Norwegian Knitted Christmas Balls

Well, I've been knitting away at my Norwegian Christmas balls on and off since September (see my previous post). I meant to collect a large number and post a photograph of them, but I've been mailing them off to people as Christmas presents as fast as I can make them. So you are only seeing five of them here. In all, I think I have made 17 or 18, so far, and have at least another 8 or so to do before Christmas. And I am determined to make a couple for myself! Each one is taking around 3 hours to knit and another half hour to stuff it with craft wool and attach the hanging loop.

When my Grandmother Baba was alive, she made small needlepoint ornaments for all her children and grandchildren. We each got one every year for Christmas. Baba has been gone for many years now. I still miss her and I treasure the needlepoint ornaments she made for me. I'm having so much fun knitting these Norwegian Christmas balls, I think I will do it every year and carry on my grandmother's tradition, in my own way.

Merry Christmas, Everyone! Whatever your faith tradition, may you be surrounded by the warm love of family and friends. May you be well.

One of Baba's needlepoint ornaments

Mother - Daughter Quilt Date

If you follow my daughter's knitting blog, Will Knit for Math then you already know that we had a Mother - Daughter quilt date last night. We each bought a couple of jelly rolls at the Houston Quilt Festival last month with the intention of doing long distance quilt projects "together."

For our first project, we are making Jelly Roll Race quilts. Last night we sewed the forty 2 1/2 inch wide jelly roll strips together using 45 degree angled seams,for a total of more than 1600 inches of fabric! The woman in the youtube tutorial video pieced the entire top together in 45 minutes! She didn't pin or mark any seams and just zipped right through them. I didn't pin or mark my seams either, and I had to take the first several seams apart and start over because I had sewn "right" sides to "wrong" sides. This took about 20 minutes. But after starting over, I got the hang of it pretty quickly and it took me a little less than an hour to finish sewing all the pieces together. By then it was getting to be bedtime, so I stopped. This afternoon I checked all my seams and only found one I want to take out and redo because it is off a bit. Not bad. I, too, will trim and press the seams before proceeding with the next step.

Katherine's fabrics are colorful and fun! My jelly roll is called "Caribbean Blues," a collection of blue batik fabrics I purchased from Fabric Fanatics. So my quilt will be monochrome blues with some greens, yellows and pinks. I was afraid that it would be somewhat boring, but there is actually more contrast and interest in the fabrics that I expected,and more than you can see in the photograph. I can't wait to see the finished quilt! And this is so fun to do with Katherine!

Santa brought a Schacht Matchless spinning wheel!

Santa came early this year and brought me a gently used Schacht Matchless spinning wheel! I'm so incredibly happy! Actually, it was a purchase opportunity that I didn't have the willpower to refuse. After attending Yarn School in Kansas, I decided to buy myself a spinning wheel after the Christmas holidays were over and had narrowed my selection down to a Lendrum foldable, based on all the spinning wheels I had tried out at Yarn School. But this week a used Matchless popped up on a neighboring craigslist for sale. I knew that used Matchless spinning wheels are prized by experienced handspinners and don't come available very often. The price on this one was reasonable, especially since it came with 9 bobbins, a tensioned lazy kate, extra bands, 2 orrifice hooks, a large whorl and a niddy noddy. Plus the Schacht Ladybug and Sidekick use the same bobbins, a definite advantage should I decide to get a Sidekick in the future for traveling to conferences and workshops. When I tried the Matchless out, I found the treadling to be smooth and easy to control. I can't wait to begin to use and get to know it. We are going to be good friends!

A new inkle loom for Christmas!

A particular person on my Christmas list is getting this wonderful Schacht Inkle Loom from Santa Deb! Since the giftee has never done any weaving before, I thought it would be helpful if I warped it for her the first time. A good excuse to get it out of the box and play with it before wrapping it and sending it on, right? I couldn't keep my hands off it! So... I made some yarn heddles using unwaxed linen and then wound the two color warp on. Then I wove a cloth header in and wove a few inches of band (plain weave). Schacht has a couple of very helpful tutorials on YouTube. It took me about an hour to do all this. What fun! I hope my unnamed giftee enjoys it as much as I have, so far!

Pumpkin Shepherd's Pie - Vegan Gluten Free

My friend, Jan, and I made this delicious Pumpkin Shepherd's Pie for dinner tonight. We started with a recipe in the current issue of Sunset Magazine, which uses a lamb stew for the base. We made several substitutions to make the recipe vegan and gluten free and it worked! The result was delicious and definitely company quality tasty and beautiful. Specifically, we used a box of gluten free tempeh instead of lamb, increased the baby portabello mushrooms to 16 ounces and added halved brussel sprouts to the veggies. We quick sauteed each vegetable separately in a frying pan to seal in the flavors and then layered them in the ceramic baking casserole. And of course, we used gluten free flour for the gravy. For the mashed pumpkin, we used Silk soy creamer instead of dairy cream. And I reduced the salt by half. Everything else is the same. Delicious!

Handspinning at the Yarn School

Katherine and I attended our first ever Yarn School session in Harveyville, Kansas two weekends ago and it was fantastic! We joined about 25 other women from all over the country for a weekend of handspinning on spinning wheels & drop spindles, a dye lab workshop, knitting, eating and socializing. This was my first experience ever at handspinning and I had a blast! I'm definitely hooked. Above you can see my first clumsy efforts using a spinning wheel. The skein of yarn on the right is the first one I did and the skein in the middle is the second. Both are chunky and loose, but I can see a little improvement in the second. I brought the rest of the top home with me and when I buy a spinning wheel after Christmas, I hope to spin enough more yarn to knit a small cowl that I can actually wear. One of the highlights of the weekend was a field trip to the Wildcat Hollow Alpaca ranch nearby. There were many alpacas and they were all gentle, soft, adorable and friendly. The neatest thing about them was that they are curious and get to know you by nuzzling up to your face and sniffing your breath. It felt like they were "eskimo kissing."

Here is some beautiful alpaca/merino blend yarn that I bought while I was there. It was wonderful to meet the alpacas who produced this fiber.

And here are the results of our dye lab adventure.

2012 The Year of the Norwegian Knitted Christmas Ball

Last year this time I was crocheting reindeer stockings for Katherine and Robert. This year, thanks to Arne and Carlos, I and thousands of other people around the world are knitting Norwegian Christmas balls for the holiday season. This green one on the left was knitted by my friend, Jeri. I just got started on my first one, here in red and white. So far, it is fun and easy. Arne says he can knit two or three in one day, and I believe it. I calculate I am 20% done with mine and it only took me one hour. I encourage you to follow the link to Arne and Carlos' website, and especially to watch their two short videos. Oh my gosh, they are hilarious! And as cute as they could be!