Welcome to the inside....away from the cold.

I figure I do a fair amount of decorating, but it's gotten to the
point where I'm cutting down as I have to think of where I'm going to store all this stuff after I buy it. Plus cutting back on the decorating helps with the knitting schedule. Click to embiggen any of the following pictures.

The front living room. This year we bought a new Christmas tree. It's artificial pine/spruce slim tree. It's in a smaller box that I can lift myself, and putting it away won't be such a chore.

Close up of the Christmas tree decorations. My DD is a graphic designer and she fell in love with this colour combination....it's sort of a dark plum/brown with coordinating gold ornaments, and tinsel garland.










Looking in the other direction in the living room.

My DD was at a Christmas function a couple years ago and won these wire deer. Something I never would have thought to buy, but I'm sure glad she won them as I really enjoy them.











A little closer look at the guardian of the liquor cabinet.






















Santa Claus.













Off the living room area is the dinette where breakfast, lunch, and supper is served, or to our American friends its dinner, or to the British its tea.













Heading downstairs to the basement is a antique buffet we recently received which promptly got decorated. I think it looks happy.




















The final decoration I usually put up is in the rumpus room downstairs which sits on a mantel above the TV. It's a metal house bought from Costco a couple years ago. It holds three tea lights inside which light it up from the inside. This year I was surprised that Costco wasn't carrying much for different decorations such as this one.



Finally after all this is mostly a knitting blog, and of course I've got a sock in progress. Pattern from Favorite Socks 25 Timeless Designs from Interweave. Page 39 Merino Lace Socks by Anne Woodbury.
Yarn: Trekking Pro Natura.
Made in Germany
100G=420m
75% New Wool
25% Bamboo
Colour: 1515

Wishing you all a Merry Christmas and a Fantastic New Year!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Peace and Love from my house to yours
See you in the New Year!
Charlene

Day 1.....I'm such a joiner........

I saw this.....












on Susan In Stitches blog, and thought it was such a cool idea. You can find the link in my sidebar, or go directly to BooMama's blog.

So today is day 1 for me. I'm starting with the outside of the house which I've been trying to take some nighttime pictures of Christmas lights, but haven't figured out my aperatures/shutter coordinates yet. Bear with me more research is needed.....





The backyard.....
I think it's been almost 15 years I've had these candles and I still like them. I've also had the large red bows for many years and only now thought to put them on the fence and trees. They sat in a box for the last two years because I didn't know where I wanted to put them.












The lights were on and I thought they'd show up more in this picture, but it still needs to be darker outside. I've already filled that bird feeder for the second time in two weeks. The sparrows and chickadees are really chowing down.










This is the front door with a bit of garland and another couple of trees decorated with some red berries on either side of the door.



Front door wreath and bells >












I was inspired by Susan's blog and her talent at taking Christmas pictures of all her animals/pets. I recruited my daughter to help with my Noodles to do some sort of garland arrangement, but there was so much movement by the model, this one turned out kind of blurry.















This was the best one, but as you can see by the placement of the ears she wasn't thinking this was fun.











Yeaaahhhh....this was fun. As you can tell by the tinsel shredded on the floor this wrestling match ended quickly. I had to save the garland.









There has been some knitting going on. Sparse as it is. I've made five of these hotpads in different colours, and given most of them away. I am using them as hotpads, but the pattern is calling it a dishcloth. The pattern is free and was found on Ravelry here. If you're not on Ravelry then it's here. Yarn used: Bernat Handicrafter Holidays, Colour 47706 Mistletoe, 100% Cotton, 100g/3.5oz. Any of the Bernat Handicrafter cotton yarn works great with this pattern. I can make one in about four hours while watching television, and I'm not a fast knitter.

Tomorrow I'll have more pic's of Christmas decorating inside the house.

Happy Thanksgiving to our American Friends!

I have to say it's kind of nice to watch all the Thanksgiving Festivities on TV. It kind of gives me another boost into getting into the spirit of the holidays.

I finished my housecoat that I had blogged about earlier. I added some bling to the cuffs and pockets. From this distance they're hard to see, but they're some square sew on diamond thingy's.



I've been wearing it all week, and I'm so glad because it's been getting colder. If there was any humidity we'd have snow by now, but thank goodness we don't. It makes it feel like a shorter winter the longer we go without the white stuff.









Another one of my wip is a Sirdar pattern of a Bolero sweater for a baby. This is a practice version which is a good thing as I've had to rip half of the back down because I'd made a mistake and didn't realize it until I started blocking it.....
(After thought...I'm using Naturalee by Lily, 100% cotton, 4 ply Sport Weight, Colour #214 Salmon)

I've got another couple projects on the go which I'll blog about later as I haven't gotten enough knitting done to show them.

This is what I feel like when I have to frog a piece of knitting. Noodles hit the nail on the head. Thhhrruuuuuppppppp (Blowing a raspberry)

New Header, New Mugs.......

