Tuesday Thing

From the lovely Prickly Pear Bloom.

The new tradition. . .
The "thankful thing" before dinner
Dinner with candles, even if it's just boxed mac 'n' cheese and hot dogs

The old tradition. . .
Antipasto, cheese, and wine on Thursday nights

I'll be really glad when. . .
All of the various financial garbage is sorted and I know where I stand.

Not liking. . .
Missing my German.
Being sick for so long and not being sure what's going on.

Liking. . .
The anticipation of making pumpkin bread
The girls falling in love with "yogurt sundaes" (Greek yogurt + apple butter + Fiber One cereal)
Chilly nights for sleeping curled up under the quilts

All Baby FO, All The Time

The crazy thing about having all of these friends who have spawned/are spawning children -- you need to, like, celebrate them and stuff.

Actually, I love all of these kiddos to pieces, and am super-excited that I get to watch them grow (well, not the sweater-baby. I haven't even met her three-year-old big sister yet. Am suck virtual auntie.)

However! I am a good virtual auntie to the future owner of these woollen socks. They look much less hoopty and messed-up in real life -- I'm not sure if it's the resolution or the color changes or what, but this photo looks like they were knit by someone vaguely deranged.

Anyway, they were knit for a Little Miss Allison, who just turned one, and is setting off on many new walking adventures. Since shoes are not so good for new walkers, but we live where it is already QUITE freakin' cold already, I thought some festive footies would be just the thing for her.

My favoritest part is the green patches that showed up on the bottom of the heels.

Knit top-down on size 1 needles, using a smallified version of Silver's sock recipe.

Halloween Tricks and Treats

It's been busybusybusy in the MonkeyFace household. School is in full swing, and I am dividing my time between working, house renovating (not mine, sadly), and crafting. (Notice the utter lack of "working out?" Because, so have my jeans. *sigh*)

I so totally love this time of year. The cooler weather, the fun harvest-y things, the apple picking, the pumpkin bread, the Halloween excitement.

Trin was assigned "snack" for her class today. And while I completely understand her teacher's "no sweets for snack" policy, it did make me a little sad. What good is being snack mom if I can't go crazy making spider-oreo-topped cupcakes with green goo filling? *sigh* Schools these days, I tell ya!

So, we went a healthier route, and made "pumpkin pinwheels" and "witchy brooms."

The pumpkin pinwheels are sundried tomato wraps filled with cream cheese, cheddar, monterey jack, and a smidge of GarlicGarlic, then rolled, sliced into the "pinwheels," and festooned with a party-pick "stem." Both girls were skeptical at first, but after a taste of the filling, spent the remainder of the assembly process strategically angling for the scrap end-pieces.

The brooms are pretzel rods with strategically sliced fruit roll-ups rolled around the bottom. They were pronounced "really awesome" by the six-year-old. I was also informed that "I rock" and "I make the best snacks and all the kids love them." Not bad for the ol' mom-ego, that kid.

After the kiddos were bathed and booked and put to bed, I turned my attention to finishing up my Halloween craft exchange project.

I stayed up WAAAAY too late finishing it, but I am pretty pleased with how it turned out, overall.

Here's a shot of it all pieced together, before I started quilting. The little witchie-poo in the middle is embroidered (which, WOW are those skills RUSTY), and then the four squares are horribly wonky log-cabin, but, I kind of like the overall imperfect effect. It's certainly not going to win any blue ribbons at the county fair, but for a dollar-limited craft exchange, I think it fills the bill alright.

This is my favorite part of the embroidery. I just love the little French-knot spider! The embroidery design was inspired by Quixotic Pixels. I didn't use her pattern, but I loved the cute li'l witch with crazy hair and stripey stockings.

I have kind of a freakish love for French knots. I think it might be because I was never able to do them until, oh, the last six months or so? I think I finally learned from a link off of the Alabama Stitch Book flickr set -- one of the women in the group knots off the end of her thread with French knots. Her explanation just clicked for me, and voila! Now I can do the knots!


I'll try to get a good picture of the finished product before I send it off later today, but since I finished after 1:00 this morning, I kind of just fell into bed and figured I'd let the pictures take care of themselves later.