1Hat, 2Hat, Peel an Orange and Simmer!

The red skullcap for Steve is done! He seems pretty excited by it, as noted in the thumbs-up picture. =)

I think if I had made it just about an inch longer, it would have covered his ears nicely, but I'm not sure if it's even possible to fix that kind of an error, since you knit from the bottom up, closing it at the top. If anyone has any suggestions on whether it's possible to add a few more rows onto the bottom at this point, let me know! The pattern can be found here at Woolly Wormhead.

One of my favorite holiday memories was simmering orange peels on the stove with cloves. I'm not sure how my mom came up with the idea to do this, or if she learned it from my grandmother, but it's one of the best ways to get an incredible Christmas-y smell in your house! If you associate the smell of Christmas with oranges, I guess!

Anyways, I bought us a box of Clementines (the smaller sweeter type of oranges) the other day at Costco. As soon as we were done devouring at least one of them, we started a small pot on the stove with the peel in it and a bit of water, just enough to cover the rinds. Since we didn't have any cloves around, Steve suggested nutmeg and vanilla extract. Simmering on the stove it smelled delicious and quickly filled up our small apartment with it's warm scent!


It's something you can get pretty creative with. Steve decided he wanted to try tossing in some dried cranberries and cinnamon in the next batch, and YUM, did that ever smell delicious too! Not to mention, it looks pretty in the pot!


I've also finally started on the Terry Matz Chevron Hat.
An arty picture (for fun) next to the gorgeous quilt my mom made. And my plants. =)


I have to admit when I started there was a bit of confusion on the sl1, k1, and then what do you do with the stitch you slipped? I was swinging it over the knit stitch, but then I was knitting the slip stitch together with the next stitch instead of just letting it fall like you're supposed to. So, I wasn't taking it off the left needle. Once I realized the error of my ways, I finished out the row like that (because I didn't want it to be asymmetrical!), but was sure to start the next one correctly. I am starting to see the chevrons appear, but hope they become a bit more defined the further along I get! I'm loving the blue and white variegated yarn though!

Hopefully everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving! I'm off to start on Christmas cards!