Girl Scouts and cookie jars

Today my house was occupied by 4 teenaged girl scouts working on a craft project to sell at the Holiday Boutique at the church.  They decided to make gift jars of cookies and hot cocoa, ten jars of each.  It turned out to be a math challenge for them calculating exactly how much of each ingredient to buy. How many cups in a pound? How many table spoons in a cup? Then they had to trouble shoot how to pack the ingredients so the layers would look nice from the outside, experimenting with the wooden pusher for the chinois, a spatula, and a saran covered candlestick bottom. 

Only after they were putting in the top layers of the cookies did they realize that the recipe called for 1 1/2 quart jars instead of 1 quart jars!  The moms didn't catch that detail either. What to do with the extra stuff?  put it in a baggie? add it to the recipe so the purchaser of the jar would need to add more dry ingredients?  They decided to make little cloth bags that would go with each jar containing a baggie of the extra oats. Whew! problem solved.

The fabric bag would match the fabric jar topper too and it would all look very cute tied up with ribbon.  The moms each made an extra trip to the grocery store getting more M&Ms,  candy canes and non dairy creamer.

Here are the cookies, chocolate chip, M&M, and oatmeal cookies.

And here are the hot cocoa mixes. They have chocolate chips and candy cane pieces in them.

  And here is the final assembly with the fabric jar toppers and ribbon

All the while the girls talked nonstop. They discussed what they were doing, as well as the New Moon movie, where they like to shop, the homework due next week, upcoming activities and their teachers.  They never stopped talking, sometimes talking louder and louder until the house was filled with their squeals and shouts and even they couldn't hear each other. I made the little bags while they were working on the poster for their table. Then we all sat down to a dinner of noodle casserole and salad. It was a busy four hours and the girls were very proud of what they had accomplished. I was proud of them too, they finished what they set out to do, they not only problem solved and worked together but they had a great time together.

PS  I am exhausted.

Baby Hats!

Someone is always having a baby it seems. Baby hats are so much fun to make; they are cute, small and can be whipped out in a couple of hours. Here is a red one that I trimmed with a little bit of chenille on the brim.  Then here are two that I made for my colleague, Issam. His wife is pregnant with twins, due in January.

The yarn is from Chile, 100% cotton called Antuco. It is bulky weight, 13st to 4 inches and the best thing is, I found it on sale, so I bought several colorways.  each skein makes at least 2 hats. I used US 9 needles and knit in the round. Casting on 40 stitches, knitting until it measures about 5 inches and then decreasing 6 stitches every other round until there are just 7 stitches left. Then run the tail through those last stitches, pull tight and weave in the ends. Voila!

My mom sent me this fabric probably 15 years ago and I came across it a few days ago and decided to make some little tea napkins.  I just cut each square motif out and hemmed it with a decorative stitch.  They are about 4 -5 inches  and will be perfect for tea and cookie time. 

Then here is a scarf I've been working on off and on.  I got the pattern from my friend Char after I saw the one she is making.  The hearts look like they are embroidered but they are just made up of slanted stitches.  The yarn is KnitPicks Yarn of the Andes in Hollyberry.  I haven't decided yet what to do with the scarf when I am done, I think it will make a good gift if I manage to finish it before Christmas.

Well, that is about it, since I am working full time now, I find myself being pretty lazy on my days off. I don't have much energy for anything but a few chores and a little knitting, so I am not being that productive. I spend lots of time looking at patterns and reading everyone else's blogs though and have collected quite a stack of patterns I want to make. 

Lazy Sunday

I've been working the day shift all week and volunteered yesterday giving H1N1 vaccines all day in San Francisco. 7AM is way tooooo early for me, it is a good thing I only have a 10 minute walk to work. Today I tried to sleep in, which is usually no problem for me, but I tossed and turned and finally just got out of bed. Brian had been baking and this is the aroma I awoke to



Cinnamon buns. Mmmmm. So, still in our jammies, we are enjoying some tea with our buns and lounging on the couch.



I've been knitting a bit. But mostly mindless projects. This week one of the MDs was asking about my stethescope cover, and said her mother knits and asked if there is a pattern. He he he. It is just a tube, long enough to cover the straight section of the scope. I've been making a few more so that I have extras to be able to wash them more often.



I'm making them out of cotton chennile so I can just throw them in the wash with my scrubs.
Well, wishing you all a lovely lazy Sunday.





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