happy hands

So.Much.Food! My little quilting group held our annual Christmas luncheon yesterday. I am so glad that I wore loose pants. There was a ton of food. We actually ran out of table space and I had to serve the soup from the kitchen. I was so full that I didn't eat supper and had a snack around 9:30pm consisting of a Bakewell tart that was leftover from the party. I brought home cabbage rolls and baked beans, too. Hubby ate all the cabbage rolls (the piggy) and some of the leftover soup. I'm going to tackle the baked beans today.

We also unwrapped our presents to each other which means that I can unveil what I've been working on.


Pattern: Funky Chunky Mitts by Lindsey Williard (Ravelry download)
Yarn: Gedifra Volata Tweed; one skein (50g; 110 yds) per pair
Needles: 5.5mm dpns
Notes: I started knitting in June but ended knitting 9 pairs in the last month. Heh - so much for getting a head start. I am so glad this project is done!

Now that I'm feeling better (thanks for all the get well wishes), baking has begun. It didn't start smoothly. The night before the first batch, I came home and hubby tells me that the oven is broken. He tried heating up a shepherd's pie and it took forever. A quick check of the oven proved that the bottom element wasn't turning on. ACK! Our appliance book (the best $40 we've ever spent) said to check the electrical connections but of course, I loaned my DMM to my Dad and if hubby had called, I would've brought it home with me. Anyways, we assumed that the element was broken and not any of the electrical innards. Hubby ran off to the parts store first thing the next morning and the oven is working again. Yay! The new element gets really hot and we managed to slightly scorch the first batch of cookies. So the rack has been raised and hopefully, things are under control now. We baked 8 doz chocolate cranberry cookies yesterday night and we're baking chocolate meltie cookies today. We're making snickerdoodles tomorrow. I'll be making cookie deliveries all next week.

And just before bed, I managed to kitchener the toe on my Christmas socks.


Pattern: my usual 60 st top down with short row heel; changed colours every 5 rows
Yarn: Diamond Yarn Luxury Collection Foot Loose; 1 sk green and 1 sk multi
Needles: 2.25mm dpns
Notes: Pair number 56! I was going to make these for my sister but I'm keeping them for myself. I love manually striped socks because I get to pick which colours to stripe.

This'll be my last post before the 25th so I wish everyone a very Merry Christmas. Ricky and Phoebe would like to add "Meowy Catmas":