8pm Saturday Night

So here's the score:

Niece's socks: 3 finished, 3/4 of a small sock to go
Nephew's sweater: 1 1/2 sleeves to go plus finish work (who's idea was it to do stripes!? Oh, wait, that was me.)
Number of pies made since last post: 2
As far as I can tell, holiday pie making is officially over.
Number of batches of truffles made: 3
Two more batches need to be made next week for people who were away this week.

Things I have discovered:
-After two days of knitting, size 0 metal double points hurt my fingers. A lot! I stopped with them on Wednesday and my fingers are still sore. That's why I'm only working on the sweater while being so close to glory on the socks. I'm fairly sure I'll have enough in me to finish up the last sock tomorrow night but after that, I'm laying off metal DPNs for a while!

-There is a reason I hop around from project to project. I hate working on one thing at once. After a certain amount of time (measured in hours), anything I'm working on starts to drag like my hands are moving through molasses.

-I apparently suffer from a condition that causes me to keep thinking of last minute things to make for people. Example: I remembered that I only had the finish work to do on a sweater for Little Niece and have decided to take a shot at getting that done for her in addition to the socks. I think this may be a symptom of how sick I am of working on Little Nephew's sweater. It's the only thing I've worked on in THREE WHOLE DAYS! It will be like a reward for finishing the sweater. Also, I don't know how long I can keep my hands off the entrelac. It keeps waggling it's squares at me.

Reprieve

So, I get a bit of a reprieve on my Christmas knitting. My friend Jess, who the sweater on size 3's is for, is going to be visiting here around New Year's. That means I don't have to get her sweater done to mail to LA for Christmas, which, let's face it, wasn't going to happen anyway. One way or another, I now have until New Year's Day to have that done!
The score so far is:
Stuffed Mittens-done
Niece's socks- one big one done, one big one and two small ones to go
Scarves-haven't worked on them since last report, these don't have to be done right for Christmas
Hat-same as scarves
Jessica's sweater-first sleeve almost done, second sleeve and finish work to go
And I've decided to knit Little Nephew a sweater. He's picked out the colors and I have measure him tonight. Yes, I'm out of my mind.
Truffles-one batch done and gone, second batch ready for scooping, third and fourth batch to be started today
Christmas Cards-about half done

So, since today is my last day off before Christmas, there is going to be a great deal of truffle making, card writing and knitting going on.
I hope all of your holiday prep is going well! Wish me luck!

Truffles!

Here is my truffle recipe:

16oz. good quality dark chocolate
3/4 cup heavy cream
1 cup (two sticks) unsalted butter
good quality cocoa powder or confectioner's sugar

Chop up the chocolate. In a double boiler (I use a pyrex dish on top of a pan of water), melt the chocolate together with the cream. Do this slowly over medium heat, stirring regularly.
When the chocolate and cream are completely mixed and melted together, take them off the heat and add the butter. Stir until the butter is completely incorporated. It helps a lot to chop the butter up into smaller pieces before adding it.
When it is all melted and mixed, put the mixture in the fridge for at least 6 hours.
When it is nice and cold, take a really small ice cream scoop* (I think mine is 1/4 oz) and scoop out round balls of the mixture. Roll them a bit in your hands to make them round and drop them in a dish of cocoa powder (or the confectioner's sugar if you like them sweeter). Roll them to cover them in the cocoa powder and they are done.
Keep them refrigerated. They keep about two weeks. You generally don't have to worry about them going bad.

*You may wonder whether you really need the ice cream scoop. I tried making them without it the first time, and frankly, they ended up looking like little chocolate turds. The effect was really unappetizing, though I think I laughed for about half an hour when I realized what they looked like.

Nine days and counting

Thank you everyone for your help with the camera info. I will start the real research after Christmas. Meanwhile, I'm so behind on my Christmas preparations, I can't even believe it! The Christmas knitting isn't so bad. All I have left is a sleeve and a half plus finish work on a sweater (it's on size 3 needles but we'll just forget about that for now), most of one stuffed mitten, 3.75 socks for my nieces (it's okay, they're small) ,1.9 entrelac scarves and most of a blue and white Fair Isle hat. Did I say not so bad? I'm living in a fantasy world, but I like it here so let's not question it.
As for my Christmas shopping, I have done none, nada, zip. The same with Christmas cards. I've gotten the ingredients for my holiday chocolate truffles but have yet to actually make any. That's going to change tonight since I'm bringing them to several parties this weekend.
Somewhere in here, I'm going to try to find the time to list a whole bunch of yarn I dyed two weeks ago. Patience was kind enough to come over with her camera and get pictures of it. Oh, and I've gotten loads of new yarn (Among other things, I finally figured out how to get KFI to send me more than one bag of Noro at a time!) and have been completely rearranging the shop this week. I have to say, it looks pretty nice!
Tomorrow, if I can find the time, I'll post my truffle recipe! Yummy!

Camera dead

Yes, the camera, she is dead. Fortunately, I was able to plug the memory card into my printer and download the pictures. Good printer!
Here are a few pictures of Wanda confronting her archnemesis, the vacuum cleaner.

Isn't she cute in her sweater? I really have to hurry up and make her a thicker one. She was actually shivering outside yesterday.

Anyway, all you tech savvy people out there, what kind of camera should I get? I'm looking for one that is fairly light weight and will take good pictures of the yarn. I would appreciate any ideas that anyone has.

Camera dead?

I may have killed my camera today. I was vacuuming and taking pictures of the dog attacking the vacuum cleaner (yes, Wanda has discovered her mortal enemy and it's name is Hoover) when it started acting really weird. I got to thinking. It is almost 7 years old and certainly doesn't owe me anything. I'd also thought that it might be good to get a new camera since it is old and slow and heavy as a rock. First, I think I'll change the batteries and talk to it nice for a bit. At the very least, I'd like to get the pictures out of it that I've already taken.

Wow

Just got my first comment spam. I've changed the comments so that you have to type in those random letters when posting. Ah, well.