Thimbleanna – Page 37 – My little online diary.

Grumps

31 Comments / December 5, 2014 December 5, 2014 / Chat

Sheesh! I didn’t mean to be gone so long, but it’s been a little busy around here, as I’m sure it has been for you too. When I realized the date this morning (oh.my.gosh, Dec. 5th already!) it made me think of St. Nicholas Day in Europe.

Years ago, when we lived in Germany, our battalion organized a ski trip to Berchtesgaden on the 5th and 6th of December. We were all innocent young American tourists, wandering the streets of the little village and all of a sudden these big straw men appeared and they started chasing people and hitting them with switches. We were told that they were “Grumps” and their job was to go around and beat the bad spirits out of children so that St. Nicholas could visit them that evening and leave presents in their shoes. There was a lot of mayhem and shrieks and laughter. One of the girls I was with was “switched” and she said it really hurt — these guys weren’t playing around! I found a few pictures on google to show you what they look like.

I can’t really find any truth to what I was told on google. They’re really called Krampuss and, according to the descriptions I found with these pictures, they are unmarried men, dressed in straw or skins with wooden masks or skins over their heads and large cow-bells tied around their hips (so you know they’re coming!) and they follow Saint Nicholas from house to house on December 5 and 6 every year to bring luck to the good and punish the idle.

It was totally accidental that we happened to be in Bavaria on the same day that the grumps appeared, but it’s a really fun memory for me. And, I think it’s accidental that I should remember it today, when I’ve been feeling more than a little grumpy. This is shaping up to be a weird holiday season for us this year (for starters, GASP! — it looks like their won’t be a gingerbread competition because we can’t get all these grown kids and their busy schedules coordinated) and I’m having more than a little trouble getting into the holiday spirit.

Not to fear though. I have two things set to turn it all around. First, did you see this?

Yipee!!! I won a $100 gift certificate from Minted and Amy! It’s very exciting — Minted has so many beautiful things that I’m having trouble choosing! Thank You, Thank You, Thank You SOOOO much Amy!

And second, I’m going to spend the day Christmas shopping and see if I can kick the grumps to the curb. I hope you’ve had a better start to your holiday prep and you’re well on your way!

XOXO,
Anna

Five.

27 Comments / November 22, 2014 November 22, 2014 / Chat

This post is titled Five today. Just Five. ‘Cause, once again, I’m too late for Five on Friday. {Sigh}. I’m almost too late for Five on Saturday. I have a good excuse though — there’s been major cleaning going on around here and it’s a lot of work. Anyway, here are a few things for your weekend:

1. Last weekend I went to see SweetiePie and we ventured off to Ikea. Here’s a tip — don’t go to Ikea on a Saturday that’s remotely close to Christmas. It was worth it though, look at the cute wrapping paper we found!

2. We’ve been having a big clean out at work. We’re soon going to be squishing from 4 big buildings into 2, so there’s a big purge in the works. (Happily I’m not going to go into my “Who in the *&(% came up with the honeycomb cubicle concept that’s causing 70% of American companies to follow each other over the cliff?” rant. Because there IS a rant and it’s a BIG one.) There’s a community book table for the clean out, and one day, this old Kaffe knitting book showed up. I nabbed it, but I already have a copy, so I thought one of you might like it. It’s free if you’re willing to pay the postage. Just leave a comment telling me you want it. It looks like it could be sent as media mail for around $4.00 in the states.

3. Not much to report on the Aunts’ Quilt this week. I’m still making fabric choices for month 2. In the meantime, check out the great tutorial that Meredithe has posted for a no waste method of creating the flying geese pieces that we need for the pieced blocks. Thanks Meredithe!

4. The weather in parts of the states last week was awful! I like winter, so I don’t usually complain about the cold, but, according to the weather channel, “These 20 U.S. Cities Are Allowed To Complain About The Cold”. We came in at number 10 which is really surprising to me. Surely there are much colder cities north of us? We even beat out Detroit and Cleveland. And we’re only one rank lower than Buffalo — What??? That’s pretty impressive — we’re in the top 10. I’ll try not to take advantage of our new found privilege this winter, but at least you know, if i do complain … it’s well deserved! (Also, if you are my children, please note: There IS more that one skyscraper in your po-dunkey hometown!)

5. On that note, the Scruffster would like to tell you to stay warm and get some rest. Especially if you’re an American preparing for Thanksgiving this week!

XOXO,
Anna

Handmade Scandinavian Christmas

15 Comments / November 12, 2014 November 13, 2014 / Books, Chat

The lovely people at Stitch Craft Create are having a Handmade Christmas Decorations blog hop and they very kindly asked me if I’d like to participate. There are four fun Christmas books in the blog hop — we were each allowed to choose one special book that we’d like to review. I think it’s funny that most of us, so far have chosen this beautiful book, Handmade Scandinavian Christmas by Hege Barnholt.

