From The Year of the Blanket...

In 2009, I knitted six blankets (well, the Lizard Ridge was mostly done, I just finished it this year). I also knitted as many pairs of socks, but they didn't take nearly as much yarn as the blankets.

New techniques I tried this year:

• Tunisian Crochet on a big scale (a big, fat failure)
  
• thrummed mittens (a big, fluffy success)
  
• knitting cables without a cable needle (link is to a video)
  
• kntting strung beads
  
• CROCHET
  
• blocking lace
  
• (my most awesome and scary accomplishment) writing a pattern for my Off Road Socks as well as a square shawl still being tested. I never in a million years thought I'd DESIGN knitwear.
  

After doing the math, I figure I burned through 15,791.6 yards of yarn in 2009. Some of this yardage did not come from stash I had on hand at the beginning of the year. So, as far as living up to my 2009 Yarn Consumption Plan (I can buy one yard of yarn for every two yards I use from stash), I was a failure. I kept to the plan for several months...until sometime in the summer, I think, but then I began to BUY. So, yay for me that I lasted as long as I did.

...to The Year of the Sweater

According to the patterns I have waiting in my Ravelry queue, it looks like 2010 will be the Year of the Sweater. I've got a lot of sock patterns in the queue, too. THOMY may even get something this time around the sun.

I don't have noble pledges to knit only from stash in 2010, but I do plan to keep an account of what I buy and use. I've got a ledger book for that purpose. I'm in the process of recording ALL the yarn in my stash, whether or not it's labeled, so I can have a full idea what there is to work with. The yardage count is staggering. In one lace weight yarn alone, I have almost 23-thousand yards. Yep, I sure do.

I don't have resolutions for any other area of my life, either. Not that I'm aimless concerning the coming year; I have a few goals, just not the kind I want to blog about yet. Maybe after the fact.

So to you and yours, please have a safe, happy, and productive new year.

The Christmas Card Recipe

I sent out a dozen Christmas cards this year--a dozen more than I'd sent in probably the last ten years. I also resumed my practice of including a favorite recipe in each card. This year the recipe is for Cranberry Upside Down Muffins.

That's right. CRANBERRIES. Surprising, no?



Cranberry Upside-Down Muffins

1 C cranberries, stems removed
½ C butter, melted
½ C firmly packed lt. brown sugar
2 C all-purpose flour
1 T baking powder
1 T sugar
½ tsp. salt
¼ C raisins or craisins
1 egg
1 C milk

Cut cranberries into halves; divide evenly into 12 greased, 3-in muffin pans. Spoon about 1 tsp. of the butter into each. Sprinkle evenly with brown sugar.

In a mixing bowl, stir together flour, baking powder, granulated sugar, salt, & raisins or craisins. In a smaller bowl, beat egg; mix in milk and remaining melted butter. Add liquid mixture to flour mixture, stirring until dry ingred. are just moistened. Spoon butter over cranberries in pan, dividing evenly.

Bake at 400-F until golden brown, about 30 min. Let muffins stand in pan on wire rack for a few min. until bubbling stops. Turn muffins out carefully and serve upside-down.

Cranberry Candy

I like to experiment on others. With food, ok? Around Christmas, I make candy I've not tried before and give it out to family, friends, and strangers like I knew what it was I was doing. This year I found a recipe called Coated Raisins. It's pretty straightforward--butter, vanilla extract, powdered sugar (enough to make an elephant diabetic), cream cheese (food of the divine), and raisins.

Ugh. Really? Raisins?

Why use something so bland as...dried up, wingless fly carcasses? Raisins are for those too timid to use CRANBERRIES.

Not I. And it turns out that the tartness of the cranberries balances out the super sweet coating. The original recipe claims that it makes 4 dozen candies, and it does if you doll out heaping teaspoonfuls onto the waxed paper. I think that makes the candies too big, with too much sweetness in one serving. So I opted to use a 1.25-inch spring-operated cookie scoop. Doing that yields 100 candies. Just the right size.



