Gettin' Ready For Christmas!

As I alluded to in my last blog post, I celebrated part of Christmas a little early this year! Because I won't be able to see my immediate family on December 25th this year, my mom, my sister and her fiancée came over to my house for a early celebration last weekend.

Festivities started with Mom baking a batch of fudge in my kitchen - yum! Then we popped down-town to the big Christmas Market for some hot apple cider, delicious food, and gazing at some beautiful ornaments!

In earlier discussions we had talked about skating in Robson Square and walking to the giant Christmas tree at the Conference Centre that day, but after a few hours at the Market we were so cold that we decided to simply head back to my place for a nice quiet night indoors. We played some board games, ordered in dinner, and decorated my teeny little Christmas tree (there is a photo of it at the top of this blog post). My mom and I knitted while my sister worked on some Christmas cross-stitch - what a wonderful way to spend the evening!

We also took the opportunity to exchange presents. I had knit my sister a hat from some of my handspun I completed during Spinzilla:

I have been working on a new hat pattern lately - I used it to create a hat for my brother out of my own hand-dyed worsted yarn;

...and a hat for my dad from some handspun merino and silk I had.

Thanks Kevin for modeling those hats!

Since Mom has taken up knitting again lately, I spun her a skein of SweetGeorgia Yarn's 50% merino wool and 50% silk in the colourway 'Cypress'. We don't know what she is going to make with it yet - it's almost 100 grams of DK weight 3-ply yarn, so there is definitely enough to make a hat or a pair of mitts.

Poor, poor Kevin... I tried to make him a Jayne hat, but I had to recalculate the pattern (I wanted to use DK instead of worsted weight wool). Unfortunately my math was a little off, and I had to cast on another hat, and it wasn't done in time! However, I had to put something under the tree for him... luckily he has a sense of humour and doesn't mind getting his real hat a little late.

The next morning we had a huge brunch of crepes, bacon, and sausages, but the visit was over much too soon. I really missed my brother this weekend too - he couldn't make it over to the mainland because of school exams - boo! I can't wait to see my everyone again in January - I hope all my family has a great holiday, and at least this year we have Skype to help keep in touch!

I hope you are all having a wonderful time preparing for the holiday season!

Cheers!
- Grace