Handmade Scandinavian Christmas has over 120 projects in more than 150 pages. My favorite thing about this book is that it is full of ideas for a simple holiday season, and many of the projects are meant to be done with children and other family members — and that’s what the holiday season is all about, isn’t it?

There are so many topics in this book, it’s hard to even know where to start to tell you about it. The author has thought of everything for your holidays — here’s a list of some of the chapter titles: Preparing for Christmas, For the Birds, Perfect Presents, For Little Hands, Almost Christmas, Christmas Flowers, Tasty Presents, Sweet Christmas, Wrapped with Love, The Scent of Christmas and Cakes Galore.

Some of my favorite ideas are all of the paper and nature crafts,

the many food gift ideas,

lots of gift wrap ideas (eeek! a yoyo!),

and a whole section of advent calendars, just to name a few.

And then, there are super simple ideas that you don’t really even need instructions for, but you need the book to give you the cool idea. Look, a snow heart. I love it.

The photography in the book is beautiful. Snow. (Snow!) Children. It makes you even feel like you’re in Scandinavia.

Probably my favorite section in the book is the section on gifts to make (’cause you know, I like to make things.) There are lots of projects with great instructions. I decided to try out the instructions for a knitted hot pad.

This was a simple, quick project and you can change it up a little and make it your own. I chose to add the little bake tag. I think these hotpads would make really cute Christmas gifts. (Oh, and just so you aren’t confused by the scale of the hotpad, those aren’t full-size utensils there. But, it is a generous sized hot pad!)

To see more clips from this book and three other fun holiday craft books, go check out all the other posts in the blog hop — details and a list of the the other bloggers taking part can be found here. If you’re interested in this book you can find it here in the Handmade Christmas Shop. If you sign up to the Stitch Craft & Create newsletter you can also download a selection of free ebooks.
If you’re a new customer you can click here and use the code SCC525 to get a £5 discount on your first order over £25.

£5 Off £25 at Stitch Craft Create with Offer Code SCC525

It’s been fun to see what books and projects the other bloggers have selected this month — and we’re only halfway through the blog hop!

XOXO,
Anna

Socks

27 Comments / November 9, 2014 March 8, 2016 / Knitting, Socks

Winston and Teddy would like to thank you for all of your fun comments about their pictures. Me too. You’re all so sweet!

It’s been just your average week here in ThimbleannaLand — nothing much exciting happened as another week sped by, hurtling us into the Holiday Abyss. I managed to order some yarn for a Christmas project — I hope it gets here in a hurry. With nothing really accomplished this week (I did manage to clean the pantry and do a lot of filing, but there’s not much picture worthy in those activities), I thought I’d show you some socks I finished a few months ago.

Do you remember this Downton Abbey sock yarn that I bought almost two years ago? (Oh my gosh, that made me think about dates. It will soon be Twenty Fifteen. I think I feel sick.)

On my way out the door for my trip to Australia, I grabbed this yarn so that I’d have something to knit on the airplane. And Boy, is there a LOT of airplane knitting time on the way to Australia. Especially if you’re sitting next to the row of crying babies on one side and someone who was coughing and blowing her nose (poor thing) for the whole trip on the other side. Knit. Knit. Knit. It makes the time pass more quickly. By the time we landed, I’d almost turned the heels on a pair of socks.

Then, we had more airplane time within Australia. And Kellie’s children were so intrigued about what I was knitting, that I knew I really needed to finish these socks before I left to return home. I wanted them to be able to see how those tubes hanging on the needle would become a pair of socks. I knit a lot and managed to finish the socks the day before my trip ended. Just in time to take advantage of Jessie who happily provided International Sock Modeling Services.

The pattern is the Mockery Sock pattern that is available as a free Ravelry download. The yarn is by Lorna’s Laces. And, in true Lorna’s Laces fashion, there was some pooling on top of the ankle, but it wasn’t too bad.

Jessie’s feet aren’t as big as mine, so those socks are a little big for her, but I thought she did a great job modeling. Plus, we had a lot of fun crawling around on the rocks in the blazing sun. As I mentioned in my Australia posts, is was about 40 degrees C (just over 100 F) every day in Kakadu. Jessie was a great sport to put wool socks on in the heat. We took pictures in a hurry!

I hope you’re having a good weekend. These Downton Abbey socks are going to be put to good use here this week — we’re expecting a blast of cold air! If you are too, I hope you can stay warm!

XOXO,
Anna