Ready for Christmas

I was thinking recently of the effect of having children at Christmas.
Here is our tree in all it's tasteful glory. At the bottom are a load of playmobil ornaments. At the top are the few glass ornaments that I dare risk. If you look carefully you can see many home-made decorations including last year's paper snowmen and angels chains.



When we were growing up our tree always had an assortment of child-made ornaments. Once I moved out from home and had my own tree I had extremely 'tasteful' trees with white lights and ornaments with a colour scheme. Now I've reverted to the trees of my childhood - and funnily enough I like the effect better.

I've noticed a similar progression with my cake decoration. When I first starting baking my own cake I made cakes with elegant pared-down decorations...smooth fondant icing, silver draghees, marzipan holly leaves (not all at the same time).


Now my cake looks like the snow scene cakes that I remember Nana making - I have a couple of the decorations which used to be on the cakes when i was small...the snowbaby and the tree. It seems now as this is what a Christmas cake 'should' look like and funny that I ever thought otherwise.

The cake photo taken before someone (F) made a large thumbprint in the icing!

My own little rainbow

I'm knitting my own rainbow scarf. I knitted one for Nancy last year and loved how the colour mix emerged as I knitted.





These colours are Noro Kureyon in 170 and 95 which are definitely my colours in the skein. Together? I'm not so sure - but I expect the overall effect will be my colours once I've knitted some more. At the moment some of the colour combinations are not so appealing...yellow and green anyone?



It's a mindless knit - mistake rib, so great for the TV or knitting in the car.

We WISH you a Merry Christmas

Finlay's pre-school gave a Christmas concert last week. Because its a church school it was an actual Nativity play. The Jr K class provided the music.





We have been regaled for several weeks with 'Away in a Manger' so it was nice to hear it performed live. The finale was 'We wish you a Merry Christmas' performed with much gusto.*



After the concert there was a small reception. Finlay and his friends enjoyed the festive snacks!



* I have always sung the verse demanding Figgy pudding when serving our Christmas pudding...Nigel only realized this week that I had not made up the verse when he heard it on the radio!

On the needles - hourglass sweater

I cast on for a new sweater for me. It's the Hourglass sweater from Last Minute Knitted Gifts. I knitted the same pattern for Gill last year and liked how it came out.

I'm knitting mine in a yarn recommended by Jasmine at knitting group. Its a superwash merino aran weight from Dream in Colour.

Its a hand-dyed yarn and they use a technique called Veil dying which gives a slightly mottled effect... im using 2 skeins at once to try to maintain some consistency in the colour. This colour is called Gothic Rose and it's rather darker than I expected - this is the downside of buying yarn online of course. I bought it from the excellent-ly named website www.sonnyandshear.com/

Yet another year

As you know 'tis the season of birthdays here at Ferretworld and we celebrated another one this week.

It started, as is the norm, before dawn (!) with the present-opening. I think he was pleased yes?

As it's a school day Adam got to celebrate his birthday at school. This year the birthday ritual is rather more low-key than last year with a parent coming in to read a favourite book. Here is Adam with his teacher:

The main excitement started after school when we headed out to test the new birthday present.

We had a private lesson with Finlay and Henry and so the boys had the park to themselves.

They all tried out some ramps.

We came back home for some cake - banana cake this time.

We wrapped up the day with a tour of the festival-of-lights in the park. We noticed more sponsorship than in previous years - but a better display. We particularly liked the dinosaur den! What says Christmas like roaring dinosaurs?

Small knitting projects

I've been doing a little bit of Christmas knitting lately. These socks are for Adam's teacher. She is a new knitter, and talks to me quite often about her projects. So far she has not knitted herself socks apparently.


These are knitted from Regia Bamboo is colour 1064. I found the yarn rather 'splitty' but it makes a nice light and silky fabric. Because its a mix of bamboo, wool, and polyamid they are machine washable.

I also knitted a last-minute headband for Finlay's speech therapist. She is off to NYC shortly and we talked about suitable clothing. I thought she might need a warm headband.


This is another version of the calorimetry pattern and I knitted it in leftovers from my vest. Noro Kureyon in colour 184. Of course she may take one look (Gill) and think it looks silly...but it didnt take long to knit it so nothing lost there.

Off the needles - Noro Vest

I finished the Noro Vest and am pretty pleased with how it worked out. I used the Rosemary cable as the basis for the vest, but modified all other elements of the pattern. I finished the armholes with a seed stitch and left the back of the neck unfinished to match the rolled hems of the top. I used short rows to shape the shoulders and then grafted them. I used my "new" seaming technique for the side seams.



