More Hats

Last week I decided to make my brother and nephew hats for Chanukkah. yes. more. hats. At least two people at knitting group recognized them as Gryphonder hats so I feel good about that. I did follow the pattern in Charmed Knits (I love my library!) and used Cascade 220. My brother is a huge Harry Potter dork, his son (I still find it weird to say my baby brother has a son!) is too young to care. I wanted them to match but not be matchy and I think this is a nice way to accomplish that.
Holiday shopping and knitting is done!

Risking It

We didn't put any of the glass or breakable ornaments on the tree. It is nice to have the tree up again.

Three Sweaters in Three Days

What, not impressed? These are the Mini-Weasley Sweater Ornaments from Charmed Knits. I modified it to knit in the round. The yarn is Jameison DK using size 5 needles. The dark one is for the male in the family and the light ones for us females. I plan to make sweaters for kitties past and present before the end of the year. However, Chanukkah is next week and I just decided to make hats for two people. So if you don't mind I have some knitting to do.....

Thanksgiving

I'm liking the Thanksgiving tradition we have fallen into here. A relaxed morning, watching the Macy's Day parade. This year Mr. Gnome made omelets, he can make a darn good omelet. Mr. Gnome then tends the fire while I cook. The Bug flits between helping me and helping daddy. Dinner making finishes around 3-4pm. One of the many joys of not cooking a bird is that it really doesn't take a crazy amount of time to get everything together. Then we go for a walk around the block, or sometimes further, it depends on the weather. Followed by dessert, though sometimes we wait until later. Then just more relaxing until The Bug's bed time.
And of course there is my Thanksgiving with teeth blog post. Though this year I will be calling it Thanksgiving with teeth but without Tofurkey. As soon as people find out you don't eat the real turkey they assume you must be having a Tofurkey. Well no. Above is Caramelized Sweet Potatoes and Red Onion Braid, Wilted Spinach Salad (that's what it's called though it's really not that wilted), and Winter Squash, Leek, and Apple Soup with Apple Cider Creme Friache. I've made the braid before, though it's been a few years. The soup was simple but tasty. And the salad was a nice refreshing compliment to the rest of the meal. There was of course also Cranberry Sauce and Apple Pie for dessert.
This year we got a fluke snow shower in the middle of the day. By dinner the ground was mostly white. This kept our post Thanksgiving walk to just around the block.

Hats

I generally don't blog about the knits I get paid to make. It seems like cheating somehow. I can't explain it. There are five hats and two scarves on my current work load. Yes, you do see Red Heart. I've said it before but it needs repeating, when someone offers to pick out the yarn for something you are going to knit don't let them, or at least bring them to a LYS. The masses must be educated!

Food+Craft=Occipied Kid

One of the things I did with all of those apples was dehydrate them. Mmm Dried Apples. The first batch I did normal, when I started the second batch I had an idea. Instead of cutting them like I'd normally cut up an apply I halved them through the middle, cored them, then sliced them so they made big Os. Perfect for stringing onto a necklace. Now The Bug loved making necklaces, give her some string and beads and she is a happy girl.
A necklace she could eat; this was definitely something she could sink her teeth into! Ha ha ha!

TV Stand

We've never really had an official TV stand. For a while it was a shelving unit that had been owned by various people in my family. Then it was an ex-record player holder that we found in out house in Vermont. This last one was been working for me at least for the last four years or so, Mr. Gnome, however never liked it. But we could never agree or reason the cost of anything else. Then we insulated the attic.
While removing random things from the attic we found the above piece of neat wood as well as a less interesting but useful piece of wood.
Mr. Gnome designed the above only having to purchase the legs. Then life happened. It got it's many coats of paint over the past few weeks in between everything else All the while being tripped over in the living room. Finally after about five coats of paint and three times over to make the stripes it is done and in place. I'm rather happy with it. It looks put together and cute. The Bug and I found the buckets and basket at an Antique Mall.

{this moment}

As inspired by Soulemama and Life with Will and Quinn is nice inspiration as well.

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. If you're inspired to do the same, leave a link to your 'moment' in the comments for all to find and see.

Gray Love

Well I don't know about Love. But definitely more gray.More gray for Mr. Gnome to be exact. Yup, not only am I such a great wife that I'll knit my husband a sweater I'll make him some socks while I'm at it. We did question what me choosing all this gray for him meant.

The Gray Thing Revealed-partially

Partially because it doesn't have sleeves and partially because it's a crap picture. This is the body of Point Gammon Pullover (model not included) from the Fall Interweave Knits magazine. As you may have guessed it's for Mr. Gnome. I started this thing in early September and just finished the body this morning. I put it out to block and told Mr. Gnome he could look at the floor in the office/craft room if he was interested. He saw it.....I'm not sure what he thinks of it...... sigh

Lasagna

So I have to talk more about yesterday's lasagna. I may not be cool enough for Vegan MoFo; I do try to be cool enough to read about it.
I'm calling the lasagna an Italian Feast Lasagna; though really it was I have a bunch of stuff that needs to be used in the fridge and this is what I came up with lasagna. But you see, Italian Feast Lasagna just sounds tastier.
First noodles, then sauteed zucchini, then Vegan Dad's Alfredo Sauce; this stuff is awesome, Mr. Gnome the cream loving fiend even likes it. Again with the noodles now this is when I realized I just wasn't going to have enough sauce for an all white lasagna so I did sliced tomatoes with sliced garlic, basil, thyme and some oil drizzled on top. Essential what is in very basic tomato sauce. Again with the noodles then peeled, brinned and sauteed Eggplant pieces topped with more Alfredo Sauce. This is when I totally ran out of Alfredo Sauce. Again with the noodles. Being out of Alfredo sauce I topped it all with some homemade spaghetti sauce. Covered it, through it in the 400 oven for 40 minutes. And Oh was it good!

Fall

Quilt Making
Leaf Raking
Lasagna Baking

Sparkly Socks

I finished these about a week ago and this is the second time I've worn them. But here are the first pictures. I wanted a really sunny day to hopefully catch the sparkles in this very cool yarn; Sterling Silk and Silver by Kraemer yarns to be exact, I got it in Chicago over a year ago. The pattern is Devon from Sock Innovation by Cookie A. The pattern took some getting used to but eventually; ok half way through the second sock what can I say I'm slow, it clicked. They are way more sparkly than these pictures let on.

Halloween

Finally the long awaited day came! I was woken up by someone running through the house proclaiming the holiday.There was much excitement. She was so excited she ran from half the houses screaming in terror.
Kitty face. I found the ear pattern on ravelry but did it very differently then sewed the ears to a black headband.
She had the pants and the shirt we found at Goodwill. I knit her some playground mittens in black. We will be decorating them to be sparkly or something later this week so they can be her winter mittens. She does have a tail you just can't see it. It's another headband cut in half and stuffed with a giant pipe cleaner tied to yet another headband (it was a pack of three).
Then what is Halloween without a Jack-O-Lantern. This years is extra spooky with weird mismatched eyes and a mouth ready to eat any who come near.
The proud designer and carver or the pumpkin.