I wanted to try something with decent yarn. This little thing wasn't cheap. It was gulp...$70 but I'm this close to my birthday so I threw the budget out the window and bought it.