Quiet Period

I would like to say that my quiet period away from blogging had something to do with being more productive or doing something fun but it has simply been the result of the huge desire to lounge around when I get home from work.  Books on the Kobo have been a contributing factor to this behaviour.

I have managed to complete two projects, however.  The little sweater is a Spud and Chloe pattern for my nephew for Christmas.  It took a lot longer to pull together than it should have given the nice chunky yarn and easy pattern.  I blame the slow knitting on the aforementioned laziness.  Also, the pressure for Christmas projects was reduced by a decision to draw names for Christmas.  This reduced the level of urgency that usually drives these things to completion at this time of year.  Of assistance was the discovery of  Buffy the Vampire Slayer on Netflix.  Watching 2 or 3 episodes at a time has helped me to ramp up my knitting and ramp down the reading.

Speaking of vampires, the mittens are called Bella's Mittens and I was embarrassed not to know who Bella was when the shop at the Creativ Festival (and no, there is no "e" on creativ - presumably they ran out of ink or something) sold me the yarn and pattern as a bundle.  I would guess that my Buffy phase is directly related to the mittens and feeling like I needed to at least be up-to-date with popular vampire culture from the 90s or whenever the show aired.  Anyway, the mitts are fabulous, the yarn is Malabrigio Twist and very soft.  I've got a second pair virtually done for a Christmas gift.  Actually, the blue pair here were supposed to be the gift and a green pair were going to be mine but I find that I can't part with the blue so am not going to.

I've started some Christmas cookie baking with two very good recipes from my favourite book, Flour.  The first was Rosemary Shortbread and the second a Molasses Spice cookie.  Both delicious but the Molasses Spice cookie was a huge surprise.  I really, really like these and as a chocolate fanatic am not usually passing up a chocolate cookie for a spice one and I did just that at dinner last night.  The rest quickly went into the freezer for upcoming events that require cookies.  I only hope a little mouse doesn't eat them first or I'll have to make some more.