Cranberry Candy

2 cups dried cranberries/craisins
8 ounces cream cheese
1/4 C butter
6 cups powdered sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla

1. Place craisins in a steamer basket or strainer. Place over boiling water, but not touching it.
2. Steam, covered for 5 minutes.
3. Combine cream cheese and butter in heavy-bottomed saucepan. Stir over low heat until butter is melted, cheese is soft, and mixture is well combined.
4. Transfer to large bowl of mixer.
5. Add powdered sugar, one cup at a time, until frosting is thick and creamy but not dry.
6. Add vanilla. Stir in craisins gently.
7. Drop by small scoopfuls from a 1 1/4-inch diameter cookie scoop onto waxed paper. (Or scoop small amounts with a teaspoon.) Let dry uncovered, for four hours or overnight in a refrigerator.

From gathering the indredients to sliding the cookie sheets of candies into the fridge, I spent an hour making the candy.

Thanks, everyone, who asked for the recipe and made this year's experiment worthwhile. Merry Christmas!

0.1 oz more chocolatey-er

THOMY's birthday was this week, so I made him a Chocolate Espresso Tart as his birthday cake.



I took the recipe from my new Family Baking Book by America's Test Kitchen. I'm a fan of ATK's shows on public television and I consider their word on foodstuffs as nearly gospel. According to one of their taste tests, the best bittersweet chocolate to use in a recipe like the tart is 60% cacao by Ghirardelli. The recipe calls for a 12 oz. bar, but we could find only the 5.25 oz bags of chocolate squares. Two+ bags later, the closest I could come to the recommended weight is 12.1. So I gave THOMY .1 to grow on.

I would like to register a complaint, though. I don't know what I did wrong, if anything, but the tart crust recipe didn't work for me. I followed it to the letter, but the dough would not solidify, gathering around the blades of the food processor, UNTIL I dribbled more cream into it than what was called for. I don't know how much I added, but I had to. Otherwise I was going to have a bowl of pretty pastry meal.



Even so, the tart seemed to please the birthday boy. And that's the important thing, right? I'm grateful he's been around for another year.

The first Christmas party of 2009

Yesterday we homebodies gathered ourselves together and traveled to Kansas City to visit family. I can't remember if this is the third or fourth year my husband's brother and sister-in-law have hosted a Christmas Open House, but this one was just as fun as in years past.

Their concept of a Christmas get-together focuses mostly on the together part. Instead of exchanging gifts, we sit at their dining room table and swap ideas on such weighty issues as whether someone's gingerbread house should have pretzel sticks or M&Ms for roofing material. How do you tie a knot that will stay in elastic cord? Sculpey beads the size of acorns have to go into the toaster oven by themselves so the smaller beads won't char into dust.

It's kinda like how I remember girl scout day camp, but without the risk of bee stings and heat rash. And not every activity is mandatory. Both THOMY and I made Sculpey clay beads, though we didn't string them onto anything.



Instead, I fashioned two button bracelets.



I did this mostly for the love of the buttons rather than to be fashionable because, as you who know me personally are aware, I don't put on the ritz much, even button ritz. Anyway, I basically did the same things as in this button bracelet tutorial. I gave myself more elastic cord, however, to allow for all the millimeters taken up by weaving it in and out of the buttons. And I used a crimp bead to secure the knot at the end.

THOMY was the only one between us two who made a gingerbread (graham cracker) house. He made a house of God.



He also read The Gift of the Magi by O. Henry when everyone was tired of their own creativity.

I did have a small haul to take home--all my prizes from Family Bingo. In Family Bingo, the cards are rows and columns of family members' faces. Interesting facts (and sometimes embarrassing ones) are gathered about each member pictured. The caller reads the facts aloud, one by one, and everyone guesses aloud who that fact resembles. Cover the faces correctly guessed until there is a bingo. My favorite prize in my pile is the pot holder either my niece or nephew wove on their loom. (They couldn't ever agree who made it.)

