Livin' La Needle Loca

...I managed to get a photo of the sunrise. Thursday 12/27 After quick trips to the V.E.T. For Sombra for a lab test, and to the post office to pick up flat rate boxes, I spent the day wrapping cookies and biscotti for mailing. I got 8 boxes ready for sealing and postage. Friday 12/28 I sealed the packages and generated postage through PayPal. (I love using PayPal for this!) I delivered the packages to the Post Office. Hooray! After that, I did some house cleaning and then attacked my studio. I spent a good deal of the afternoon putting things away and then vacuumed. It's amazing all the little nooks and crannies that fiber will find its way into! I took a quick trip to the fabric store to get supplemental fabric for my mother-in-law's quilt. When I got everything home, I pulled out all of the components and realized that the resulting quilt would be lovely, but not lively. The whole purpose of the quilt is to brighten up her room. Back to the drawing board. I...

...and it's my day to chill out. I catch up on Christmas movies I didn't get to watch and do a little crafting. I'm a little tired, which is pretty normal after the activity of the last week. Thursday 12/20 I finished decorating the house - the Christmas tree, the Star Trek tree, and my village. I had to replace the light strand that I hang above the stockings - it had died. That meant a quick trip to Rite Aid. While I was out, I swung by the quilt store to get some coordinating fabric for my MIL's quilt. Friday 12/21 I needed 23-24 goodies bags. I settled on a total of 25 - we always seem to need an extra one. I sorted and packed the cookies. I'll have to repack the ones to be mailed, but that will happen after Christmas. Then, I sorted and packed the biscotti. In between, I managed a trip to Target ad Trader Joe's for some stocking stuffers and a couple of things I needed for Saturday. Saturday 12/22 I packed the Amaretto-Cinnam...

...yeah, I know. I missed Monday and Tuesday. I'm scurrying around at work, trying to get things done before I start vacation TOMORROW! A quick report of my baking progress (which seems so long ago now): Saturday: Iced all of the sugar cookies. This includes part 1 of 3 for the snowflakes. Made 12+ cups of Grand Marnier nuts (pecans and walnuts) Made 12+ cups of Amaretto Cinnamon nuts (pecans and walnuts) Sunday: Put chocolate on all of the biscotti. I had a minor fail with the milk chocolate chips I used for the chocolate biscotti. I melted the chocolate in the microwave like I always do, but the milk chocolate seemed to be very sensitive this year. (I did not have a problem with it last year.) It started getting thick, so I stopped heating it and added some shortening to the chocolate and mixed it up. That worked to smooth it out, so I didn't have to discard the batch. Made 2 pounds each of Rocky Road bark, Cranberry-Pistachio bark, and Peppermint bark. I did...

...and the beginning of another weekend in the kitchen. When I left for work this morning, it was very windy and the clouds were moving quickly across the sky. It's supposed to rain today and it sure looked like it! And because my life is centered on baking right now, here's a closer look at two of the new cookies this year: Up this weekend: It's chocolate and icing weekend! I haven't decided which day is which yet, but one day will be devoted to icing the sugar cookies and the other day will be devoted to putting chocolate on the biscotti. In between, I will be making the fudge, chocolate bark, and sugared nuts. It will be a busy (and messy) weekend! .

...in which most of the WIPs are not crafts. My primary WIPs this month are baking and Christmas decorating. While the baking is on track, the decorating is sadly behind. I have hung the front door wreath, and hung up the advent calendars and stockings (and that's only because they were in the same box). Our Christmas tree is still sitting in a bucket outside. The Star Trek tree is still in its box. The Husband and I are both a little Bah Humbug right now. It's been a tough year for us and I'd like to get back some "normal" by getting the house decorated, or at least partially decorated. We've set aside tonight to get the tree inside, which means rearranging the furniture first. From there, we'll bring out the boxes of decorations and get started on making it more Christmas-like. WIPs Roll Call Worked On: Charred Teal Shawl (knitting) [ Ravelry ] Started the last color in section 4. When that's finished, the last thing is the picot bind-off. ...

