We had everything done on the 23rd of December, so I thought I’d pull out my leather pressure foot and needles to make some leather slippers for the kids. Here are Alida’s I made out of an old black skirt. I made the red hearts out of the leather Ohelene sent me. Thank you so much, Ohelene!!!
She was so amazingly generous to send me enough leather to make a mountain of slippers. Now I need to get to work on Alexander’s. Ohelene makes and sells her slippers, so go ahead and check them out.
Here are a few of the things that were under the tree for me to play with. I ended up ordering Last-Minute Knitted Gifts and I’m very happy about the decision. Thank you all for your help!!
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Santa also brought me this gorgeous wine red wool from Lana Grossa. I’m planning on making this with it:
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The picture really doesn’t do it justice. My knitting store had the sweater hanging in the window and I just couldn’t resist. I tried it on and it fit like it was made for me, so I didn’t leave without 10 balls of this stuff to knit my own. I’ve started knitting already, but because I’m following the pattern, it’s going to go slowly. I don’t have much time to knit when it’s peaceful and I can think.
The last and best present of all is the ‘Gutschein’ I got which is next to the book. Gutschein means cerificate in English. Can you see what Alexander drew for me? It took me a minute to see it, but there is a sewing machine and green knitting with red knitting needles. On the side you can see 5 boxes with numbers denoting the times when Martin takes the kids out and I’m allowed to sit and knit or sew. Do you believe it? I got time to knit and sew for Christmas! I have 5 times open!! I thought this was a super idea and can’t believe my little man made this for me. Alida helped color in the green yarn. I had no idea.
I have to admit, this brought tears to my eyes. My family is the best family anyone could ever ask for.
Santa was very good to us all this year. So good that we’ve been playing non-stop since Christmas morning. Here are some of the things we’ve been doing. Thanks, Judy for the fun shoes, Alida loves them!!
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Please notice the dragon slayer waiting for the train. His dragon is waiting on the roof, you can see the end of his tail.
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Here is Candy Land in German! Alexander is building a motor with his dad. They worked for hours on it. Thanks, Judy!!!
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As you can see, the felted mice went over better than I had hoped.
So you can understand why I haven’t been around.
I’ve also been busy being crafty, and I’ll be back soon to tell you all about it! Tomorrow we’re going to grow some bacteria with help from our bactreria farm. Thanks, Chris!!
Don’t you want to join us??
I’m off to play, the kids are finally in bed and I can finally use their toys! Too bad those shoes are too small for me. 
The tension on my sewing machine has been giving me trouble since I bought it a year ago, which means I’ve been to the store where I bought it at least a dozen times since then. Last week when it started acting up again, the owner of the store told me to come in and sew which would enable him to see exactly what the machine was doing.
What do you think I did when I heard that? Without any further hesitation, I had Martin take the kids and I trotted, with my serger and supplies tucked safely in my bike trailer, down to my sewing store where I sat from 10 am to 4 pm and sewed. As you can imagine, I was in sewer-geek heaven. The owner of the store, and a woman who works there, were both around to help me and give me lots and lots of tips. I also learned a lot from just listening to how they dealt with customers and the tips they gave them. Does it get any better than that??
My machine acted just like a little kid-perfect in front of strangers. “Oh what an angel she is” and then when you get home they start throwing a huge tantrum. I went home with a very well-behaved machine, and I hope she keeps acting so well-behaved otherwise she’s getting another time-out!!
I’m planning on making some leather slippers after Christmas, so we’ll see how well my machine works with me on this.
These are the Baby Born clothes I finished while I was there. This doll has better clothes than I do!
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I would like to show you one more fun little gadget I finally finished last night. This is a row counter which you can use when increasing rows. I got the idea from String or nothing and also found one at Knit Picks here. You start at the green end which means go, in my case the leaf. Then every two rows, or every knit row, it is moved to the next ring in the direction of red, which means stop, in my case the flower. Here is my version of the row counter.
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I don’t really like how the flower turned out but it’s a good start. I’m trying to figure out what I could use other than a chain because the chain links don’t fit on my bigger needles and I would like to use these for everything I knit. Any ideas?? Of course, one of these went into my mom’s package this morning which was then sent off. It should get there in time for your birthday, mom!!
Mom, here are the ornaments the kids picked out this year. You see, every year we go to the Christmas Market with the kids and they each pick out their own ornament for the tree, I kind of guide them to the good ones, and then we write their name and date on them. When they are older and have families they can take their ornaments for their own trees. These are little wooden ornaments from Käthe Wohlfahrt and I love them. Last year my parents came to visit and I think my mom and I went to the Market every day at least once, which was so much fun! Next year my parents are coming again and we are going to do those markets again, you can count on it!
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Alexander picked out the airplane and Alida the teddies on the sled.
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This is the book that Chris, my sister-in-law, sent in her package that we all just love. It is so funny!! Thank you again, Chris, for being so very thoughtful-thank you from all of us! Tomorrow we are making Santa pancakes.
I wish we could have been there for Conrad’s birthday party yesterday. I heard the sailboat cupcakes were soooo cute. Also in Conrad’s face. You need a blog, babe.
I apologize to all of you who have written comments in the last few days. I have not been able to find the time to answer right now, I’ve been quite busy, as you can imagine. Thank you all for writing!!!