Thimbleanna – Page 111 – My little online diary.

The Sugar Cookie Bake-Off

59 Comments / December 4, 2009 February 22, 2011 / Family, Holidays

Boy, thanks for all the Advent Calendar Love! I love this time of year — it’s so fun seeing what everyone is working on. There have been a ton of advent calendars online and it’s been very inspiring to see them all. I’m ready to make a new one!

This is also the time of year when all the Christmas goodies come out. We had so much fun in October when we had our Chili Cook-Off that we decided we should continue the tradition. This time, with Christmas so close, I thought it would be fun to try different cut-out sugar cookie recipes. MeMum has had a wonderful recipe that we’ve made every year since I’ve been a little girl, but I’ve seen so many other recipes out there and I’ve always wondered how they stack up.

The instructions were to come to the party with the dough already prepared. Then we would cut-out, bake and decorate all together. We had six different “teams”, therefore, six “recipes”.

Team 1: Moi. I tried the recipe from Cookie Craft with their royal icing recipe because their cookies are so pretty. Their recipe had no baking powder or baking soda which helped these cookies do the best job of maintaining their shape. With the royal icing, I suspected these cookies wouldn’t taste very good and I was right — cardboard has more flavor. Blech.

Team 2: MeMum. She used our tried and true recipe. It has a hint of lemon. She had a little trouble with the dough this year though.

Team 3: MyDadLovesMeBestSister. Her recipe contained cream cheese. I love cream cheese and I’ve always figured if a sugar cookie had cream cheese in it, you couldn’t go wrong.

Team 4: My nephew and TheFirstChild. They totally cheated and brought a roll of Pillsbury Sugar Cookies and canned frosting. Boys. Men!

Team 5: CrazyBIL. I think he got his recipe from his mom — it was for a soft sugar cookie. He had a little mishap, in that he added a little too much lemon to his frosting. I personally loved it, but it was too tart for most everyone else.

Team 6: My two nieces and SweetiePie. They tried a recipe containing buttermilk. Aren’t their cookies cute?

After the cookies were all made, I convinced everyone to have a blind taste test. They weren’t so sure, but I reasoned that you also taste with your eyes, so it was the only fair way. This part was lots of fun — you should have seen the faces when that sour lemon cookie hit their tongues!

So, who won? Well, in theory:

Gag Me.

I have two words: Chemical. Aftertaste. I think this cookie won because of the frosting. The rest of us pretty much fell down in the frosting department because we were concentrating on the cookie dough so much. MeMum’s cookie and the buttermilk cookie came screaming into second place. They both have great potential. I thought the cream cheese recipe was pretty disappointing. And way at the back of the pack were the lemon and cardboard cookies. Cardboard was dead last. Let that be a lesson to you — don’t judge a cookie by it’s cover.

Of course, now that the contest is over, I’ve seen several new recipes that I want to try, so there will be more experimenting. It’s just too bad they can’t all be tried at once! Oh, and we’ll be looking for more bake/cook-off ideas after the new year — any suggestions?

XOXO,
Anna

An Advent Calendar

73 Comments / November 30, 2009 February 22, 2011 / Holidays, Sewing

Whew! December is here. Can you believe it??? I have big plans for a relaxed holiday season this year. (Ha!) No last minute rushing around. I’m not really making any gifts this year (I might make one or two little things), so that will help. One thing I’ve always wanted to make is an advent calendar. TheManoftheHouse thinks it’s heresy to have anything other than those cute little German Advent calendars that have a piece of chocolate behind each door. That’s what we always had when the boys were little because I didn’t get my act together back then and make a homemade advent calendar. Since I don’t have much to make this year, I thought it would be a good year to finally make one.

Better late than never, and this way, I’ll be ready for Grandkids, right? I couldn’t decide if I wanted an advent calendar with little doors, or to just wrap up gifts and put numbers on them. I’m pretty sure I won’t go the gift route, but I do like the idea of having a little chocolate or an activity to do together in each pocket. So, I compromised on medium sized pockets so that I’ll have a little flexibility in the future.

I used Monica’s Pennie Pocket pattern — omitting the hanging tie and opting to fold over the back triangle in order to make a channel that will allow for hanging. Like the Valentine pockets I did in February, I used felt for the front flap and crocheted around the edges. I also embroidered the numbers on the flaps using my embroidery machine. I haven’t quite decided how I’ll want to hang them. I thought of several options…in rows on a wall,

strung along a fireplace or a window,

or running up our staircase. For this year, I think the staircase will win out.

Do you like the little numbers?

