Baby Gifts

I feel like all fall I have been knitting baby gifts! I enjoy making things for babies. I mean the stuff is cute and each item is little so it takes less time to have a nice finished object. However, between school and all the baby showers I haven’t had much time for my own knitting. I also haven’t been blogging because I had to wait for the gifts to be given before I could reveal a lot of these things.

First, this one made me giggle. My friend asked for this hat because her little boy is going to be born around Thanksgiving (still I had to laugh at myself while I knitted each turkey leg). This is the pattern.

The next project I completely forgot to get  a picture of! It was a bib made from this pattern, which is just fabulous. I made the bib yellow with a contrasting orange neck-tie. I added a monarch butterfly appliqué in the left lower corner (ironed and sewn on because a baby bib needs to be durable enough to throw in the washer). I am kicking myself for not getting a picture but I wanted to mention it anyway because I enjoyed the pattern so much.

This was the most recent gift. I think the picture makes it look a little red like a tomato, but in real life it is a beautiful magenta. I was trying to go for a strawberry. I thought about adding seeds but that would require me to carry the yarn in the back which seems uncomfortable for baby’s head, or do a lot of cutting and weaving in of ends, which sounded awful. When I saw the finished product I actually really liked it the way it was, so that is the way it stayed. (here is the pattern)

The shower for the baby getting the strawberry hat had a “sugar and spice” theme (so cute). So I made some sugary cookies to go along with it. Again, almost forgot to take a picture so please forgive the quality of the shot that I took after I had already packed them up to go to the shower.

I have made progress on my other two projects. I am still loving the pendulum although all of the garter stitch is kind of monotonous. I think the fact that I keep changing colors keeps it interesting. I like this project because I can pick it up for a few minutes at a time and not have to put much thought into it.

I am a bit embarrassed about the next one. About a month ago I turned the heel on my first Kalajoki sock and then put it down and haven’t picked it up again. It’s not that I don’t like the pattern, I have actually really enjoyed working it! It just isn’t quite so easy to pick up for a few minutes at a time and so with all of the other projects going on it has gotten neglected.  Maybe by winter break things will calm down and I can finish this sock and its partner.

A long, long time ago . . .on graduation day

Bonus life points if you know the song that the title of this post is referencing.

So a long time ago (like a month ago) my youngest sister graduated from highschool. I made some of her favorite things into cookies. So many cookies that I haven’t had the desire to even touch a cookie cutter in over a month. However, I would gladly do it all over again because she is such an awesome sister. (Disclaimer: my middle sister is awesome, too. She just didn’t graduate from anything this year)

You may have noticed a theme with some of my posts about MGC and her love for Star Trek. See this one and this one. In fact she loves Star Trek so much Zachary Quinto, a.k.a. Spock in the latest movie version, came to her party.

Hubby and I got her this life sized cardboard cut out a few years ago for Christmas. It took a long time before I could walk by her room and not freak out that there was some random man standing in there. I don’t even notice him any more.  I don’t know which is worse.

Anyway, here are the cookies to go with Mr Spock.

Huge thanks to Sugarbelle for her wonderful tutorials!

I also had to do a set of Harry Potter cookies because that obsession started before she even knew what the Starship Enterprise was.

However, the most important cookies were the ones of the thing she loves more than anything in the whole wide world. He is only about 5 pounds but he is a huge part of her life.

Meet my cookie version of Brutus (yes she named her teeny tiny dog Brutus).

And no the cookies weren’t red, white and blue for memorial day. We apparently went to the most patriotic high school in America (believe it or not the school colors are for the French flag because it was named after the French General Lafayette).

Congratulations MGC!

9 Cups of Flour Later. . .

I started my holiday cookies today. I decided to follow Bakeat350 ‘s advice and bake all my cookies ahead of time. I will decorate them in batches later. I didn’t think to take pictures until most of the damage was done.

I was extremely excited to use my new cookie cutters, a wrapped candy, an ornament, and a Christmas light. I got them here.

I was even more excited to try this technique from Sweetsugarbelle (this link takes you to a blog where she did a guest post). The technique uses a tree cookie cutter to imprint on the dough. When it is baked, the indentation is still there making it super easy to color in with icing!!! Here are the baked cookies.

Sorry for the blurry picture (a new camera is on my Christmas wish list!)

Here are all the cookies ready to be stored until I am able to decorate them. I will leave them out for the next few days and then the ones I am not able to decorate until later I will freeze.

So, 9 cups of flour, 6 sticks of butter, 3 cups of sugar, 3 eggs and some vanilla and almond extract later. . . this is what 8 dozen cookies looks like. I am afraid it won’t be enough!