Fancy Fingerless Gloves

Seems that I get the sudden urge to knit every year around Christmas time - it becomes an obsession, and there is nothing like the approaching deadline of holiday gift-giving to finish projects.  This year, I became fascinated by fingerless gloves.  They don't take too long to complete and it is fun to experiment with more intricate lacy designs.  Most of the patterns I used came out of  the "One Skein Wonders" book, though I also found patterns in some of my older knitting magazines.  Here are some of the gloves I finished in Decembers:

Easy Firestarters for the Woodstove

We've tried lots of different ways to start fires, from soaking dried pine cones in hot wax to using a blow torch...but the best way we found to get our wood stove fire going is to make simple fire starters out of old candles and paper towels.  We burn a lot of candles, especially during the holidays, and we always save the left-over wax.  Come winter time, we melt the wax in a pot on our stove, using a low setting for the burner.  When all the wax is melted, we use single sheets of paper towels, which we twist to form sort of a rope, and quickly dip these into the melted wax.  We then lay them out to dry on freezer paper (or aluminum foil).  Once they are dried, we store them in a bucket or bag until we need them.  We still use a blow torch to get a fire going, but the wax soaked paper keeps the flames going for a long time, enough to get the kindling pieces burning.

It's Snowing!

What a beautiful sight -  right at Christmas time too - snow falling softly, blanketing our farm in white.

Herbs in the snow

Leif's first sledride

 



Snow Barn



Snowy Chambourcin



Snowy Neill Family
 

Snow-covered tree by pond

Merry Christmas - Fröhliche Weihnachten!

Christmas Eve Dessert Buffet

• Chocolate Sour Cream Bundt Cake
• Pumpkin Roll with Cream Cheese Filling
• Italian Christmas Cookies
• Peach Pie
• Lemon Nut Rounds
• Iced Sugar Cookie Cut-outs (made by Toben)
• Pumpkin Spice Cookies
• Banana Nut Bread
• Chocolate Espresso Cookies
• Ginger Snaps

  

 

 

 

More Uses for Grapevines

This afternoon, Jeff and Samantha figured out how to make a basket from grapevine trimmings.  After searching for grapevine basket images on google and closely examining willow baskets from Tina's collection, they just made one:

After dinner Jeff decided to keep working on another basket, on the back porch this time - apparently basket weaving had created quite a mess in the kitchen earlier.  It was a relatively warm evening, and they already had a lot of cut vines.  What can I say - one can never have enough baskets....

Here are some other things we had made from grapevines previously: decorations around a rustic birdhouse (Jeff made this from old weathered barn boards), and a grapevine Christmas tree (really a re-purposed tomato cage, wrapped closely in grapevines and embellished with a string of brown wired fairy lights)




 

Grapevine Wreaths

A little side benefit from growing grapes is an abundance of grapevines that need to be trimmed off every year.  We've been getting better at making wreaths - one at a time...

The largest wreath we made so far was measured around the outside of our round patio table.  We used an old woven wire fence panel to support the wreath.  When we had wrapped sufficient vines to make the wreath the size we liked, we fastened the wreath to the fence panel with wire.  We then cut around the outside and inside of the panel with wire cutters, basically making a wire form on the back of the wreath to keep it stable.  We then fastened several strings of brown wired fairy lights to the wreath.  Duff and Caleb helped to get the wreath positioned at the peak of the barn - climbing to the vent from the inside of the barn, they lowered a rope, which we used to pull up the wreath.  Inside the barn a very long extension cord with a timer connects the light strings of the wreath to an outlet.

We also made some smaller wreaths and Lars is getting rather good at it:

 

We use the wreaths for decorating outside and inside:

 

Wreath underneath bell

Wreath wrapped with bells

 

 



 

Pumpkin Cookies

Here is a  recipe for some incredibly good, soft and cake-like pumpkin cookies with caramel icing, courtesy of my friend Robin:

Robin's Pumpkin Cookies

Ingredients:

• 2 cups flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 cup butter
• 1 cup pumpkin puree
• 1 egg (beaten)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1/2 cup chopped walnuts
• 1 cup chopped raisins

Cream sugar and butter, stir in pumpkin, egg and vanilla.  Sift remaining dry ingredients and add to batter.  Stir in nuts and raisins.
Drop by heaped teaspoon onto cookie sheet and bake at 350 degree F for about 12 minutes.  Let cook and then spread icing (below) onto cookies.

Caramel Icing:

• 3 tablespoons butter
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1/4 cup of milk
• 1 cup (or more) of powdered sugar

Combine butter, milk and brown sugar in a small pot and bring to a full, rolling boil (the kind that cannot be stirred down).  Boils for 2 minutes, stirring constantly.  Cool and then add vanilla and powdered sugar - beat until smooth (an immersion blender works great for this)

Garlands

When the boys returned from their hunting trip to Bedford yesterday, they not only brought a Christmas tree for the house, but also two scraggly white pine trees to use for decorations.  Well - there are a lot of branches on two trees, and it started to rain before I could use all of the greenery.  I did get the garland for the back porch done, by just using green wire to string branches together, and then wrapping a string of clear lights around the garland before hanging it.

Also made a small garland with all the left over short branches and used it for the archway into the back garden.  The arch itself has white wired clear lights on it, so it will look nice in the dark as well.

Other branches that were too short or too scraggly I just stuffed into tin buckets or into other containers which I then placed into outdoor flower pots.  (I do water these branches so they last longer - even outside)

Now that it is really raining, we are concentrating on the indoor decorations. This year, we used one of our "fabric" garlands around the mantel by the woodstove.  (fabric garlands are made by cutting homespun fabric into narrow strips, and then cutting each strip into 4 - 6 inch pieces.  These then get tied onto a string of Christmas lights) I used our cast-iron stocking holders to hold the garland in place.