I’m getting a bit of a “me” day today!
You won’t believe how excited I am!
This is coming along. It’s about twice this large though after last night’s sappy holiday TV movie watching (The 12 Men of Christmas with Kristin Chenoweth, in case you were wondering).
I’m not going to feel guilty if I end up not touching it though. Although, with this texture and the softness of the yarn I suspect at least a few stitches will be knit.
Since I have the year off of hosting Christmas and we’re not formally exchanging gifts with DH’s family I’m thinking I should contribute liberally to the selection of cookies and candy that we all graze on when we get together at Christmas. I haven’t settled on recipes yet. I thought it would be fun to hear what recipes make the holidays for you! A few favorites and possible candidates for this years list are below:
For me now, it isn’t Christmas without pepperkakor - an orange scented ultra thin and crispy gingerbread-like cookie. This wasn’t a regular on the table of sweets at Grandma Irma’s house, but it occasionally popped up at our church’s holiday gatherings. I’ve been making them almost every year for a good share of my time here in Colorado.
This is another Swedish cookie. It is a recipe I got out of my personal baking bible, The Great Scandinavian Baking Book by Beatrice Ojakangas. They are called Citronsmakåger and are lemon cookies that are a bit cake-like in texture. I’m contemplating going in the orange direction with a dark chocolate glaze/frosting. They are really simple and quick, a nice trait for holiday baking. Especially after the rather intensive pepperkakor that needs rolled out so thin and cut.
This is another from Ojakangas’ book - Kanelkakor or Cinnamon Dreams. I think what I like so much about these Swedish cookie recipes is their often liberal use of flavorings, be it spices like cinnamon and ginger and cardamom or strong citrus. It means they often get away with a more moderate amount of sugar. That too is a welcomed thing on the sweet table - sweet, but not too sweet! If memory serves these are quite quick to pull together as well.
Lefse is another thing I *have* to have during the holiday season. For those who are unfamiliar with it, it is much like a flour tortilla, but it is made from potatoes. Growing up in Minnesota we ate it slightly warm with butter and a sprinkling of sugar. I’m told it is eaten a multitude of ways in the Scandinavian countries, including in place of a hot dog bun. I’ve branched out some and had Nutella on it (yum!) and sometimes brown sugar rather than white. Or a mix of yogurt and brown sugar or lingonberry preserves. The kind I can get here isn’t as good as the stuff I grew up eating, but it works. I have all the equipment to make it myself, but so far I haven’t. It is a time intensive process as you cook one round at a time on a special iron and I think it is pretty delicate to handle the dough and such. But one of these years I’m gonna put on my big girl pants and give it a go!
I’d also like to give my aunt Karen’s chocolate covered caramels another go. So far at a mile high I haven’t had much luck. The first batch many years ago were not quite hard candy, but not far from it. Since then I think I’ve been afraid of them being too hard and have undercooked them. We’ve also in the past made rosettes, another time suck sort of project. I loved them, but they went “stale” by the next day which made me really sad. I think we must have done something wrong (wrong oil temperature?) as I know the ones I ate in Minnesota were not made the same day I ate them. We do have two sets of irons so both DH and I could fry one which made for shorter work. If I were still in Minnesota I’d like just buy them, but I’ve not found anyone who carries them around here.
Your turn! What foods make your holiday?
I *love* watching holiday shows - made for TV movies, classic movies and modern day big screen holiday movies. Because in more of a tech editing and layout mode with most of my knitting rather than knitting mode right now I’m kind of sad that I have not gotten to watch many holiday shows yet this year. I’m accustomed to knitting away like mad on a last minute “Christmas sweater” I’ve decided I needed. I’ve had the urge the last couple days to knit something special to wear for Christmas, but my logical mind that says I have too much other work to do right now has prevailed.
1. White Christmas with Bing Crosby, Danny Kay, Rosemary Clooney and Vera Ellen is a classic and some years we watch it twice before Christmas hits. Our lack of seasonal weather this year means we haven’t watched it yet (we often wait for a snow, and while we’ve had one it was a tad early for a Christmas movie).
2. The Holiday is another favorite. I’ll confess that this is one of our go-to movies when either of us is stressed out so it gets watched at other times of the year as well, probably on average 2-3 times. It’s a classic beautiful people with no real problems get a storybook ending.
3. Christmas in Connecticut (1945 version) is another black and white classic we enjoy. Crazy hijinx and mischief abound. I dare you not to laugh when you watch this one!
4. The Hebrew Hammer has become a traditional holiday season watch for us as well. It’s kind of spoofing blackploitation films and has a fun cast. There is definitely some adult humor so this might not be for the whole family. While I rarely care for Andy Dick outside of News Radio, his role in this one works.
5. Love Actually is another heartwarming romantic comedy. It is one of those that happens to take place at Christmas but it isn’t so “holiday” that I can only watch it during the holiday season. But I like to watch it then as it makes me smile.
6. The Shop Around the Corner is another classic one we enjoy watching every year. How can you go wrong with Jimmy Stewart and Margaret Sullivan?
