A Late Christmas Post

We all had the same rather horrible cold for Christmas, so our festivities were rather subdued.  Darling Daughter still made beignets with help from her brother.  Yum!!
I got some books that have been fantastic and highly entertaining.

Husband got a box of crackers that made him laugh.

We played a new card game Husband bought, which while an incredible amount of fun, is not for the younger kids or those easily offended.
All in all, it was a slow day with lots of good food and as much laughing as we could manage while coughing. :-)

Happy Solstice!

I decided that today would be the start of the holiday festivities.  This lets me make all the lovely edibles I planned to make that caught my fancy the last few months and brings a little joy a bit earlier than expected.

One of the pretties on my list to make was this outstanding eggnog cake over at Sprinkle Bakes  I suffered from a lack of sugar cone to adorn, so I melted down some white chocolate, printed out a stencil, made a mess and liberally applied sprinkles. My frosting is pastel green instead of pink and I may have given it a bit of a spray with edible gold paint after it was all assembled.  It's still one of the best decorated items I've ever produced (even if I did actually throw the candy snowflake pieces at the sides of the cake).
We also made truffles.  I made the base last night, the kids rolled them this afternoon...and I may have hit them with the edible gold spray as well.  It's so much fun to play with!

A bit free-form in the shape department, but outstandingly tasty.  They are a modified version of these  golden snitch truffles
There's also a plan to make a mulled red wine cake to go with Christmas dinner as well as some of my favorite Greek almond cookies...and then eat leftovers through New Year's day. ;-)

Not technically on the To-Do list

Though it will look lovely with the black velvet dress I plan on wearing to the holiday office party.  It was going to be a shrug, but I didn't like the way the shrug looked with the neckline of the dress, so we are going with the 1950's cocktail party look instead.   While I pondered this look, there seemed to be a need for something around the hand/forearm area.  First, I thought of the not quite elbow length black satin gloves I have, which might look a bit overly formal... what about some fishnet lace armwarmers? Genius! They'd be done in a day! 
It's been three days.  I have ripped and re-cast five different times as well as having changed yarns once.  A start had been made with a pattern written by someone else, which didn't look quite the way I wanted, so of course I started trying to design my own.
This is not going so well either.
The basic pattern looks exactly the way I hoped, but the sizing is kicking my behind,as the lace is stretchier than I expected.  Paired with the current state of my hands and nails...those satin gloves might be the best option.
Possibly providing a bit of time to attempt to end the battle between my hair and the curling iron.

Trying something different

Today I decided to take a different approach to knitting for my family this holiday season.  Instead of stressing myself out with deadline knitting (along with the baking and decorating and gifts that have to be mailed out and the standard shopping), panicking over whether or not items will be finished on time, not to mention liked by the recipients, I decided I would let them choose a pattern and the yarn(s) involved.
My kids, being decidedly geeky teenagers, picked superhero themed fingerless mitts with large grins on their faces. 
The project for my husband is a bit more ambitious, but as it uses ten rather large skeins of yarn from my stash and he picked a fairly uncomplicated pattern, I may get through his sweater in time for him to wear it next year.  Maybe. The odds are improving on a daily basis as I slowly but steadily keep working through all the unfinished projects currently on my needles.  Every once in awhile I may pause and make a pair of fingerless mitts or knit marathon style on something needed immediately.  This works out.  It keeps me from casting on any large new projects before I finish the ones in front of me.  So far.