Yarn disaster

So i was happily knitting along on Linda's scarf when it suddenly dawned on me that i dont have enough of yarn to finish it. You see i wasnt happy with the original pattern, because i thought it was too narrow. So i have doubled up the stitches. Disregarding the fact that if i do that, I'd need double the amount of yarn. It didnt help ether that this particular yarn is discontinued and i had to order it online and hope that it will arrive before next week. Fool you say? Too right I say. But now i have started on the blue scarf and hoping it is gonna take me very little time to knit it.

Nakered

I am absolutely, completely, totally shattered. I got barely any sleep this weekend because Unity had a cold and teething, but last night was the worst ever. She winged and cried and moaned and screamed out. I did absolutely everything i could to comfort her, but she gets very frustrated and almost lashes out when you try to pick her up or cuddle her. She also hates to sleep in our bed so me and poor Colin had to take turns to get up and comfort her. And just when she finally fell quite, Leo woke up about 4am and decided that he wanted to sleep in our bed, so we were all squashed and hot together.
On the positive side we had a great laugh on Saturday because we made our festive gingerbread and decorated the tree.

The brown-haired boy is Alex our neighbour and Leo's best friend. They constantly bicker but miss each other profoundly if dont see each other on the weekend. Here we are cutting the cookies.



Unity getting a bit overwhelmed and dramatic. " Oh, creative decisions." May be she will grow up to be an art director.
And here is decorating. I got different food colorings and mixed up very bright liquid icing.
There also were silver balls, hundreds and thousands, raisins, yoghurted fruit bits and lots more of things to put on top. So it all end up looking like Jackson Pollock


I didnt take the picture of the Christmas tree yet, but i will. by the way, if you want a recepie of great gingerbread, here is one:

12oz Plain Flour
1 teaspoon Bicarbonate of Soda
2.5 teaspoons of ground Ginger
1 teaspoon of mixed spice
1 teaspoon of cinnamon
4oz unsalted butter
6oz Light brown soft sugar
1 egg - beaten
4 tablespoons Golden Syrup
pre-heat the oven to 190 degrees C

sift the flour, bicarbonate of soda and ground ginger and spices together in a mixing bowl

chop the butter into small pieces, and rub into dry mixture until the consistency of fine breadcrumbs, then add the sugar and mix together

mix the beaten egg and golden syrup together, and add to the mixture, mixing together to form a dough

Now the fun begins!
Roll out on a floured surface to about 3mm thick, then cut out what ever shapes you want. Put onto a lightly greased or lined baking sheet, decorate and cook for approximately 10 to 15 minutes depending on size of biscuit. I tend to check the colour and spread of the biscuit.

When they are cooked, leave on the baking sheet for a few minutes, then transfer to a cooling rack, and leave to cool completely.

The trick is to try and roll the dough quite thin because it actually rises quite a lot.
Have fun! (thats in case someone does actually reads my blog because the numbers seem to go up, however i dont get many comments)

Boob Job

I have just created a boob out of girl's knee. To explain: Im doing an advertising campain for a well known underwear brand. Now, if you are a logical person, you'd think: I have to advertise these large bras, so i should get a model that has enough boob to actually fill the cups. Well in art director's world it doesnt work like that. They got this very pretty and rather skinny girl to model the enormous bras and the poor girl hasn't got any boobs to speak of. So now for the third day in a row i'm creating boobs to fill the cup. On this one i just made a top of the breast out of the girls bent knee. Trust me, you'd never ever be able to tell. Only I and the client will ever know. Well and the girl of course.

So close

And yet so far! Im knitting and kitting and still only just past the second decrease on the yoke of the Christmas Cobblestone. im starting to get seriously twitchy about the whole thing, i still got million things to knit before Christmas and very little time to do it. May be i should just give up and put the needles aside and just admit that im no good..... (sobbing with self pity).
Now, i have to remember that Im tough and strong granddaughter of a hardcore woman , who came from the communal farm and end up a head engineer in one of the top factories of USSR and never never gave up (or remarried after becoming a widow at 32). There is will and determination worth mentioning, not my wining over slow knitting. I am ashamed. What would grandma say.
I dont know if i should put the Cobblestone aside though and start on those scarves. May be I'll give it till Thursday.

Proof

Just in case if you started thinking that im a big fat liar and not a knitter at all, here is some proof that i was in fact working very hard (and rather slow) on Christmas Cobblestone.
It is so tantalizingly close to finishing it! I recon (perhaps foolishly) that i will finish it this week. It is quite tough on the wrists to knit with bamboo tape, it has zero bounce so you have to keep constant tension.
Another thing i made is some Very Sticky And Spicy Gingerbread with fruits and nuts.


This picture really doesn't do it justice. It was delicious.

It is Thanksgiving today in USA and I wanted to say Happy Thanksgiving to all my American friends and also mention few things Im thankful for:

my children
my husband
my house
my patience
my sanity
our health
that there is still compassion left in the world
that i still got a job
for yummy yarn
that despite of being very slow i still manage to finish things

I think thats about it. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Struggle

The heating briefly went on in the morning and then stopped once again. Its freezing. My everything cold despite me wearing thermal underwear (yes, it does go below my knees) and about 15 layers. You might say im not a real Russian, i hate being cold.
I started knitting some mittens for baby Unity yesterday. I was so ambitious and arrogant thinking i could do it in an evening. I couldnt. Not only that, but i couldnt even work the pattern out. Now i decided that it was all pattern's fault and who has heard of knitting mittens on two needles anyway? So today im going to try gain, with a different pattern, this one.
To add insult to the injury Colin went out and bought some mittens today. He said he understands everything but it is far too cold for Unity to wait whilst I work out patterns. He is right. But i will try again and see if it works. Never give up, thats what my grandma says.

Freeeezzzzing

The boiler broke in the office. Its 42 F outside and Arctic wind. It is about 60F in the office and we are sitting down all day so its cold cold cold. I had to wear my mittens all the day because my fingers got so cold they were unable to hold my tablet pen. Speaking of mittens, i have to knit some for Unity tonight and finish them because poor baby is mittenless.