Is it still the holidays?

Happy New Year folks!

It seems like I’ve read about 1,001 “Here’s what I did in 2011″ and another thousand “2012 Goals” posts in my daily blog circuit. I am going to forego both. I’m sure I did a lot of stuff, and I’m pretty sure I’ll do more stuff this year – and I’m going to leave it at that.

This past 3-4 weeks have been very busy for me, crafting-wise, despite the fact that I ended up mostly working over Christmas (luckily mostly from home). But for the time I had off, when I was contemplating what to do with my vacation days, I realized that I could actually do holiday crafting over the holidays. What a concept! So I did. I made a felt mistletoe ball one day (fun and simple!), and another day I made four stacking fabric Christmas trees from stashed holiday fabric. I also used that last pattern and made fringed felt Christmas tree ornaments with bells. However, since it’s after the holidays now I’ll probably wait to show you until next year  (if I remember)!

What I haven’t shown you is the gifts I made. First up today, here are the linen sachets I made for my grandmother. They are filled with lavender and roses and smelled awesome (Ravelry page).

Each one features a motif I crocheted for decoration, which I then hand-tacked onto the backing fabric. I cannot lie, this is not my idea but rather one I saw on Etsy from namolio. I did consider just buying some (all her stuff is gorgeous), and I probably will, but the big difference between this mine and hers is color – quite honestly I wasn’t sure my grandmother would appreciate the lack-of-color-natural-materials aesthetic. And I knew she’d rather have something I made, so make them I did.

It wasn’t super difficult to make these – and I enjoy doing up little lace motifs in crochet with thread. In 2007, I think, I made starched crocheted snowflake ornaments for people in my family. This was much the same thing, I just tried to use motifs that didn’t scream snowflake. I think I like the way the green motif (Pretty Snowflake pattern) look best, but the white circle one (Regal Snowflake pattern) was the most fun to make.  The turquoise motif I made up myself as I went. I think it turned out pretty nicely too!

I think I’m going to hold off on my other gift project for another post, lest this one becomes unwieldy. Meanwhile, there seems to be a lot of 2011/2012 cleanup to do on my blog ….

Until later!

More food

I never told you what I made for Christmas dinner – it was my once-per-year-entire-day cooking extravaganza. Fun stuff, with a couple of recipes that were keepers. The menu, plus one-word reviews: caramelized onion and asiago tarts (meh), butternut squash & porcini empanadas (winner!), Habanero Portobello Bisque (mmmm), roast tomato & goat cheese tarte tatin (meh), chicory salad with warm mustard dressing (great), spinach-gruyere souffles (okay), and shaved asparagus with truffle jus (myeah no). Yeah. Elaborate. I know. That was the whole point.

The clear winners from that meal were the empanadas and their accompanying sauce, which were all just fantastic. So as part of my regular weekly make-all-the-food-for-the-week plan, I made a bunch more empanadas and froze them. It’s a huge amount of work to make these between the filling, crust and sauce – I’m not going to lie. But they are worth it, in my opinion.

Since it was apparently a butternut squash and mushroom kind of week, I also made 2 pans of butternut squash and crimini mushroom lasagna. Between the empanada crust, the lasagna noodles and the four loaves of bread, we were pretty set for carbs last week.

Winter Storm

If you’re ever down in Monterey, I recommend Asilomar Beach. It’s one of the prettiest beaches that I’ve been to. In winter, anyway. It’s probably not bad in summer, either, but the waves won’t be as fierce, and the sky won’t be as brooding. I think I rather prefer days like this on the beach to sunny, warm days. The ocean just seems to have more personality during the winter, more insistence. I wanted to sit there all day and watch the waves and birds and anemones, but it rained and I had to go back so I could go to work.

If you go up the road a bit, there’s another beach (closed to the public) that’s reserved for harbor seals. Despite chilly rain, these fat seals were perfectly content to lie on the sand and sleep (and wallow). I’m always amazed at how well animals are adapted to their environments. I saw a few seals playing in the water, and one baby seal who tried to beach himself using the waves and ended up facing back out to sea. He didn’t seem worried.

Just two more days of work to survive, and then I have a whole week off. I’m going to enjoy the hell out of all of those days. I have been trying not to bog myself down with too many plans, to not get to a point where I’m stressed about how much I have to do, or think about that bag full of stuff from Home Depot that I need to do something with. I’m hoping one entire day involves sitting on the couch drinking hot tea wrapped in a blanket watching movies and crocheting. I’ve gotten another 20 hexagons completed on my blanket, but the shawl I began in November languishes, and most of my other sewing projects are currently stuffed untidily and sadly into a grocery bag.

At least the sewing machine is now usable. That hasn’t been true for four months. I’d like to spend another entire day sewing next week, maybe two. I’m close to having everything put away, giving me plenty of room to work. I arranged my fabrics on a shelf in rainbow color order the other night, and it was lovely to see all of them again. I am pulling some out, for I have curtains and cushions to make, a jacket to finish, a quilt to complete. I did a lot of sewing work last year that I never talked about here, things that I started but didn’t finish because of time constraints.

I wish I had caught the clear green-blue of these waves better as they danced around the rocks, but the day was too dark, and the rain and wind much too insistent. Storms like these, and the dark and cold, make me want to take a nap. I find storms oddly comforting. I could have curled up in the car and listened to the rain and had the best sleep of my life, I think.

This will be my last post until next week, so I hope you and yours have a good holiday and safe travels, if that’s what you’re doing. I neglected to wish anyone a happy Hanukkah, which has now long since passed. I personally favor the solstice as a winter marker, but that’s also now past. Either way, have a lovely weekend.