The modelled shot will have a to wait as the one I took was too fuzzy.

Nine years

and still smiling!

On the needles - Noro Vest

This is the noro vest (or tank top for english speakers). I'm making it up myself, but using some of the elements from my Rosemary top.

I'm making it with negative ease - so it may just look rubbish - but it's a quick knit and I do love the colours of the Kureyon yarn.

Festive spirit

I mentioned that last week I put up my Christmas decorations outside and I wanted to share the beauty and joy...and my immense good taste (Gill thinks living next door to us is like being neighbours of the Griswolds).





Here are my reindeer - the big one nods it's head. They are getting a bit elderly and I had to repair the larger one with a new string of lights. I could only get green lights so it looks somewhat Heath-Robinson now.





For the full effect - see the reindeer in their natural setting. This weekend we went to get our tree. We went to Castle Rock Tree farm as usual and chose ourselves a nice tree.



As usual we chose what we thought was a small tree and then had to cut it to get it into the house. It seems odd to be posting photos of Christmas decorations in brilliant sunshine when large parts of the US are under feet of snow or ice. It has been cold here - but not coat-hat-and-scarf cold...just handknit sweater cold.

Party animals

We went to the childrens party today at the office at which we used to work. It was nice to be back there - it's such a lovely location and a nice building too. The party was a lot of fun - a visit to Santa of course.

There was also a magic show, balloon creations, face painting, a caricaturist (who did a great job on the boys: he drew them as sportsmen. F as a Rubgy player, and A as a soccer player - the boys were thrilled). There was also cookie decorating.

Adam here modeling his balloon hat - Finlay of course requested a sword!

I include this picture although it is dark...if you look closely you can see that the boys are using their candy canes to walk along the corridor!

A ferrety birthday

We had a birthday over here this week at Ferretworld... well it is our season for that. It started before dawn (look at the windows!).


Presents were opened and immediately admired and played with. Before breakfast a Heely lesson had to be organized...

...not that successful but a lot of fun. By special request the birthday boy came home early to play with his presents and "do experiments".

and we wrapped up the festivities with a cake of course.

This cake designed by the recipient... chocolate cake with chocolate filling and chocolate icing, a soccer ball, and orange icing! However unappealing it sounds - it was well received!

Any dream will do!

OK - I promise this is the last of the corny lyric post titles! But I do feel like Joseph in this cardigan!






This is the completed Tithe. I'm really pleased with how it turned out. I lengthened the body by 2" and the sleeves to full length. I used Mary's seaming technique and the seams are way better than any other garment I have previously made.



It took 9 balls of the Silk Garden. The result is very warm and surprisingly wearable. I had wondered about it needing a closure, but it seems to stay closed pretty easily.



My only issue is that I made the large size, and it's a bit too large for me, especially on the shoulders. I think washing it will even up the texture - and I haven't blocked the garment yet. In the meantime I thought I'd try a 'styled' pose to hide the large shoulders...




Actually I think it looks even bigger sideways on...I guess I shouldn't quit my job just yet.

I left my heart..

We headed up to San Francisco this Sunday. We started off at the ice rink on the Embarcadero. The boys had a blast!




Adam did one circuit with Nigel, then he was off. After 45 minutes he was whizzing around the rink. Finlay decided it was easier without holding anyone's hand.

I decided to mind the shoes!

We walked from the Embaradero up to Chinatown for Dim Sum (by special request). Again, the boys were very good at trying new things and discovered that they both loved pork dumplings and Finlay also ate 3 shrimp pancake things.

After lunch we listened to a many playing a Huqin and he let them both have a go. The camera battery had given up by then - so no photos!

Don't rain on my parade

Well, it did drizzle for about 2 minutes on Saturday - but mostly it was clear and dry for the annual LG Children's parade.

We got a good spot by virtue of joining friends with a good spot!

The old favourites were there:

The Cucazza Squash Drill Team:

The Jiffy Market bike stunt guys:

as well as some new groups like the excellent 'Star Paws':

We had an excellent time and feel like the countdown to Christmas has started now. We have a busy month of birthdays and anniversarys so lots to celebrate!

On the needles: Tithe

I'm currently knitting a sweater from Noro Unlimited by Jane Ellison. It's called Tithe and I'm knitting it in Silk Garden.




The colour is slightly outside my usual palette - I thought I would go for a more pink colour - this is really very pink indeed!

It's an easy knit - good television knitting - and going quite fast.

Cold feet: warm heart

Christina made me a hot-pad cover - see Sixties Retro. She thoughtfully provided me with a microwaveable pad to go in it.

