Gingerbread past and present!

For the last few years, DH & I have been having great fun, making a gingerbread house, each Christmas eve. This year, we decided to make one early! So On Sunday, I baked the gingerbread. Still have to do the icing e.t.c. I just love the creative aspect of anything, to me gingerbread is simply a medium, through which I can express myself; like yarn! Plus, my gang of Woolly Clucks JUST LOVE golden syrup! (They always help in the festive baking process!).
 LOL! Not the best thing, if one has a woolly beak.....

Our wee creations over the past few yrs.

This one is from last year! LOL! I decided to make coop... complete with rickety little candy cane legs and a ramp! And no coop is complete, without a flock of chickens! Then they decided, they wanted chicks, who wanted scarves... and so on and so forth! LOL! Well, that is my excuse, any way ;)
                                                 

                                                                             

                                                                           
                                                                         

                                                           

Here are all the woollies helping with the baking! Rocky ( a handsome but shy gentle-rooster, visiting all the way from my friend's house in South Yorkshire) is manfully (roosterfully?) opening the tin of golden syrup for me!

                                                        Cecily is beating the mixture
                                                                       

                                                                       
                                                    Beady eyed inspection!
                                                                       

                                     
                                       

                                          Sharing a beater (best part of baking!)
                                                                     

                                       
                                       

                                                                             
                                                                               

                                       
                                                                             

                                                 
                                                                         

         
                                                                         

                                                         
                                                                             

                           
                                          The net result of all that hard work! (BTW, all this baking led to a romance between dear Rocky and Sweetie, the pale green/chocolate cluck, with a lilac comb and bright red wings! Their romance will be documented soon, so keep looking!)

Here is our wee cottage from 2011

                                       
                                                                             

Christmas Bauble Coaster

Hello dear pals!
As an early Christmas present, from me to you, I have decided to share my current crochet idea! It is a cute, stash-busting, great last minuet gift, fits in an envelope type of thing! In short, it is a Christmas Bauble Coaster :)

Size: about 4"
Yarn: Small amount, in colours of your choice. ( 4-5 mtrs of each colour should suffice) If you do not have any silver, to make the end fitment, use any colour you like! Just have FUN :)
Hk: 5mm

Notions: stitch markers
Tapestry needle

Dc: double crochet
Sc: single crochet
Ch: chain
St: stitch
Sl st: Slip stitch
Rnd: round

Bauble ( this is worked in rounds, that are joined. The Ch 3 at the start of each rnd counts as a stitch)

Rnd 1 : Ch 4, 13 dc in 4th ch from hk. Do not turn. Join with sl st, in top of ch 4 (14 dc)

Rnd 2:  If you are using more than one colour, break off yarn. In the Sl st, join the new colour, with a sl st. Ch 3, dc in same place, 2 dc in each st, around, Join with sl st, in top of ch 3. Do not turn. (28 dc)

Rnd 3: If using more than one colour, break off yarn. Join next colour in sl st of last rnd, with sl st. Ch 3. Dc in same place, 1 dc in next st. **(2dc in next st, 1 dc in next st)**  repeat till end. Ending dc in last st. (42 dc)

Fitment
With silver yarn/colour of your choice, attach yarn with sl st, in last st of last rnd. sc in next 3 sts. Ch 1, turn. Sc in each st across. Ch 8 attach with sl st in first st of this row, to make a loop. Fasten off. Darn in ends, and prepare to fall in love with your wee bauble coaster :)

Christmas is coming!

Today, we had our first snow of this winter! As it was nice and sunny, it did not lie. There is a festive air in the erm... air! On Saturday, we started our Christmas present shopping. As we have family and friends dotted around the globe, we tend to start early, in order to get parcels posted off!

On our travels, we came across this quirky ornament!!! LOL! Any one who knows me, knows I'm utterly MAD about anything Gallus domesticus related (chickens!). So, I simply had to have it!
I also managed to bake my Christmas cake yesterday :) It is now safely in it's tin, waiting to be "fed" until Christmas :)

Lack of chlorophyll

Who would think, that the simple act of withdrawing chlorophyll from leaves, could result in so much beauty! We went for a lovely walk on Sunday, in our local wildfowl & wetland centre, and I was once more in utter awe, of creation. So much diverse beauty! A veritable tapestry of golds, reds and various shades of brown. A feast for the eyes and soul.

                                                 
                                                 

                                       

         

November crochet

Well, it is definitely getting colder. There is a fierce wind outside and the leaves are being shaken off the trees! The nights are drawing in, and my thoughts have turned to warmth and cosiness. LOL! While testing one of my patterns, (for a baby's cardigan) I made a hat for myself! It must have been my cold head, sending subliminal messages to my hands....

Then, this afternoon, I decided to start a new sweater. DH got me some gorgeous yarn last weekend. I love the colours and texture. Not sure how this design will end up looking, I tend to free-form/free-think as I work! But, one thing is for sure; it is going to be a SWEATER!

                                       

ALL HALLOWS EVE...

Well, we had a nice quiet Halloween! I managed to bake; a coffin cake and sugar cookies. And I made some spooky jellies! ;) Despite having a rather nasty virus.

The weather was really horrid; very windy and pouring with rain. So, no trick or treaters were out. we watched horror movies and feasted on the yummy goodies!

LOL! The woolly clucks gate-crashed our private party! They had been to see REVENGE OF THE ROTISSERIE part 2!
Everyone who went to see it (it was screened in an abandoned abattoir!) was dressed in character!!!  Cecily went as the heroine Olivia Oven-Ready, Blossom as one of the "victims" and Tristan was the mad evil chef....
Have a happy first day of November!

Regarding the excavated coffin cake...

Wondering if they should dust bathe in the "soil"!!!

Alien Autopsy jelly!

Face Goulash!!! Mmmm.... yummy!!!

Our Pumpkin carved by DH

Cluck!

All dressed up for Halloween