lesson learned this week. if the box says quick kit, it will take at least 4 days to complete.
Dante and i worked on a ginger bread house last week. we started off bad when we opened the box and every piece except for 2 side walls were broken. it took a large amount of the included icing to glue them back together and by the time we were finished, there just wasn't enough to attach the roof. i had to make royal icing and attach the roof, and then we used the rest to put on the rest of the candy. my icing is tan compared to the icing that came with the box. i used the recipe from the food network but i think i put too much vanilla in and i had to add almost a full cup of additional powdered sugar to get the right consistency. anyway, i've been knitting christmas gifts that were commissioned so i haven't had time to even put up our tree, and Aaron's burning the candle at both ends to try to complete projects for school. this is hopefully his last 2 weeks of school and he'll be graduating with an associates in Web Design. Dante's progress report comes out on Wednesday and if we're lucky (he has been working very hard) he brought up his math grade and he can buy the video game he wants with the money we earned for raising the second highest amount of money for the school PTA with the Yankee Candle order. almost $600 bucks! I have an elephant and his mitts to knit before Christmas. that's 10 days. can i do it? here's the blasted house, enjoy.

holiday mitts part 1

I finished the first of the mitts that my friend Natalie commissioned from me yesterday. this pair was knit with Flat Feet and Knitpicks Bare Merino on 3.0mm circular needles using the magic loop. they took just under a week. i really had fun with this pattern. it reminded me of a leopard print in rainbow colors. the only issue i have with them is that when i went to wash the mitts, the hand painted yarn bleed as soon as it hit the water and the Bare sucked the dye right in so the finished result was a pink mitt. it's very pretty but not what i intended. i think that i expected the dye to have been set in the Flat Feet yarn and it wasn't. i also didn't really enjoy knitting straight from the flat because the stitches were crimped and it gave a really uneven tension to my knitting that soaking almost couldn't fix. IF i use this yarn again, i'll rip it back, wind the yarn into a hank and soak it, and then hang it so that it'll straighten out.