A Festivus for the Rest of Us!

'Tis the season for holiday festivities! 

Yes, this is part of my holiday decor

Every year, Mr. Social and I host a Festivus party, and this year we added a little 2012/end of the world/zombieapocalypse spin to it. In addition to the traditional ugly sweaters, we encouraged our guests to come prepared for the zombie apocalypse. But before I show off the fabulous people who came to the party dressed in theme appropriate attire, let me show off some of the goodies I made!

The first batch of cookies I baked were Chocolate Cardamom Macadamia Nut Cookies. Mmmmmmm. I think I accidentally doubled the amount of chocolate chips in the recipe, probably because I bought them at the bulk store rather than in a package from the grocery store. So I eyeballed it to guess I got the right amount. You can never have too much chocolate, right? I think that if I make these again, I'll use the same amount of chocolate, again, but I'll add a little more cardamom and not toast the macadamia nuts before adding them to the batter. But all in all, they were nummy!

For the next batch of cookies, I tried out a recipe I found on Pinterest, Mint Chocolate Chip Cookies. These were touted as being like mint chocolate chip ice cream in a cookie, and well, it's true! If you're a lover of mint chocolate chip, I highly recommend these (myself, I'll only make them for parties as after one of these I've hit my max capacity for mint). The guests seemed to love these though, as there were only 6 left at the end of the night!

Now, just because it's the holidays it doesn't mean we should be overlooking birthdays! I also whipped up a birthday cake for my friend CC, who sadly couldn't make it to the Festivus festivities as she wasn't feeling well (I suspect a few too many wobbly-pops the night before...). But, as it turned out, it was another revelers birthday as well so the cake got to fulfill its destiny...

YAY!

I had planned on making a bunch more stuff for the party, and got a little stressed out that I didn't have time for it. However, I really didn't need to make anything else, as the stuff that people brought with them to share had the table groaning under the weight!

To add a little incentive to guests to come wearing ugly sweaters/zombie gear/holiday appropriate attire, I offered up a prize for the best outfit. The winner was decided by popular vote, and I gotta say, it was hard to choose this year!

Ultimately, it was determined that J in her ugly sweater/super duper patterned skirt was the winner of the giant inappropriate stocking (handmade by me of course)

And the runner up got a kiss from me :)

Apparently I was walking around with lipstick on my face all night. Hooray for mistletoe!

All in all it was a fantastic evening, and I'm excited to see what next year's festivities hold! (provided the world doesn't come to an end on the 21st!)

WIP Wednesday - December 12, 2012

Holy shit that was a LOT of custom knits! But, I'm finally done! And since Mr. Social and I are currently rearranging everything in our home, I can't sew. Which means my Thurlows remain unfinished *grumble grumble*

But you know what I can do when I have a few spare minutes? I can knit! And since I've been unselfishly knitting for weeks, it's time to knit something for me!

Can you guess what that is? No, it's not a Jayne hat.

Gorramit, this is the happiest sweater I have ever knit!

Why is this the happiest sweater I ever knit? Well, that's simple. It's the brightest sweater I ever knit. You see, I tend to wear a lot of black. And more black. And sometimes even grey. In an attempt to change up my wardrobe and throw myself way out of my comfort zone, I took a bunch of leftover yarn that was supposed to be for Jayne hats and decided to use it for a sweater.


Wow, my mirror is dirty

The pattern is a variation of Buttony Sweater by Katie Marcus. I've had my eye on this sweater for a while now but socks and hats always seemed to get in the way. But I decided I didn't ant a cardi, so instead I've turned it into a henley. I love that the button band is off to the side instead of down the centre. Makes it moer interesting, n'est-ce pas?

The body of this sweater went so fast. Like, I cranked it out in about 3 days fast. Sometimes I forget how fast things knit up in a bulky yarn go. I'm running dangerously low on the yellow yarn though, so I may need to get just a wee bit more to finish off the sleeves. I can't wait for this to be finished!

Check out more WIPs (and share your own!) with Tami's Amis

FO Friday - November 23, 2012

Wow, it's been a while since I've posted for FO Friday! But luckily I've been knitting like mad and have some stuff to show off! (No finished sewing sadly, no time for that until I finish up about 6 more hats...)

Anyhoo, I've recently whipped up a couple "boho" chunky cowl things. And in doing so, I used some of my very own handspun yarn :)

The first one is charcoal grey with some red/black dreamy soft merino I spun up. This thing is HUGE! In the pic it's actually folded over in half. Seriously ginormous. And warm! And snuggly.

The second is burgundy with some super fun yellow/red/black corespun yarn of my creation. This was actually my first ever corespun yarn. Again, this scarf is super snuggly, and this one, while not as wide as the first, is super long so it can be wrapped for additional warmth (it's wrapped twice in the picture)




Sadly, I won't be keeping either of these cowls as I've decided to put them both up in my shop. But the great news for you is, if you really dig these one of a kind cowls, they can be yours!

Have a great weekend lovelies!

Spinning for a BFF, The Final Spin!

Do you ever start doing something and gets distracted part way through? For me that was this blog post (I started it hours ago...)

Anyhoo, I finally have the BFF yarn! I got the right yardage and everything! And it's just so pretty!

For this spin, I again used 2 different fibres, this time around it was some awesome electric merino/silk from KnittyandColor, and some alpaca/merino/sparkle fluff from Hilltop Cloud fluff. This yarn is so amazingly soft, I'm so excited to use it!

 This time around, I've ended up with approx 390 yards, and while it's a lighter weight yarn than I was aiming for, I don't care! The colours, the fibres, the sparkle are just all perfect. AND, Pacasha loves it too! What more could I ask for?

As for the scarf itself, we've decided not to use the actual BFF pattern (p5tog? are you insane???) and we're just going to go with something simple instead. The yarns we've spun will be the focus of these scarves, but the sentiment is still there.

I haven't started the scarf yet as I've been madly knitting away on orders for my shop. In fact, all of my other crafty pursuits have fallen by the wayside as a result. The Thurlow's I've been working on? Completely stalled. The ugly sweater I want to knit for our upcoming Festivus party? Probably not going to happen. But that's not the end of the world, as I recently was given a sweater that will do for that, so that's one less thing to stress over.

Is anyone else starting to feel the Giftmas pressure with their crafting?

Spinning for a BFF, Take Three

I've spun up more yarn for the BFF Cowl, and this one is delicious!

This time around, I used fibres from YorkieSlave Artworks (seriously, check out her goods! her spindles and fibre are divine) and again some fibre from Hilltop Cloud. The finished product is a yarn chock full of luxury, containing merino, tussah silk, bamboo, firestar and angelina (ie. SPARKLE).

At 224 yards, this yarn is a lot closer to my goal of 360 yards, but alas it's not quite enough. But it's pretty and sparkly and has gorgeous drape, so I'm going to hang onto it for a something special later on. In the meantime this purple pretty will get loved and petted while hanging out in my stash.

Since I'm getting closer I hope the next one gets me to the yardage goal. My fibre stash is getting low!