7. Prancer is one I enjoy from my youth. It’s a good family movie and probably just right for when the kids are getting just old enough to doubt Santa Claus but you want them to hang onto the magic just a bit longer (though it came out too late for me).
8. The Bishop’s Wife is another black and white oldie but goody that makes me smile. I love the skating scene!
9. Elf is one I just *have* to watch each year. I love Zooey Deschanel and while I’m pretty hit or miss whether I’m going to like Will Ferrel, this is a “like.”
10. The Christmas Shoes is a great choice if you want a holiday movie and tear jerker all rolled into one. I don’t watch it every year and we don’t own it so I have to catch it on cable to watch it, but I think it plays on some network pretty much ever year.
I could keep going I think. In fact I don’t think I hit any made for TV ones except #10 and there are all those Hallmark Hall of Fame holiday movies based on Richard Paul Evens books that frequently star Richard Thomas. And last year or the year before there was a cute one that came out on ABC Family maybe with Melissa Joan-Hart and Mario Lopez… Okay, I’ll stop!
What’s you *must* watch every year holiday movie?
I spent a good chunk of the weekend with the above - not the model, but the modeled items and their pattern. I’m looking for test knitters for it so if you’d like to get the pattern early enough to knit as a gift, here’s your chance! I’m flexible with it being so close to Christmas, so you do not need to commit to both projects, though you’ll get the pattern for both. If you choose the mittens I only need one knit which should only take 4-6 hours, depending upon size and experience. There are 4 sizes to cover for each, roughly Adult Small - X-Large and if you knit both hat and mitten they do not need to be the same size, though I want to make sure all sizes are covered by at least 1 tester. You can see all the details such as yardage requirements etc. at http://www.ravelry.com/discuss/free-pattern-testers/1421465/. To sign up, reply to that post with which project and size you’d like to knit and then PM me your e-mail address.
It seems Tumblr is down for the count and that is where I track all the interesting things I come across while reading blogs or catching up on Twitter or Facebook etc. It seems to be a common problem for it to be sketchy when I’m wanting to put together my linkity posts :-/ I have gone ahead and given Pinterest a try. I only just signed up so I don’t have much there, but I’m envisioning it as a little more selective than my Tumblr so check it out if you’d like.
Fortunately, if I’m reading blogs on my phone it is inconvenient to post to Tumblr so some of the things that have caught my eye lately were accessible via my stars on Google Reader, so here is a short linkity.
I don’t know about you, but I’m ready to stock the freezer with cookies to last us through the holidays and take us to impromptu gatherings and what not. I had collected a bunch of cookie recipes over the last two weeks, but it seems they were all tumbled and not starred. I’ll have to share them next week I guess.
I hope you all had a lovely weekend! While I worked, I did not put in the kind of hours that I have been the past several weekends. There was some time out taken to watch A Christmas Carol and The Hebrew Hammer and to visit with friends a bit.
You may recognize a few of the images in the above mosaic. Back in July some of the detail shots of my original Kate Shawl adorned several posts. This shawl design was created for Wooly Wonka Fibers‘ 2010 Shakespeare in Lace club. If you are familiar with Taming of the Shrew you’ve no doubt already brought to mind Katherine Minola, the play’s protagonist. I chose angular stitch patterns to represent her abrasive and contrary personality, but as the shawl grows from the top down the patterns get increasingly delicate just as Kate herself was tamed by her new husband Petruchio. Since many of Kate’s fellow townsmen see her as a woman who goes against the grain, I placed these angular stitch patterns on an asymmetric triangle.
I love the asymmetry of this shawl. Having a slight curve in the long side in addition to the extra length allows it to wrap across the front and over the opposite shoulder with plenty of fabric to hold itself in place. It is very easy to wear without requiring a shawl pin or stick (though you may choose to wear one anyway, or course). In the case of the smaller, fingering weight version I have added to the original pattern you get a wearable span without an overly long drop - especially nice for the petite! If I haven’t sold you on the advantages of the asymmetric triangle there is some guidance provided to knit it in the more traditional symmetric triangle shape if you’d rather.
The fingering weight version uses less than 100 grams so many sock yarns can be used. Here we’ve used Madelinetosh tosh sock in the color Fig. I just adore working with these yarns as so many of the colorways come across as semi-solid so they don’t compete too much with stitch patterns, but when you work with them and are looking closely you see there are many, many colors making up that “semi-solid.” In most lights this reads as a dark, cool brown, but there are actually many different shades of brown and purple making up this yarn.
The laceweight version is using Wooly Wonka’s Thalia Lace (1200 yds per skein) in the color Katherine (of course). I believe she may have a few extra kits to part with if you’d like to knit it as is. Thalia is a wool/silk blend that is a tad towards the heavier side of lace weight. It is probably relatively comparable to Zephyr (which I’ve been working with lately) in weight.
Kate Shawl in Lace and Fingering - $7 - Buy Now
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Busy time this week! Everything happening all at once it seems. I knew of several people who were anxiously awaiting the availability of this pattern so I didn’t want to hold it back.
I’m going to get some rest now and be back to the normal blog schedule come Monday. Have a great weekend!
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