I’ve had a busy week and been unable to access the computer so there seems to be loads to catch up on. The gift bags have now all been made including one each for me and Harrier, mine has little pink paw marks over one side and a frieze of little deer galloping across the middle of the other side with a backdrop of clumps of little pine trees, finished off with a little ribbon bow on a handle.  Harriers has little blue paw marks on the one side and silver snowflakes and ribbon on the other.  Hopefully they will both contain something exciting.  We are now onto the raglan shaping of the second sleeve of the aran jumper so it is possible but unlikely that it may be finished before Christmas.  That said we are still on the first ball so there will likely be a hat to go with it.  Mum has been varnishing a couple more bird boxes and has also finished painting the bathroom.  

Aunty Biscuit has been making decorated gift bags out of some plain white paper ones.  This has involved a variety of techniques for the motifs. Most images were stamped but some were drawn freehand and others applied using a stencil.  The images were then coloured in using some special pens.  Other decorative elements were glued on and then finally the handles were trimmed with ribbons and beading.  I believe there are still more bags to decorate and that she may push the boat our on some of them and add glitter.

I have been supervising present wrapping.  The gift tags used are homemade.  These can vary from a centralised picture cut out from old Christmas cards with pinking shears through to cut, stamped and coloured (pen, pencil or water colour).  When I first heard about pinking shears I did wonder if they turned the edges of things pink but once I’d seen them in action, I discovered they make an edge zigzagged.  This left me to wonder why they are called pinking shears.  A quick check on woofapedia was of little help, there are two theories, one is that they are named after the plant pink which has frilly flowers, the other is that pink is an old term for putting holes in things by piercing or stabbing, so I suppose it is down to personal preference which idea you go with.

Routine crafting activities were suspended as an emergency pair of short wristwarmers were required by today.  These are basically tubes with minimal shaping a bit of the side seam left unstitched.  Some are a little more exotic and have a shaped thumb piece (these weren’t).  I am pleased to report that they were knitted and stitched up and are now with the grateful recipient. 

We have feedback on the horse type motif Aunty Biscuit is working on.  It is of a pony, colouring similar to grey pony wearing a wig.  The pattern has been drawn up on the strange graph paper and put on the computer.  The computer enables minor adjustments without having to find a rubber or redrawing.  Test knitting is now under way as the sleeve of the aran jumper is at the continue without shaping until…. Stage.  Mum meanwhile has been painting bird nesting boxes.  All this is going on against a back drop of the plum brandy being filtered drip by drip and bottled off.

I was a little taken aback to say the least when I heard about hedgehog cake being ready to go into the freezer.  Fortunately, it turned out it was a reference to the apple cake that Mum made yesterday.  She calls it hedgehog cake as the apple slices are stood upright as spikes on the top of the cake.  I was so pleased that no real hedgehogs were harmed as they are really quite cute although by some accounts have fleas.  Like a lot of wildlife, life is becoming more complicated for them so here’s hoping that people can do little bits and pieces to help them, in our case it is providing a couple of woodpiles to provide somewhere covered to hibernate.

Mum has been making some apple cake type item, much to the disgust of the horses who feel they should have the monopoly on apple eating.  The cross stitch has also made a little more progress, although as these things are very detailed, they do take a long time.  Aunty Biscuit meanwhile has started a sleeve for the aran jumper fortunately there were only a few rows of rib and forty two stitches.so that is good.

The neck has now been remodelled and the jumper finished so Mum is glowing with a sense of achievement and has now reverted to working on the poinsettia chunky jumper which is an ongoing background project that it is hoped will be finished this winter.  I believe that there are about twenty more rows to work on the back of the aran jumper that Aunty Biscuit is working on so it should be finished this evening.  As this is an uncharted territory tunic length project with two large balls of yarn, the plan of attack is the back and sleeve approach.  This tactical manoeuvre enables the knitter to ascertain that there is sufficient yarn to complete the project, or put simply as long as it doesn’t take more than half the yarn to knit a back and a sleeve there will be enough to do the whole jumper.

Mum is remodelling the neck on one of the jumpers Aunty Biscuit knitted.  I’m not sure why as I must have been snoozing under a blanket when the topic was discussed.  I believe that it is being lengthened, turned over and slipstitched round.  It hasn’t been going too badly except that she has managed to lose the sewing up needle twice.  Fortunately, she found it on both occasions.  Aunty Biscuit is still knitting the back of the aran jumper, she is now on the decrease so its downsizing all the way.