...it was a long weekend in the kitchen, but I finished baking the cookies and biscotti. Saturday Before any baking was done, the Husband and I went to buy our Christmas tree. We normally buy it at Summerwinds Nursery. They usually have a decent selection of trees over 7-feet tall, but not this year. They had very few trees of the size that I wanted and the ones they had looked either skinny or had wonky trunks. I guess the shortage really affected them. We decided to finally break down and buy an artificial tree, something I wanted to avoid for another couple of years. The Husband had to stop at Yamagami's Nursery to check the availability of bare-root trees (to replace our apricot tree). We normally don't look their for our tree, but I decided to check out them out while the Husband did his thing. I found a very nice Douglas fir tree in the size we wanted (7 to 8-feet), so... I guess we'll get the artificial tree next year! After we got home, we put Mr. Tree in a ...

...and rolling into a long baking weekend. I'm completely loving the skies and clouds. 11/30/18: 12/5/18: Today was a co-worker's birthday and she bought her own cake from Whole Foods. This is a Chocolate Hazelnut Crunch cake: Up this weekend:  We hope to get our Christmas tree - I just don't know if it will be Saturday or Sunday. Other than that, the primary focus will be baking. I have the 9 cookie doughs in the refrigerator to bake. There are 3 or 4 other cookies to make as well. The day that we don't buy the Christmas tree will be biscotti day. I need an entire day for that! .

...it's December, so you know my main WIP is baking! I've mentioned before that this is the last year of my cookie baking marathon at Christmas time. Since it's the last one, I thought I'd document some of my process. Who knows...you might want to do your own marathon! While my processes work for me, they might give you an idea of how to modify them for your own use. First up: how I organize my recipes and track what I'm making. Organization is key. When I started in 1986, I used a calendar to identify what I wanted to bake and when.  I started tracking what I was making from the beginning, but I didn't always note how many I actually baked per recipe. The calendar evolved into a spreadsheet when I realized that I was going to devote my month to baking and the only date that mattered was 12/24! And I got a lot better at noting how many I made. I used to bake one cookie per day, mostly because I only had a couple of cookie sheets and I needed to wash t...

...a lot more reading! Finished: 11/3 Bohemian Tote Bag (sewing) - formerly known as Secret Project 11/3 Sunflower Zip bag (sewing) 11/3 Chloe's Catnip Mousie (knitting) [ Ravelry ] 11/3 Envy handspun (spinning) [ Ravelry ] Merino-Tussah Silk-Black Welsh-Stellina (4.0 oz) from Homestead Hobbyist 236.4 chain-ply; 13 WPI Books: Alone, Lisa Gardner Archangel’s Prophecy, Nailing Singh Find Her, Lisa Gardner The Magnolia Story, Chip and Joanna Gaines Crash and Burn, Lisa Gardner Rapid Falls, Amber Cowie If Not For You, Debbie Macomber Here’s to Us, Elin Hilderbrand Right Behind You, Lisa Gardner Any Dream Will Do, Debbie Macomber Gods of Magic, Linsey Hall Started: 11/2 Chloe's Catnip Mousie (knitting) [ Ravelry ]  11/3 Sunflower Zip bag (sewing) 11/3 Envy handspun (spinning) [ Ravelry ] Queued Renaissance Mermaid (cross stitch) Sand and Sea quilt for MIL (quilting)  Shimmering Advancing Point Twill Wrap (weaving) Works In Progress: Baroque Hat ...

...and the weekend report. Friday afternoon, I did ingredient shopping at Smart and Final and at Trader Joes. On Saturday, I hung up the Advent calendars and the stockings. I also did the ingredient shopping at Safeway. I baked the pumpkin breads and fruitcakes. I made room in the freezer and got them all in. Yay! In between baking batches of breads and cake, I managed to get the laundry done. On Sunday, I did a regular grocery run and picked up a couple of things I missed on the previous day. I spent the rest of the day making cookie dough, right up to dinner time! If this wasn't the last year of the cookie marathon, I know which cookies I would cycle out: the Pistachio Spirals, Spumoni Slices,  and the Espresso-Chocolate ribbons are the biggest PITA to make. They all require rolling the dough into certain sizes. The spirals require stacking 2 rectangles of dough and then rolling them up. The ribbons require stacking 3 rectangles of dough in a certain order. The ribbon...