Thankful for teeth

Last year's explanation about teeth. It is all still true. I am looking forward to tomorrow. At one point we thought Mr. Gnome would be working tomorrow evening. I was upset and he was surprised. He didn't think I cared that much for the holiday. It's not so much the holiday it's one of the few days I thought I had guaranteed he would be home. He didn't get scheduled and that is something to be thankful for.
Our dinner menu this year:

Mushroom, Cheese Vegetable Strudel
Green Beans with Walnuts and Shallot Crisps
Garlicky Mashed Sweet Potatoes
Double Cranberry Chutney
Fall Salad

This is the cover of the Nov/Dec Vegetarian Times if you happened to see it. That baby came in the mail and I proclaimed Thanksgiving Dinner planned. As we came closer I realised I didn't have a dessert planned. I'll admit it we like our special treats around here. They are almost always home made and generally are from fruit and have whole grains in them but they are still treats. But I'm not a huge fan of Pumpkin Pie, I'll eat it if you put it in front of me but making it... I asked Mr. Gnome if he had any suggestions he had his usual answer. Cheese Cake. The boy loves cheese cake, well he loves anything with cheese to be honest. We got a spring form pan when we got married and I think I made cheese cake once. Not so much because it's hard because it really isn't. More because the idea of just the two of us eating a cheesecake is kind of nasty. Now we have the bug and I'm sure she'll help. At first I said yeay right not gonna happen. Then as I was looking through my recipes I came across at Autumn Apple Cheesecake. And though well you know... that would be yummy. And he has been working a lot lately. And I am thankful for his dedication to this family that leads him to work those hours. So.....

I made the cheesecake.

Is that a bottle of soda or are you just happy to see me?

What home is complete without a 20 inch bottle of soda? Makes the perfect accent cushion for any room.

Every joke has been made about it's... shape.

Uncooked

You know I have nothing to show when I show you food. You can probably guess things are really desperate when the food isn't even cooked. This is one clove of garlic. I got the bulb at the farmer's market a few weeks ago. Since one clove equals more like three it's lasted me a while. I love garlic and all but this is crazy!I've been wanting to make the Vegan Goldfish Crackers for a while. Not having a goldfish shaped cookie cutter (and wondering if it being goldfish shaped would negate the vegan ingredients) we used a small heart shaped cutter. Hearts of gold I call them. These are the second batch waiting to go in the oven. They're pretty good, very basic, but then the Bug likes basic. Wow look knitting! This is the pillow I'm making my youngest brother. It's the pattern for the beer pillow from Son of Stitch N Bitch remade to be a bottle of Mountain Dew. The kid (well he's 22) loves the stuff. It's a little weird really. I'm going to outline the words with white and then it gets sewn up. He's either going to think it's cool or think I'm crazy. Well I guess he might think both. Both would be good.

Shhhh

Only one Hush Holiday knit is leaving me with surprisingly little to say. Between knitting on this hush project I made the bug Playground mittens.

She refused to model them though she has worn them. We'll see if she wears them other than playing. I modified the pattern a bit to make them smaller. I have no idea where the yarn came from or what it it. Very soft whatever it might be.
The current sock are Mardi Gras Monkeys. The yarn is called Mardi Gras for reasons I don't understand not being Mardi Gras colors nor smelling of alcohol. I like it though and the Monkey pattern is so easy. Nearly one sock done. The yarn is Pagewood Farm, it's the yarn I got when we visited my family in Richmond VA this past summer.

Hats and the movies they love

Masculine Thorpe for my brother. Modeled on Mr. Gnome in case you were wondering if we were in West Virginia. Made masculine with manly colors and no braids coming off the ear flaps, and just bigger. It reminds me of those old foot ball helmets. Maybe Josh will look like George Clooney in it. The gray is Plymouth Encore Bulky, the brown is some sort of left over, and the green is Elann's bulky. Quick and easy knit. Hope the cow likes it.

This week I made Lyra's hat for the Bug. The hat is inspired by a hat worn in the Golden Compass. We watched this movie a few months ago and while watching I kept thinking "wow those are some neat knits, I'll have to Ravelry Golden Compass". And thus Ravelry is used as a verb. There is an entire group for this movie figuring out how to make all those things that made me say "hey that's neat". Fun and geeky. This hat is so thick and so warm it'll be great on windy days. This turned into a bit of a stash buster too. Three different partial pink balls and the last of a some bulky white went into this hat. It's big it's pink; the Bug loves it

Dishcloth Extravaganza-Postponed

Due to the outrageous price of airline tickets to the North East we will not be visiting family for the holidays this year. This means non-specific gifts for whomever happens to be at the festivities are not needed. We are planning a drive to all family this summer. I will most likely make dish clothes as a thank-you-for-letting-us-crash-here gift.
I am making holiday gifts. I finished a hat for one of my brothers, need to take a picture. I'm almost done with the secret thinger. And I haven't even started on the pillow for my other brother. Though I'm quite excited about the pillow and think it'll be frickin' awesome. More on that as it comes.

Well I did it

First time voting. First time living in a swing state, it'll have an affect on you. I didn't get a I Voted sticker, that was yet another line, and after two hours of waiting Bug and I were done.

Shiny!

The Kaylee Socks have actually been done for over a week. And they are cool!!! Look at them.

This is the Jitterbug yarn I got in Florida last summer during a bit of family reunion time. The colors just seemed right for Florida. The pattern seemed right for the yarn. All is happy. This was a crazy easy and fast pattern. This is the first time I've used a sock pattern that actually needed a specific gauge and I got that using size 2s which seem way bigger than 0s. Doing the yarn overs then getting to drop them on the next row was just fun and neat and different.

I think Kaylee would wear them. Mmm need to watch some Firefly.