Ornaments

So I've made it a little tradition to give a small gift at the last knit night before Christmas. 

One year I made glass balls with little yarn balls and tiny knitting needles in them. I've also done fudge, and cookies. 

This year we made pinecone ornaments.

Connor collected the pinecones at the duck park (Eco island). The pickings were very slim :(

He loves the fish

Then we got the cones home and baked the critters out of them (200 degrees for 45 minutes)

After the baking came the painting. I used krypton gold and silver spray paint.

And a scentsy box!

After they dried I hot glued yarn loops to them for hanging

We've been giving them to people, the ups guy, the mailman, our police officer neighbor. It's a small thing, but seems to make people genuinely happy :)

Holiday Gifties

Since none of my gift people read my blog I can post pictures of my hand knits here ;)

From left to right, aceso hat for Laurel, simple beanie for Kevan, tiny simple beanie for Connor.

This is Shellie's hat, it's my aceso pattern with a modified brim. I also made the poppy. Grey and poppy are her wedding colors.

Cowl to match.

I don't have pictures if the two other cowls I've done. One in navy blue and one in red with gold sparkle. For my step-sisters. 

The Flax sweater by Tincanknits that I modified the garter stripes on the sleeves, for Ross

I'm also working on some fingerless gloves for kae in sparkly lavender. So sparkly.

Luckily my Christmas knitting has been fairly slim this year. I had lofty goals to do a sweater for my step dad too, but I couldn't find a pattern he would like

October and November Reading Lists

sorry, i'm a slacker /sigh

i'm actually WAY behind on my reading goals, and ended up lowering my yearly goal from 100 to 75 books, and i still might not make it.

next year i think i'll go with 52 books in 52 weeks, like the challenge group i'm in, that way i have a reasonable goal. i may also ONLY read books on my nook and kindle, since i have A LOT (except new releases for currently reading series, like The Shadows!)

October
1-63 the Blood of Olympus - Rick Riordan (10/20) free/library
November
1-64 God Save the Queen - Kate Locke (11/17) free/library
2-65 Doon - Carey Corp (11/21) free/library
3-66 Prince Lestat - Anne Rice (11/30) free/library

favorites - all of them! but especially Doon. it's YA, which doesn't bother me, and it was a quick read (about 5 hours), but the story was good, and the characters were actually likeable. it's loosely based on Brigadoon, which i haven't seen.

of these my least favorite (if i had to pick one) is Prince Lestat. I'm not going to give an in-depth review about what i liked or hated, because i want people to make up their own minds. but i was just really disappointed in the writing. i love Anne, i follow her on facebook, and i respect the hell out of her. I just think she should have left this series alone and kept fleshing out her Wolf series.

also, sadz! no more Percy Jackson!!! s'ok, the new series is Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard! it's like Rick looked into my childhood and decided to write these series just for me, First obsession with Greek/Roman Mythology, then Egyptian, now Norse. if he starts a Japanese series i'll die of happiness!