Knitting- Holiday Style

Last night we held a holiday party for ourselves. The lovely Spring hosted it at her house. Which if you've never been, is currently an awesome mishmash of Halloween and Christmas. We were all to bring a handmade white elephant gift of some sort. And we had to bring food. Yum! The FOOD!

Spring made us all homemade hot cocoa!
Maiya made sea salt caramels and cheese stuffed dates wrapped in bacon. Yes. Bacon.
Sandra made delicious, moist pumpkin bread.
April made an awesome caramel apple crisp.
Mary brought us all some bread with an olive spread. Super yummy.
The gift exchange was hilarious!!! We played it so you could either steal from the person before you or pick from the wrapped gifts. MacKenzie kept getting her gifts stolen- first from Maiya and then by Sandra. At the end, Candice and Spring swapped gifts as Candice doesn't have pierced ears.

Spring made fish shaped soap with tea tree oil in it. It's supposed to get rid of super stinky smells... like fish! MacKenzie won these in the end.
MacKenzie made earrings and a ring that are a gorgeous green color. Spring won these.

Candice made super cute fabric trees that you can exchange the beads on top. The fabric is so pretty. Mary was lucky enough to get these.
Mary's gift was the most adult. She knitted a chapstick cozy in the shape of a penis!! The penis has a moustache- AWESOME! April stole this gift right away from Candice.

April made a beautiful keepsake box which she filled with an amethyst necklace and homemade chocolate raspberry lip gloss. Maiya stole this from MacKenzie.

Maiya knitted a toilet lid cover that looks like a fishbowl. She calls it Fish bowl for your Toilet bowl. MacKenzie opened it, Mary really wanted it, but Sandra stole it! She was very excited for this saying that it's going to go great in her bathroom.

Sandra made some very pretty beaded jewelry. She told us she used to make and sell these years ago. Candice won the necklace and bracelet.
After all the gift opening, we played a couple rounds of Apples to Apples. It was Sandra's and April's first time playing. Sandra was so funny! She would read the little descriptions of her red cards and start giggling to herself. One of the funniest things that can happen while playing this game is that sometimes the red cards really do not have anything to do with the green card. I had to take a picture of one hand. Poor Spring. How do you choose?

All the Kool kids are doing it!

Last night's Knitting is Knotty was held at Maiya's house. She taught the girls how to dye wool yarn with Kool Aid. Instead of writing out what we did, we can recommend some other blogs and tutorials that followed the same or very similar process.

Knitty.com has a great tutorial.

Snow Angels has good pictures.

And Streets and YOs shows how to do self-striping yarn.

We had a great time! Ate good food. Cheese, bread, trail mix, Toby's tofu spread, hot cocoa, smores, cookies... and after we all dyed our yarn, we played a few rounds of Apples to Apples!!

Christina used 3 packets of Grape Kool Aid to dye her yarn. A rather fortuitous mistake had occured. Her yarn soaked up all the dye before she could completely saturate it. So parts of her skein ended up not being dyed or was a faint blueish color. It looks great! Can't wait to see what it looks like knitted up. Christina thinks she might knit gloves for her husband Chris.

Spring did a two color skein. She used Grape and Fruit Punch. The Fruit Punch looks soooo bright! She's thinking about what to crochet out of it. Again, can't wait!

Mary did three colors! Lemonade, Lime and Ice Blue Raspberry. She left a little bit of the natural yarn color in between. The colors look so good together! She thinks she might knit these into hats for her two sons Chase and Eli.

Maiya also used Lime and Ice Blue Raspberry. The Lime is such a gorgeous green. She is going to use this yarn to knit, then felt slippers for her husband Brandon.

If you have any questions on the dyeing process, let us know! We'll be happy to help! We'd also love to see any dye jobs you've done with your yarn!