Christmas roundup

Hope everyone [who celebrates it] had a nice Christmas! We certainly did. It was both fun-filled and family-filled. My husband and I are both off all week, so it's really felt like a nice, long, holiday.

We spent Christmas day with my cousins and their respective families. Since there were a lot of people, we'd decided ahead of time not to exchange gifts. However, I wanted to do a little something, so I made Cookie Cutter Fudge.

First, you get some cookie cutters that you are willing to give away. Then you cover the bottoms with foil and spray them with non-stick spray.



Then you make the super-easy fudge (it's basically just melted chocolate and peanut butter chips!) and put some in each cookie cutter. Here you can see on the bottom two how they looked before I started decorating them.



I also melted some white candy chips and spread that to cover the fudge, for better decoratability. :)



I then just used various sprinkles and decorations to make them pretty.




(I realized on the last one that it looked better if I left the "tree trunk" uncovered!)

Then you take the foil off, and I put them in little bags I found at the craft store and tied them with pretty ribbons. Everyone seemed to think they looked cute. The only downside was that they're supposed to stay refrigerated or the fudge softens a bit (though it doesn't melt or anything).







I also made these Candy Cane Cookies, but I just realized I didn't take any photos of them, rats. Anyway, not to boast or anything, but they looked pretty much like the ones pictured on that site (they were pretty easy!). Although I didn't put any candy pieces on them (since they were all sold out in the stores), and they tasted okay; I thought they definitely looked better than they tasted. There's another similar recipe on there using pre-packaged sugar cookie dough and that might taste a lot better.

So, enough of that...back to knitting!

I am pleased to say I finished all of my Christmas knitting in time...though admittedly just in the nick of time! I finished my friend's socks with a day or so to spare, and when I gave them to her, she was excited and loved them. She said she was wondering when she'd be getting her next handknit pair! :)





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Specs on the project:

Pattern: Basic ribbed socks
Needles used: Size 2 DPNs
Yarn: Regia 4 Fadig color
Color: #5164
Notes: Used K3P1 ribbing
Started: 12/12/07
Finished: 12/23/07
~~~

My MIL's hat was finished the day after Christmas, and they arrived that afternoon! It, along with my FIL's hat, were both big hits with the recipients. My FIL doesn't have much hair and likes to wear hats all the time, and he wore his new one the whole time they were here visiting. :) I was quite pleased!

Anyway, as I believe I mentioned before, the yarn was pooling big time. During the straight stockinette part the six colors in the yarn were making big sections that just moved slightly around the hat, as you can see in the first two photos (I flipped it over for the second one):





Then during the decreases for the crown, it started striping, and looking really cool. Oh well!



~~~
Specs on the project:

Pattern: Basic roll-brim hat
Needles used: Size 7 (16" circulars and DPNs)
Yarn: Patons Decor
Color: Mountain Top Variegated
Amount used: about 2/3 of one ball
Started: 12/18/07
Finished: 12/26/07
~~~

Anyway, my MIL loved it and that's all that matters. She's a mathematician and my husband told her it was a "chaos theory" hat and she laughed and said it was perfect. :)

Back in WIP land, I don't think I ever posted photos of that afghan I started a while back. Here in order from top to bottom of the panel I'm working on, are the squares I've completed. (And no, I did not bother to pin it out before taking the photos, so it rolled a bit! But you can use your imagination...)







It's a fun pattern, great TV knitting. The yarn is soft and colorful and fun.

I have SO MANY projects I want to make and really need to NOT buy any more yarn! For a very long time!! I mean really. My stash is getting very out of hand. So I must exercise some restraint. We'll see how that works. ;)

And speaking of which, I also got quite the yarn haul for Christmas! (Not to mention a couple of skeins I bought recently!) But this post has enough photos, so I'll post about that another day.