Christmas Knitting Follow-up

The last of the Christmas knitting secrets are out.....

Matching Acorn Hats
I know I have pictures of these up on a previous post (modeled by Latté the bear and Ja-Zeppe the frog) but the recipients look great wearing them:


Angelia's Purple Fuzzy Scarf
So I'm not normally an eyelash or fuzzy yarn person, but this was for a 9 year-old girl....so fuzzy it was:
The yarn was a little hard to photograph but I think it looks better in real life than on film. Plus my little sis loved it.



Cambria's Scarf
Cambria's scarf wasn't much of a surprise since she had specifically asked for a scarf. Hers was the first scarf I ever knit. Yup...I managed to knit lots of other things including a sweater and socks before I ever got around to making a scarf (too boring in my opinion). This one wasn't too bad, though....it was in Patons divine on sz. 15 needles and a combination of moss stitch and drop stitches so the drop stitches helped it go really quick and gave it an airy, lacy look.















Elijah's Sweater
This was my first sweater I did and I think it looks really cute. I was all excited because I made it and it fit over Ja-Zeppe (the frog)' s ginormous head. Alas, froggy heads squish and baby heads don't. When we tried to put it on Elijah, his head was too big! So I had to take it home with me to unravel the neck and re-do it with a button in the back so we could get it over his big noggin. This is a picture of Ja-zeppe wearing the sweater.
I'll have to ask Cambria for a picture of Elijah once it gets to her.



and last but not least.... Joe's Sweater
This one was a little hard to pull off since I was trying to work on it when he wasn't around. That didn't work too well and all I had done by the time I left for Washington (where we did Christmas) was the sleeves and the ribbing for the bottom of the back piece. I finished the back on the plane and did most of the front once I was at my sister and brother-in-law's place but I had to finish the front, the seaming and the neck on Christmas Eve. Yup....I was up until 3 am on December 25th working on this thing.

Not the best pictures of Joe (or the sweater really) but you get the idea. I'll have the take better pictures of him wearing it now that we are home.

I think that's it. Where is the picture of Falicia (brother's girlfriend) wearing her kitty hat? Well, she didn't end up coming over on Christmas (which is the only reason I had made her something to begin with....I didn't want her to feel left out while our family opened gifts) so I kept my sweet hat for myself and have been wearing it quite a bit since then. It's not as warm as I think it would be if it were wool so I'm not sure what I'm going to do about that yet. I may need to make another one in wool for that reason but we'll see.

Sweet New Website

When I was home for Christmas my sister raved about this great new websiste she found called PaperBackSwap.com.

What you do is you post a listing of books you have lying around your house that you don't need or want anymore. When someone says they want your book, you mail it to them (yes, you pay the $1.50 or so to send it to them via media mail). But once you send a book, you get a "credit" good for any book you want. So now it is your turn to request a book you want and get the owner to mail it to you at their expense.

So essentially for the cost of postage, you get brand new books in exchange for books you might as well have thrown away anyway since you weren't reading them anymore. How freaking cool is that?!?!? It's not just limited to paperbacks, either. You can do hardcover books, audio books, knitting books or even Cookbooks. Free knitting and cookbooks in exchange for old paperbacks I have lying around? Yes please!

Oh! The other cool thing I wanted to mention is that once you list 9 of your books, you automatially get 3 credits. This is pretty sweet because it means you don't need to wait around for people to choose your books (although the first book I listed was requested within 12 hours) so that you can get credits.

I'm really jazzed about this website, so wanted to let other people know about it. If you want to sign up, too please click here to link to the site. I figure that if if you're reading my blog you might be at least somewhat interested in creative things like knitting and cooking....so you might list some sweet knitting and or/cookbooks that I might want (See. We all win). Also, when they ask you who referred you, please use my user name which is "carissamarie" because I think I may get a free book credit out of the deal (though I'm not sure). Enjoy!!

BookWorm Hats and Free Pattern

BookWorm Hat Pattern
by Carissa Bonham
***This pattern may only be used for personal, non-commercial use. Any other use of this hat including using the pattern for group knitting, publishing or to sell requires the specific written permission of the author (that would be me)***

Gauge = 8st = 3”

Yarn = 1 ball Lion Brand Wool-Ease Thick & Quick in Pine 182 (color A)

& 1 ball Lion Brand Wool-Ease Thick & Quick in Grass 131 (color B)

Needles: sz. 11, straight needles or size needed to optain gauge

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Cast on 59 stitches with color A

Work in St. st for 4 rows

Switch to color B for 4 rows

Alternate 4 row sections of each color until there are 6 stripes worked or until unrolled hat measures 6”.

Switch to next color and K1, *K6, K2tog* seven times, K2

Purl across

K1, *K5, K2tog* seven times, K2

Purl across

Change colors and K1, *K4, K2tog* seven times, K2

Purl across

K1, *K3, K2tog* seven times, K2

P2, *P2tog, P2* six times, P2tog, P3

Change colors and K1, *K1, K2tog* seven times, K2

Purl across

K1,*K2tog* 8 times

*P2tog* 4 times, P1

Leaving an 8 inch tail trim yarn and thread through remaining stitches on a blunt needle, pulling tight.