For those of you with embroidery machines who might like to make an advent calendar, I’ve packaged those 24 numbers into a downloadable zip file (the numbers would work on all sorts of advent calendars – even just plain little pockets). They’re currently only in .hus format — I don’t have the time or the software to convert all those numbers into all the different embroidery machine formats. Hopefully you have the software to convert to your format. And, as always, if you use them for anything, let me know — I’d love to see what you make!

XOXO,
Anna

Happy Thanksgiving!

48 Comments / November 26, 2009 February 22, 2011 / Holidays

I thought I’d just pop in here while I take a break from all the Thanksgiving festivities. The pies have been made,

the linens have been ironed,

and the table has been set

with one of my favorite projects ever, the Give Thanks tablecloth. (It’s a project from a Better Homes and Gardens magazine from 4 or 5 years ago — “Give Thanks” and maple leaves are repeated along all the borders of the tablecloth.)

Now, I’m just waiting for the big bird to cook and the family to arrive.

If you’re in the US, I hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving this year and that you’re fortunate enough to spend it with family and friends!

XOXO,
Anna

And P.S. — when you’re trying to figure out what to do with all those leftovers, don’t forget the Turkey Cranberry Crescent Pinwheels!

Transition Weekend

30 Comments / November 24, 2009 February 22, 2011 / Around the House

Well? How was the weekend? It would have been better to ask you that on Monday…and I would have, but I couldn’t post yesterday. Uploading problems somewhere along the line…Grrrrr. Anyway, we celebrated the tenth anniversary of moving into this house by cleaning our clothes closet and living to tell about it. It was a close call though, we almost succumbed to dust inhalation. Whew – it was bad in there! The closet is breathing a big sigh of relief now and I counteracted the dust effects by spending a whole day outside in our beautiful fall weather. One last day of yard cleanup with the other man in my life, John Deere. John, Dear.

John and I go back 22 years and he’s getting tired, but he squeaked through another year without complaining too much. It was a perfect fall day so I thought I’d wave at you with a modified Wilson. Don’t you think I look hot with my hearing protection? (I’m channeling my inner robot.) They’re a new accessory this year — I should have been wearing them all these years of mowing — John has a little trouble with volume control.

I’m pretending the hydrangea stalks are my antennae. All the leaves are gone from the hydrangeas now, but the gorgeous pink flowers are still there.

So, this concludes another season of yard work. It was one of the best that I can remember — our summer was just perfect — cool and just the right amount of rain. And our fall weekends have been just the right weather combo too, so that the final clean up wasn’t with snow.

Potential snow flurries are in our forecast by week’s end and I’m looking forward to the new season of extra time to work on inside projects. As soon as the outside work was over, I started one — a little red for Christmas, which is screaming at me everywhere I turn. (Man, I wish retailers would cut us some slack and let us enjoy our seasons!)

Anyway, I’ll be spending my week prepping for Thanksgiving and sneaking in a little crochet here and there. I hope you all have a fun week planned too!

XOXO,
Anna

Socketty Socks

52 Comments / November 20, 2009 March 8, 2016 / Knitting, Socks

Haha — that was some serious fun, reading all the comments on my last post. I really enjoyed seeing where you all stand wrt the holidays. There are a few of you over-achievers who are all done with your shopping (!), but I’m happy to say, I’m not the only one still sitting around waiting for the lightening bolt. I will say that I’ve at least…Oh Wait. I can’t say anything — there are big eyes lurking and I wouldn’t want to give anything away. Oh well, it wasn’t anything earth shattering anyway — just a little start.

In the meantime, I FINALLY finished up this pair of socks. Since I rarely travel for work anymore, I’ve lost my prime sock-knitting time so it’s harder for me to accomplish much in the knitting department.

I love the blue and green colors. But, oh dear. My friend the camera has rudely pointed out a little bitty (well, not so bitty) mistake in these socks. Do you see it? That left heel down there — right across the middle. It appears I’ve missed a row of pattern. Ooops! I didn’t even see it until I was downloading the pictures.

Oh well, it’s WAY too late to fix that little problem now. That’s ok — they’re super comfy, just in time for winter. I have no idea what the yarn is (sorry — I bought them from a pile at Cami‘s and they didn’t have a ball band). I just used my standard sock knitting method and knit a plain ol’ stockinette stitch for the bulk of the sock. Easy Peasy!

In other news, remember when I told you about Penny‘s big drive to get everyone to sign a petition to bring back Flea Market Fancy? She’s having a big ol’ jumbo giveaway over at the Flea Market Fancy Blog — you should definitely RUN over there and check it out!

Bring on the weekend! TheManoftheHouse and I have a BIG closet cleanout scheduled for tomorrow. Hopefully boxes won’t fall on us and kill us….wish us luck!

Have a great weekend!
XOXO,
Anna