All in all, a very fun day. This is the first year in two or three that I'm glad it's now Christmas time.

Let the Christmas baking commence

THOMY and I don't have very many Christmas traditions anymore. Some years we hoist up the big tree, some years the small tree, once we draped garland in the living room and hung the ornaments from that. For a few random years, we didn't decorate at all. Not a single strand of tinsel.

Early in my marriage, I sent out Christmas cards. I used my wedding invitation list as my address list--big mistake--and it was such a behemoth that I broke it up into two groups: A-M would get cards on even-numbered years, N-Z who would get them on odd years. And then, somehow, and shockingly, they all ended up in the No Way I'm Cramping My Hand This Year list. Whenever I sent out cards, though, I included a holiday-relevant recipe. If I send out cards again, I'll continue to do this. I even have a recipe in mind, which I'll probably share on the blog soon.

Anyway, all those traditions were long, long ago. In recent years THOMY has pulled out his grandmother's peppernuts recipe, the HUGE stainless steel bowl, and cleared out space in the freezer to spend three evenings rolling, cutting, and baking a bushel of the tiny cookies.



Oh, and then there're the midnight Christmas Eve service and the one party we go to every year. But that's it for our traditions. We don't buy as many presents anymore, either. I can't stand the jammed parking lots and long lines. Staying home has taken a lot of stress out of the holiday, thankfully.

Without the busyness, however, I've felt adrift when the Christmas season comes around, especially since Dad's passing. Dad would have Christmas dinner with us, and now it's just THOMY and myself. And, actually, I'm okay with that. I like the quiet. I like not having to travel. We use the good china and my mom's crystal and spoon food out of pretty serving bowls. We take our time and enjoy the day.

All the days leading up to Christmas, though, seem too...ordinary. Because I'm not really observing the season. So this year I am. Through food.

Duh.

Recently I asked THOMY if there was one thing he remembers from the Christmases of his youth, and he mentioned his mom's thumbprint cookies. I have a recipe for them already, so today I made a batch.



He thinks him mom used green pepper and red pepper jellies. Well, those flavors will just have to stay in Nostalgialand. My version has red currant and mint apple jellies. I milled a quarter cup of sliced almonds in my coffee grinder to coat the cookies in almond dust. My pudgy thumbprints are clumsy for the small size of the cookies. I think I'll make the next ones bigger.

My second baking endeavor will attempt to recreate my mom's fried Rosette cookies. I bought a set of irons three or four years ago and now have the courage to heat up some oil and use them.

Flannery

I love knitting cables, as I might have mentioned before. So when my local yarn shop owner sent out the call for someone to knit the sample for December's sock of the month, I twittered back "Oo, oo, pick me!" Something like that, anyhow. I definitely used exclamation points.

And so my first Flannery sock came into being.


Thank you, Shelly for letting me knit it and for letting me have a photo you took of it.

Flannery
pattern by spillyjane
Yarn Used: Cascade Heritage

I knit it with a size US 1/2.25mm set of 40" circular needles, Magic Loop style. I usually knit both socks in tandem (knitting the cuff for one, then for the other sock; knitting the leg of the first sock then the second; etc.), but I knit only one sock from cuff to toe, risking Second Sock Syndrome, since she needs only one sock for December. And I need two of them in order to wear them, so why bother right now. Yay. Legitimate procrastination.

Between now and starting the next sock, then, I'm finishing this year's final blanket. It is the last thank-you blanket I'm making for those who helped with sorting through Dad's belongings a couple years ago. Well, maybe the last one. I've just thought of one more recipient. But this blanket is the last one for this year, definitely.

And now, as promised, the report for the Ribs N Bids fundraiser is ready. Pam, the chairperson for the event, summed it up nicely at the event's blog. I've never been part of something that raised over a thousand dollars before. For a first-time event, I think its final tally meant great success. And I especially want to thank my friend Pat who placed the highest bid for the Spring Things shawl I made. I'm so glad to know its new owner.