Alternating the yarn (so that colors match up) sew up seam with mattress stitch being careful to be sure stripes match up across seam.

When you get to the last stripe along cast on edge, sew seam on WS so that it doesn’t show when edge is rolled up.

Weave in ends

**Tip: to decrease the amount of finishing work required, instead of cutting and re-tying yarn at each color change, allow the color you are not working with to dangle and allow it to run along the side (it will be hidden inside the seam when done).

If anyone decides to knit this hat, please let me know! I'd love to see pictures.

To contact me regarding permission to use this hat for anything other than personal, non-commercial use, please contact me by posting a comment in this post (being sure to fill out the e-mail address field).

Thanks!

Christmas Knitting Round 3: HatMania

Hats Hats Hats!!!!

I sure hope people like hats because it looks like that's what almost everyone is getting for Christmas this year.....

Purple Fuzz

This is the Lion Brand Velvet Spun hat I made for my Husband's Aunt in Lavender on size 11 needles. Loosely based on the kittyville hat pattern (see below).

My husband calls this the
"Hospital Patient Hat"
(I don't think it's that bad!)

Lion Brand Wool-Ease Thick and Quick in Sky Blue for my Sister-In-Law Crystal. Knit on sz. 11 needles. Loosely based on a modified version of the top-secret meathead hat pattern

Matching Acorn Hats

These are matching hats for my nephew and his dad (that would be my brother-in-law). Hats were free-styled out of Lion Brand Wool-Ease Chunky Yarn in some brown color (I lost the label) on size 11, 10, and 9 needles (decreased the size as I got further up the hat).

Falicia's Kittyville Hat

Kittyville hat made for my brother's girlfriend out of Red Heart Yarn in black on size 7 DPN's.

BookWorm Hats

These are complementary hats I made for my husband's parents out of Lion Brand Wool-Ease Thick & Quick yarn in Grass and Pine on size 11 needles. I came up with the pattern myself and will list it in my next post.

And now it's time for Carissa's Infamous BLOG QUIZ!!!!!

Please vote for my pie!

Once again, I am entering a BakeSpace cook-off contest. The theme for this month's contest (in preparation for the impending new year's resolutions) is "healthy menu ideas" (as in low-fat, low-cal, vegetarian, etc. etc. food)

Below is the recipe I entered for my "Mostly Fat Free (but delicious!) Chocolate Chip Pie." If you like it, please take a moment to vote for it, by clicking here. Once you are on the page, scroll to the bottom and click "BakeSpace Cookoff."

I don't have a picture yet, but if you make it and take a picture and send it to me (or upload it to flickr and then add me as your flickr friend), I would love to post it (giving you full credit, of course).

Thanks!!

Mostly Fat Free (but delicious!)

Chocolate Chip Pie

Backstory
This is a recipe I created to bring to a weekly dinner get-together with friends while I was on Weight Watchers. I had become tired of not being able to eat dessert like my other (non-Weight Watchers) friends and I so I volunteered to bring dessert the next week. Since some of the boys were opposed to eating anything "girly" (i.e. food with the fat and sugar content removed), we didn't tell them our little secret until the end of the night when they wouldn't stop raving about how much they loved this pie!

Ingredients
Two packages sugar-free, fat-free vanilla pudding
1 1/2 cups cold skim milk
1 1/4 cups sugar free chocolate chips, divided
Pre-made Graham Cracker crust
1 8oz container Fat Free Whipped Topping

Directions

Filling
Whisk milk, pudding mix and half of whipped topping together in a bowl for about 1 minute (mixture will be very thick).

Add 1 cup of chocolate chips and whisk until evenly spread throughout mixture.

Pie
Scrape chocolate/pudding mixture into graham cracker crust and spread evenly. Spread other half of whipped topping on top of pie filling, smoothing to make a pretty dome.

Topping
Put remaining 1/8 cup chocolate chips into a small zip-lock baggie. Microwave for 1 minute or until chocolate is melted through, stopping every 10 seconds to squish contents of bag together to ensure even heating. Do not over-cook chocolate!

Once chocolate is melted, squish chocolate into lower corner of plastic baggie and twist. Use kitchen shears to trim off a corner of the bag. Drizzle melted chocolate on top of pie.

Refrigerate pie until ready to serve or for at least 30 minutes.

Voting Poll:

♥ Christmas Cookies ♥

Last Friday Joe and I wanted to go on a date. Since we are a bit on the po' side this month.... "So po'," as my sister says, "we can't even afford the [extra 'o' and] 'r'!"....so not being able to even afford 'r's means that we couldn't afford to go see a movie or even rent one but still wanted to do something fun so we decided to make Christmas cookies.

I just ordered a great cookie press from the Pampered Chef but since it wasn't scheduled to be here until Tuesday (tomorrow) we couldn't use it to make cookies last Friday night and so decided to go the more pedestrian, cookie-cutter route.

So I got on BakeSpace and found a great recipe for Christmas Butter Cookies

Joe was very excited and ran around and got all the ingredients together while I was getting the recipe ready to print off:

Once the recipe was ready, he donned my BakeSpace apron (the one I won in the October bake-off) and I snapped pic of him checking out the game plan. I love a man in an apron....

