Merry Christmas!

We had a great day, in which Mr Z wore his new onesie to his parents and got much too hot, but amused everybody, and I managed to Skype with Sib in Bolivia and Father Hand in Vegas, and watched Downton Abbey and Call the Midwife (both new to me) with Mother Hand, and ate All The Cheese.

It has felt very Christmassy and I have done a lot of sitting around and knitting, which is always a good day in my book. Festive blessings, all!

Frivolous Christmas Decoration Wishlist #2

My friend Ali gave me this lovely red and white spotty cake stand for Christmas a year or two ago and I have taken to incorporating it into my Christmas decorations. This year I decided to make my satsumas into mini Christingles by adding cloves and red ribbon. They smelled amazing when this picture was taken (in front of last year's unfinished Ginvent calendar - it might be the only advent calendar ever to last three years, I'm really not that much of a drinker). I was inspired by a line from The Woman In Black which we saw on stage in Bath at the start of the month, about the lead character coming into a house and being able to smell a clove-studded orange on the table. I made these that very weekend.

Anyway. Clearly this actual Christmas decoration isn't on my wishlist because it has been adorning my house for several weeks now. The wish bit is that, I wish the satsumas would keep their amazing smell and, even more important, not go mouldy. Mouldy citrus fruit is one of my top 5 worst smells: sometimes I'll come home from work and be able to smell from the front door that there is a lemon starting to turn at the back of the fruit drawer. Sometimes I can't smell it until it has oozed through the bars onto the potatoes underneath, but that's beside the point; I would like everfresh citrus fruit for my Christingles next year, please.

I suppose there's probably a scented candle I can get with this scent, though.

Evolution of a Christmas Jumper

I finished knitting my long-planned snowman jumper back in October. Then I blocked it, and it grew six inches in length, thus ensuring that my waist decreases hit my widest part, the increase were at my waist and the original bottom, with its massive wedges of additional fabric, flapped unbecomingly somewhere around the lower part of my hips. I was glum, but thought I would just style it out. Knatterers suggested stitching up the triangles of fabric and cutting off the excess, which I will do as soon as I find the leftover yarn.

I then considered carefully what to do with the snowmen. Leave them undecorated and keep the Christmas jumper quite subtle? Um, no. I don't think that sounds like the sort of thing I'd do. I thought about decorating just one. In the end I asked Louzle, queen of the Christmas jumper. She suggested I do an "evolution of a snowman" - beginning with eyes on the first, then eyes and a nose, and so on.



I love this way too much. They are MUCH nicer now that they have eyes and I don't feel it is too twee. I need to find a satisfactory way of doing the mouth (Louzle suggested something orange, since she always uses a clementine, but we always use a stick so I need to maybe embroider something on there) and create a scarf for the last two. I would like to make a stripy icord for this but it may end up being a piece of ribbon or fabric. We'll see how the time goes.

My biggest triumph is the buttons. When they arrived from ebay, they had green fronds on, and I struggled to consider how I would make it work - after all, on a snowman any greenery would be stuck deeply into the face. Luckily, though, the green part just popped right off.



Very much looking forward to Christmas jumper day on the last day of term. I am also considering "evolution of a Christmas tree" for next year. 

Frivolous Christmas Decoration Wishlist #1

Decorating for Christmas is going to be my thing this year. I am so excited about having a lovely festive house. I have been browsing online for decorations; so far this is on my wishlist. Unfortunately they didn't see fit to use the tempting Christmas decoration version as a picture on that item, only on their front page; so here is the picture (with apologies to the website - all items available from them and please go and spend money there)

Pretty. Unfortunately completely unsuitable for us, though; I would like to put them in the hallway down the stairs but there's no socket out there. I therefore can't justify spending this amount of money on some lights to go in our already heaving living space. Someone should invent a battery powered, or rechargeable, portable plug socket.

They might look quite nice in the bedroom, though, come to think of it...