Sadly, I managed to explode it in my microwave so needed to find an alternative. After searching on the internet I decided that it was something I could easily make myself, and you know what? It was something I could easily make myself:

Some left-over fleece, half a pound of rice (tuppenny or otherwise) and about 3 minutes at the machine.

Dog Pants

Over the weekend I managed to get some sewing done. The boys played outside for hours: here they are building some sort of bike ramp to do "tricks".

Finlay is modeling the dog pants. He chose the fleece fabric on a trip to Joanns for fabric paint before Halloween. He also chose some red plaid for Adam. I made these up using the same pattern as the skeleton pants, but I can't remember the pattern number. It's a basic pajama pattern. These are intended for skiing and camping trips, but Finlay had to wear his today.

I've discovered the joy of sewing with Fleece; no seam finishing; no pressing; no fraying. I can see how you might end up with a wardrobe of home-made fleece clothes - apart from the obvious!

Red stocking

The other stocking of the pair. This one for Finlay.


In Cascade 220 and the rest of the ball of Berocco Metallic FX. Thanks to a seaming lesson from Mary my finishing looks loads better. I'm hoping to put it into practise on my Tithe sweater which has a lot of seams to sew up.

It's beginning to feel...

The weekend after Thanksgiving seems to be the traditional time to start to decorate your home for Christmas. In this neighbourhood most people go to town with lights and decorations so starting early gives you time to get everything illuminated!

Here is the first of my Christmas knitting: stockings for the boys. This one for Adam.

The pattern is Ann Norling 'Snowflake Stocking'. Knitted in Cascade Pastaza and Berocco Metallic FX. Detail of the intarsia snowflake:

These will be for stocking presents so I made them longer than the pattern.

Happy Thanksgiving

Adam made the turkey which contained a pottery spoon holder shaped like a leaf. Both boys were able to tell us the story of the first Thanksgiving like the proper americans that they are.

Move over Milton Bradley

Finlay has invented his own board game. I actually don't know what it's called, but he and I played this afternoon.


The rules are very complex, and seem related to Chess - you move pieces across the board in a similar way.

For a close up of the board and playing pieces:


Sadly I lost the first round to Finlay, but he did comfort me after announcing victory "well we both really won Mummy". I guess he's assuming that if I keep losing like that I won't want to play anymore.

Warm ears and green hair

Behold my latest finished knitted object! (Well, actually not the latest - but one which is intended for me and can be talked about here). The pattern is calorimetry from knitty and I'm really pleased with it.



Knitted from a single ball of Noro Silk Garden. Details for Ravellers here . Actually I think I just told all the details anyway. Its not a clear picture of my new green hair - but it does match the hat!

Little bear

When Christina was visiting, at her suggestion, we made bears for the Mother Bear project. Mine, the knitted one, on the left, Christina's crochet bear to the right.

Its a nice sounding small-scale charity, but we were both appalled at the patterns that were provided for the bears. The construction was odd (both bears knitted/crochet in one piece from toes up to head and back to toes. There was no gauge suggested and the pattern was an odd mix of row numbers and inches... but don't let that put you off.... the odd pattern would be easy even for a beginning knitter, and the bears only took an evening to create. I also think they both came out really cute whatever the pattern limitations...and that is what counts.

So, please, if you have a free evening, and the inclination, please look up http://www.motherbearproject.org/.

Autumn gardening

Remember way back in February when my mother did some planting with the boys? They planted seeds...



..they brought them on inside, then planted outside in March.



Now, just before Halloween, they looked like this:


We harvested our pumkins for decoration over Halloween, and now are deciding how to eat them. Should we eat pie? or soup? mmm I forsee some baking over the weekend.

Big Air

Adam and I needed an adventure today - and we managed to find one here: Icerair 2007 . We had a blast!

Edited to include a photo take in the giant snowglobe at AT&S Park:

We started off in the village area cleaning up on stickers and made our way to the bmx park to watch the amateur competition. We then headed over to AT&T Park to watch the Big Air preliminary competition: Snowboard and Ski jumping from a huge snow-covered ramp erected in the stadium. It was a pretty exciting competition - we enjoyed the ski jumping better than the snowboards.

We also watched some competitors practising for the pro skate and bmx Vert (20' high half-pipe for skateboard and bmx).

After the competition we headed back to the village to watch the bmx professionals practise for a while before we headed home exhausted. While I prepared dinner Adam practised tricks on his 'bmx bike', aka the bike he got for his 2nd birthday...which has a suitable small scale to stand in. He tells me he is already saving for a bmx of his own!

No digital photos - but we did buy a disposable camera so Adam will have some pics of himself being nearly brained by flying skateboards and flying cyclists.