Since we don't have a Kitchen Aid mixer (or any mixer for that matter), once the dough started getting tough we had to abandon the spoon to use our hands to get it mixed really well. Actually, Joe had to (or got to) use his hands. It think it was his favorite part. Don't worry....he washed them first.

After refridgerating the dough for an hour or so, it was time to roll them out and cut out the shape. No that wasn't a typ-o. I said "shape." As in, only one....because the only cookie cutter Joe and I own is a heart. ♥

Baking tip: Most people roll out cookie dough onto a work surface, cut the cookies and then transfer the cut-outs to a baking sheet. Instead, if you roll out the dough directly onto your cookie sheet, you can cut out your cookies and simply peel away the leftover dough. That way you don't need to try and move the cookies and risk smooshing them.









But before we could put the cookies in the oven to bake we had to "Christmasify" them. Some of them got "Italisized" (as in: made to be Italian) as well.....


I think my two favorites are the Italian flag-ish one (top center) and the one with the rainbow sprinkles and the red border (southwest of the Italian one).

Once they were done baking and cooling (this was close to midnight or 1 am), we packed some cookies up into boxes to go deliver to some of our friends who live in our building. Well, almost. I forgot that one set of our friends (the Evans) actually lived in the building next to ours....and so after delivering the other cookies Joe and I ran outside in the snow like crazy people (crazy because I was only wearing a lightweight hoodie and no hat or coat) to try and break into the apartment building next door. Luckily someone else was crazy enough to be coming in with groceries the same time we were trying to break in, so we were able to get in without making a big scene (whew!)

All-in-all, it was a good date. We both had a lot of fun and got to go hook our friends up with homemade cookies.

Christmas Knitting Round 2

Hooray for more Christmas knitting!

I found out my brother's girlfriend (whom I have never met) was going to spend Christmas evening with my family when I go back to Seattle for Christmas. Since they have been dating for a whole year now, I figure it may be a smidge on the serious side and so I should be a good possible future sister-in-law and give her something (plus I'm nice like that). Since most of my family is getting handknit items, I decided I would feel like a cheap jerk if I just got her a token store bought something.

From her myspace page, I'm thinking she's of the punk rock persuassion and might appriciate something fun, so I decided to make her a kittyville hat. This is me wearing it:

Okay, I know it's a stupid pose.....but it was really the best one of the hat (stop laughing).

Now I have a dillemma.....I kinda like the hat. I'd wear it. I'm scared if I give it to her, she'll think it's dumb and throw it away or give it to goodwill. It's not like the yarn was expensive (it's acrylic) but I spent a long time working on this thing! And I think it's tacky to say, "I made you this hat. I spent a long time working on it. I hope you like it but if you hate it, please don't throw it away. I'd rather have you give it to one of my sisters and know you hate it than have you pretend to like it and have it end up in a dumpster."

So I'm not sure. I figure I have 3 options:

1) Keep the hat myself and make her a beanie to match the one I'm going to make for my brother
This has the slight downside that now I have an acrylic hat when I would have prefered wool plus now I need to knit something else (Christmas will be here soon!)

2) Give the hat to her and make one for me out of wool
And maybe tell Chris privately that if Falicia hates it, to please not throw it away??

3) Give the hat to one of my sisters who I know will appriciate it
I think either of my sisters would like this hat. Plus even if they hate it, I don't think they'd throw it away....they'd probably just give it to the other one.

Hmmmm. What to do, what to do? So to facilitate the decision process, I would really appriciate if you took my "What should I do with this hat??" quiz:

Thanks!!!

It's not too late!

If anyone is still interested in the Pampered Chef sale where you can get free cookbooks (see last post, below), it's not too late! You need to submit your order by 6:30pm Eastern Standard time, however.

You can, of course order after 6:30pm today...you just won't be able to get your free cookbooks.

web address: http://www.pamperedchef.biz/carissascorner

See instructions for ordering in post below.

Happy Christmas shopping!!!

Shameless Plug...

...But I suppose I don't feel bad because

1) It's my blog

2) It is cooking related.

Anyway....on to the plug:

Today is the last day to participate in the Post-Thanksgiving / Christmas Stock-up Sale through my Pampered Chef website.

Orders over $25 get a free Season's Best cookbook and orders over $60 get a free deluxe, full-Color cookbook.

Check it out!

Instructions for ordering:

Here's how to Get Started!

1) Go to: http://www.pamperedchef.biz/carissascorner

2) Click "Order Products" in the lower left-hand corner (next to picture of the holiday catalog)

3) Follow option 1: "Already Invited to a Show and Would like to Place an Order?" In last name field, enter "Bonham" and click "Search for Host" Click "Joseph & Carissa Bonham" ***This step is critical! If you do not chose option 1, you will not be able to receive your free cookbooks!***

4) Browse products or enter item numbers from the catalog

5) If you are ordering more than $60 in products, please be sure the click the "Guest Special" category to choose your
cookbook!

6) When you are done selecting products, click "view your selections" to begin the check-out process