Handmade Holiday - 2011 - Knit Hat and Felt Hearts

I finished Mike's hat.  Nolan tried it on for size and it fits pretty well, but I think for the rest of the boys' hats I will just cast on 88 stitches.

Sarah worked on some more hearts this past week for our advent heart basket.

Looking forward to reading about some ideas to get started on a new Christmas project this week.

To share leave a comment with your link.

Warm wishes,

Tonya

It felt like Christmas morning in our house this morning

(Sorry about the blurry picture - I took it through our window inside)

As Mike, Emmy and I were still resting in bed this morning, at about 6:45 (Sundays we get up a just a bit later than the rest of the week), we could hear the children saying - "There is snow!, Snow!"  Oh the excitement.

Right after breakfast, the winter clothing hunt began.  I had just sorted through the hats and mittens yesterday but had not pulled out snow pants and snow boots.   Then outside for a time - tracking, throwing snowballs, and just laying down in the snow.

To be joyful  like children on the morning of the first snowfall! - something to strive for.

Blessings to all and warm wishes for a peaceful Sunday,
Tonya

Favorite Pumpkin Recipes this Fall

So far this autumn, these are my two favorite pumpkin recipes:

This first one is a nice morning bread.

Spiced Pumpkin Bread 

3/4 C demerara sugar or sucanat 

1/4 butter, softened 

1 egg 

3/4 cup canned or fresh pumpkin puree 

3 T. orange juice 

1 1/2 cups white whole wheat flour 

3/4 teaspoon baking powder 

1/2 teaspoon baking soda 

1/2 teaspoon ground cloves 

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon 

1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1/2 teaspoon salt

Instructions:

In a medium mixing bowl, beat sugar, butter, egg, pumpkin, orange juice, and orange zest. Set aside. 

In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the remaining dry ingredients. Pour pumpkin mixture into bowl with dry ingredients, and stir until no lumps remain. 

Lightly grease and flour a loaf pan. (This recipe makes one 8x4 loaf) 

Bake in a pre-heated oven at 350 degrees for about 45 minutes. Check with a toothpick or fork (should come out clean).

This next one is a delicious dessert!

Pumpkin Bars

Ingredients:

3/4 cup oil

2 cups sugar

2 cups pumpkin

4 eggs

2 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. salt

2 tsp. cinnamon

2 cups flour

Mix in large bowl.

Pour into a greased 13 x 9-inch pan

Bake 350 degrees. Bake 35-40 minutes or until pick inserted comes out clean

Icing:

3 oz. softened cream cheese

1 Tbs. orange juice or milk

1/4 cup butter

1 tsp. vanilla

1 3/4 cups powered sugar

Yesterday

Sarah's new hair cut.

Abraham playing in a "fort" of scrap wood beside the barn.

Sarah pushing Abraham on a tricycle we found at recycling.  Oh, what a beautiful day it was yesterday!

And we celebrated Mike's 45th birthday.  Notice the duct taped paper bags for gift wrapping from the children:)

Handmade Holiday 2011

I don't have anything too exciting to share this week as I am working on a very simple knit hat for dear husband.

I know it would probably be neater to knit with circular needles but then I would have to buy size 8 circular as well as size 8 double pointed needles.

This is a simple pattern - just cast on 92 stitches.  Knit 2, Purl 2 each row across for 2 inches.  Then stockinette stitch for 4" and then begin decreasing.

Looking forward to seeing what you are working on.

Warm wishes,
Tonya

Knitting and Reading again for the Yarn Along

Joining with Ginny at Small Things again this Wednesday - don't the weeks just go by so fast?  I am knitting these sweet little Mary Jane style wool booties for our shop.  They are a quick and easy knit and again from my favorite knitting book, Vintage Knits for Modern Babies.


With just a few pages left to go in Deeply Rooted, I am looking for another bedtime book.  Deeply Rooted is again, a great read if you are passionate about food, and specifically about keeping our food choices local as much as possible and out of the hands of big business.

This little book, Small Acts of Kindness, is a children's book that was recommended and how wonderful to go along with our kindness theme.  It is just great - starting with one small act of kindness from a little boy giving his mother a hug in the morning and how that leads to another act of kindness from his mother to someone else, and so on and so on....

Looking forward to finding out what you reading and knitting or crocheting.

Christmas Countdown with Wool Hearts - Handmade Holiday - 2011

I love the idea of making the whole Christmas season special, not just the one day and I like the idea of an advent calender but didn't want something that involved treats or small gifts for everyone each of the 25 days as that could get really expensive or time consuming to make, so I came up with this idea to countdown the days before Christmas.

This is so simple - I don't think that I have ever crafted anything that could be classified as complex - anybody can make these and it is a great project for children as well.

I used wool felt but you could also use upcycled felted wool (think old sweaters) and cut out 24 hearts and one star for number 25.  I used pinking shears so that I could just use a simple running stitch around the heart instead of the blanket stitch to save a bit of time but the blanket stitch would certainly look nice as well.  Leave a hole to stuff with wool and then finish sewing closed.  Don't forget to add a loop for hanging.  I am thankful to have Sarah helping me with these.

Next, we are needle felting the numbers on each heart.   You could instead embroider the numbers.

We will be putting all of our hearts and star in a basket and then take out the appropriate number each day beginning December 1st to hang on our Christmas tree.  But other options would be to have a smaller  branch "tree" to hang them or some other creative idea.

I look forward to your sharing.  Please leave a link in the comment if you have posted about your project, recipe, plans, etc...
Warm wishes, Tonya