When Baking Interferes with Knitting!




























I have been feeling low these past few days. I do not do snow very well at all, especially when it is dirty, mushy and hanging on wayyyyyy tooooooooooo long!! I started to post yesterday and my words were too negative, so I thought change things girl!

I make ginger cookies every year and put them in tins for the people who look after things at the pool, the daily paper carrier, the postman, the handicapped man who collects our recycling and a family that my book club is giving a hamper to! Then there are the little guys and gals who bring us the 'free' papers twice a week - they get mugs filled with sachets of hot chocolate, candies and a pass for a movie or game rental! I knew that if I got these organized and out of the way that I would feel so much better and enjoy my knitting even more! So this morning, I got out the mixer, cookie pans, etc. and had a marathon baking session. After about 15 dozen ginger cookies, I made some oatmeal raisin cookies for our son and a three ginger ginger cake for my DIL. Don't think this was too difficult, because it was not. I highly recommend those little 'ice cream' scoops for making cookies. I double the cookie recipe and then once it is mixed I immediately scoop them onto the pan, take a flat glass, dip it in sugar and 'squash' the cookies and bake. The smell of ginger in the house always reminds me of Christmas. The other smell of Christmas to me is the mandarin oranges that come out this time of year! Now, I feel so much better and it is 10C here today, so you know the dirty snow is disappearing!!

I have decided to grow my hair a bit longer! Why is it that when you are trying to grow your hair it is slooooooooowwwwwwwwww! If I were trying to keep it short, it would seem to grow so much faster. I have inherited some health things from my family that I would rather not have, like diabetes in two brothers and a family with lots of heart problems. Those are not great, but I do what I can - no sugar in baked goods for me and a low-dose Aspirin everyday, along with walking and swimming. But one thing I have inherited from my Dad's side of the family is the white hair and that I love and am very thankful for. When I was home with family this past fall there were a lot of beautiful heads of snow white hair. Guess you have to take some of the bitter with the sweet!!

Have I been knitting? Well, just a little bit! I finished off Bianca and she was a bit snug through the shoulders. In the photo, she is only lightly blocked, so I took her to the sink and dunked her and she is blocking and drying on a towel. I measured carefully and we will see how she fits once dry. It is really a 'summer' sweater and I like her! She looks better than the photo shows!


I decided to do a little fun knitting yesterday and made a teddy bear from some Alpaca with Pyrennes Dog Hair that I bought in Oklahoma City this year. The pattern is in an Erica Knight book of baby knitting. I have also cast on a little cardigan - we have a young couple who always fixes our computer quickly and effeciently and they are expecting twins in March. Two sweaters - so the little Rosebud pattern that Siri of www.knittingiris.typepad.com has made many times and it is a winner. The teddy is a cutie and I am not sure I will knit him again. Toys take a short time to knit and a long time to sew! He was a wonderful project for a 50 gr ball of yarn and he will remind me of my wonderful time in Oklahoma. Maybe he could be called Oakie! Go to see the wonderful dolls that Carolyn of www.cmeknit.blogspot.com has made for her nieces! I tried linking these two blogs to mine, but no luck today! I also have the blogs I read on bloglines and sometimes it won't let me comment - this is not a straight forward operation this blogging!!


















Now I am off to listen to a book and knit. It is a mystery and I think I knew who did it, but maybe I am wrong!