My daughter informed me yesterday that Starbucks had these really cool mugs with a knitted texture, and my reaction was 'Get'em'. Is this a new product this year? I don't remember seeing them last year, anyways they're really nice. My new blog header was my DH and my breakfast this morning.

I've got a bit of startitis happening with knitting projects right now and on top of it all I got the sewing bug. My latest project waiting for me upstairs......












I recently paid a visit to Fabricland, which is the only material store in Edmonton, and I couldn't stop mushing this embossed Cuddlelucouis fleece. This stuff is so soft and all I could think of is what a nice housecoat this would make. So when I found out that it was 40% off I was sold.

Actually the same day I decided to go to one of my lys (River City Yarns) and use my birthday gift certificate I got in September.


Four balls of Noro Silk Garden as required to make the Noro striped scarf I saw Yarn Harlot posted about here. There was a limited supply of Noro, at River City Yarns, but I'm quite happy with these two colours
#47, and 269.





The rest of the gift certificate went to four skeins of Cascade Yarns The Heathers, 100% Peruvian Highland Merino Wool, Col. No. 4010, 100 gr., 220 yards.

Last but not least another skein of sock yarn by Arequipa. Made by Estelle Yarns. 65% Superwash Wool, 20% Alpaca, 15% Nylon. Col. No. 201. 400 meters/100 grams.

I'm loving these colours. I have no plans for them, but that's most of the fun dreaming about this craft/obsession.

Have a great day!

This is a brief post to answer Phyllis (Spin, Knit, and Life) who tagged me on October 4. It's taken me this long to respond, but I do enjoy reading other blogger's tags, so here goes.....

Six Random Things About Me:

1. I love Chocolate, but the caffeine in it seems to bother me at times. Does that stop me from eating it though? Nooooooo :)

2. I HATE the wind. We just recently had a windstorm here 100km/hr. It tore the top off of our carport. One of the plastic/canvas ones that you buy from Costco.

3. After wrapping Christmas presents for a marathon six hours I went to bed (at some ungodly hour) and had a hallucination/dream that somebody had put wrapping paper up in the ceiling light fixture. My husband woke me up as I was standing on top of the bed trying to clean out the 'said' wrapping paper.

4. I love collecting rocks for our outdoor pond, and for edging around my flower gardens.

5. Now this is really out there, but I think George Bush is kind of cute. I know, I know, what is she thinking? His politics suck, but I've always thought that George was a funny guy...I find that appealing.

6. I'm fanatical about the British soap, Coronation Street.

Blog...I'm back....

It's almost overwhelming. Where to start?

Back in August we had heard about the Okanagan Fall Wine Festival that's held the first week of October in British Columbia. We thought about going, but our first priority at the time was for our Uncle Otto. Since his passing on September 19th our days before and after the funeral were so emotionally draining, and busy that it was a welcome reprieve to think about getting away. So October 3 we left for Valemount, B.C. picked up my mom and headed for British Columbia's wine country for some wine education. A few pic's......



Fall colours heading into the Alberta Rockies







Just taking a leisurely walk alongside the road.








A view from the balcony at Gray Monk Estate Winery.










Grapes waiting to be processed.










Mom and DH tasting some grapes right from the vine.











The cellar at Mission Hill Winery.













The view from the outside bistro at Dirty Laundry Vineyard.












Wine tasting at Jackson-Triggs Okanagan Winery.






It was great to get some knitting in while driving, and I started a new sock KAL designed by Kirsten from Through the Loops. The free pattern can be found on Ravelry: Fans of Through the Loops.

I had full intentions to get all these 'in progress' sock pictures with the vineyards as a back drop, but after the wine tasting I never remembered to do it...Geesh.

A great time was had by all three of us. We visited 16 wineries in five days, and we all agreed it would be something we'd love to do again. There are so many wineries and vineyards in the Okanagan that a person could go back and not visit the same ones.

Of course no trip is complete until I've visited the local yarn shops. There was only one shop in Kelowna. Kelowna Yarn and Needlecrafts........




I bought this......

And I couldn't keep my hands from smooshing it the rest of trip.

The second fibre shop stop was in Armstrong B.C. on our way back to Valemount. We stopped in and had a visit with Sharon Wickstrom from Homespun Haven. What a wonderful shop she had! It's in her home in a big room situated over her garage. I was inspired, and she had such patience with all our questions. I found out that she's hoping to teach some courses at next spring's HWSDA's conference at Old's College in Olds, Alberta, May 22-24, 2009. Hopefully next spring I'll be able to attend one of Sharon's classes.









I've never seen so many spools of yarn. Click to embiggen.










Sharon was showing me one of Ashford's looms. This ones called The Knitter's Loom. She gave us a mini demo and I'm putting it on my Christmas list.


I bought this for the stash...............










This grey is something I never heard of before. It's combed wool in a natural gray colour. It is a bit on the itchy side, but it has some wonderful fuzziness to it which I'm hoping to incorporate in some projects..................................>






So I need to take pictures of my works in progress right now. That'll be my next post....Stay warm everybody!