yarn fun

so i'll easily admit that watching laure do all the knitting over the holidays made me want to pull out some yarn & be productive. this a scarf i started a long time ago on my knifty knitter loom. if you've never seen or used the knifty knitter looms - they're fabulous. and easy. and require no great skill or knowledge of yarn crafts. basically you're wrapping yarn around posts & then pulling it off. i worked this one with double yarn, so it's super thick and warm. the yarn does leave li'l fluffies behind, but i think it's worth it. it's all fluffy and soft.



and this scarf is my re-entry into crocheting. i found the pattern on the jo-ann website and really liked the medallion design. it's my first time actually following a crochet pattern (generally i just go back & forth, changing colors if i feel like it), and i think it came out really well. my next scarf will have a similar feel. i got the pattern from a book of april's - and it's a chain of flowers. so cute.

something to chuckle about: april's book from which i got the chain-of-flowers scarf pattern also had a pattern for a crocheted bikini. seriously.

holiday gooides

at some point, i seriously will stop baking. i got a slow start on the holiday baking this year, and so it's carrying over into january. right now my goal is to use up the heavy whipping cream before it turns chunky. so today i made li'l peppermint truffle french silk pies (because everything's cute in miniature) and then some peppermint truffles rolled in cocoa. the pink color of the peppermint truffle is a little creepy, but it does taste pretty good. and really, i think that's what matters.

ketchup

in no particular order ...



i got to spend time with some good friends this past weekend. we gathered at bar louie for malissa's 30th birthday. this isn't the whole group, and we're not at bar louie ... but this is what you get. :)


i made kristie a quilt for Christmas this year. she claims to like it, and i'm choosing to believe her. :) it was a fun quilt to make. the backing is a green moleskin, which set the colors for the rest of the quilt. i'm pretty sure that's a completely backwards way to put together a quilt (backing first), but it worked out well.



i got a new digital camera; one that will easily fit into my purse & travel with me everywhere i go. along with it's regular functions, it has a "selective color" mode, which is fun.


i made my first attempts to use my screen printing supplies. i failed, but i think i know what to change next time. i didn't read the instruction book closely enough, so my exposure was off.




it snowed pretty good here on new year's eve. we went outside to do sparklers at midnight, but had a difficult time getting them to light. so i took photos of some trees while other folks worked on the sparklers. i do love trees.


seriously, we had a hard time getting the sparklers lit. but my dad's a pretty smart fellow, and once he got out the torch we were lit in no time.


our new year's eve included a "red & green exchange", courtesy of my sister laure. she's been a knitting machine the past few weeks, and each of us ladies ended up with one her creations. mine has been named the "sherbet scarf", and it has a ruffle at each end that i'm crazy about. :)


new year's eve also included a game of cranium (the "wow" edition). i like the game pawns. they cute and customizable. so we had a mohawked nerd.