Wednesday 1 January 2014

Happy 2014

It's 2014 already.  I would say what happened to 2013 but there's a few thousand photos that tell me that.

No photos taken this year yet, maybe tomorrow.

We had a good Christmas, just the two of us at home with so much food it was only finished 5 days later and that was after entertaining three others!

So what happened?


Well, we were both up at a reasonable time and after the brekkers of fresh bread and slow-cooked ham joint we opened a present each.

I opened an unexpected parcel from the Catalyst team at Infolab and was greeted by something really rather cool.
 photo TilleyTree_zps5a4308ce.jpg

It's a tree!  But the best part is it contains an Arduino and once the software is written and running on my PC the lights will reflect how Tilley the Turbine is doing.  Green will be excellent power production and red will be poor/off.

We'd spent a couple of hours on Christmas Eve preparing the food so cooking was a leisurely affair and I got to chill while Jo went to church and the house slowly filled with the smell of cooking turkey.  We decided to eat lunch in the living room as the kitchen was far too cold!  This did mean that Madam stickhound spent a good 20 minutes sitting next to Jo swearing to give her his lunch.  Didn't work.

She did get a doggy cracker though!  Bizarrely the packet said "to be opened by adults only"  I did open it for her but only because she didn't understand what to do and as there was no food contained she wasn't fussed about getting into it :p  It included a hat which Madam wore:

 photo NeckHat_zps690dee79.jpg

 photo PippainHat_zpsb1b4df22.jpg

For all of five minutes.

 photo DidntLastLong_zpscd5680d9.jpg

Jo's morning pressie was a very punny tshirt from his little sister:
 photo SillyTShirt_zpsc3457c97.jpg

Once we'd put food out of doggy range we got to opening the rest of our pressies.  Some silly, some useful and some random.

I won't bore folks with the list, but it was a good selection and much fun.  It did include some home made multisurface cleaner from our soap making friends.  Took me 2 hours over 2 days, but I completely cleaned 2 years worth of grime off the inside of the oven door!  You can now see the status of your cooking items without opening it.  Just have to clean it every so often so I DON'T have to spend 2 hours and lots of energy on it.

I thought I'd summarise 2013 in craft terms.  So I present all the things I knit/crocheted during 2013:

 photo SheepSock_zpsdad29efe.jpg

 photo CrochetGhanComplete_zpsf506f24c.jpg

  photo LBTWSleeves_zps77a2084e.jpg

 photo MermaidFleegle_zpsb90734c6.jpg

 photo JoSock2_zps8957aa21.jpg

 photo FishTesselation2_zpse59cb83f.jpg

 photo GreyCushion_zps6b3f1d67.jpg

 photo ColourCushion_zps6c7a3f27.jpg

 photo CrochetCorsage_zps99c90581.jpg

 photo Balera_zpsd337391c.jpg

 photo ChildJumper_zps1dfc57cf.jpg

 photo BabyOutfit_zps4e939eae.jpg

 photo BabyMaile_zps3c56526b.jpg

 photo PhoneSock1_zpsb12a4958.jpg
(I actually made 12 of these, but posting all those is just silly)

 photo OrangeShiny_zps28d4a100.jpg
(ditto the 26 of these)

Finally, these are the Christmas presents I was asked to knit:

My MIL wanted a tea cosy, she specified "Tiree colours" and after seeing my jumper she said she wanted sheep.  I went with sheep at sunset:
 photo Cosyarrived_zps8bdf36f4.jpg

With pom-pom!  It was a nice simple knit and I got to try "steeking" where you reinforce some stitches and then CUT YOUR KNITTING!  It's quite the scary idea but once you're done the exhilaration is amazing.

Younger sister in law wanted a bobble hat in burgundy and white.

 photo BunnyHopHopHop_zps7004762f.jpg

I didn't have any suitable white but I did have a nice natural cream that really sets off the burgundy.
No Tiree colours this time, but those "bunnies" could conceivably be hares.

So that's a tiny summary of 2013.  Want to see the rest?  Just read the previous posts on here.

Happy 2014 to all who read this blog and may the new year bring new joy.

TTFN