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Chili cook off in support of the exceptional childrens’ foundation. Just one of the many reasons I love living in Birmingham.

More on knitting from yesterday's Baby Surprise Jacket class and other random knitting last week later on today, but first, wow!

It is an exceptionally rare, almost forgotten it has been so long, Alabama snow day!

We got up at 6:30 am to take a walk to the park and were rewarded with fresh snow.  It's still coming down, but the temperature feels like it's going the wrong direction, so I don't think it will last long.  And, amazingly, we still have power and heat, which both seem to leave us as soon as flurries start.

I’m at my local yarn shop. I’ve just finished row one of the baby surprise jacket. The yarn is my Elliebelly Juliet sock yarn in the Rebecca’s Kitchen colorway.

Did it make you this happy?

There are days we love in our house but, speaking as a knitter, perhaps none more than Superbowl Sunday.  The Judge usually (this year was an exception) spends the weekend making gumbo and then hangs out with his running buddies for the game. 

This leaves me free to make lots of silly food for the kids (we had stuffed cabbage rolls and rice pudding for dinner), watch the game in relative peace, and K-N-I-T.  Without interruption.  It's always incredible.

One frou-frou gauntlet: finished!

I'm particularly pleased with the contrast reverse stockinette rows that sort of "pouf" out and the tiny vintage mother of purl buttons I've sewn on as an accent there.

The ribbon is temporary — I want to dye some just for the gauntlets next weekend.  If you look closely, you will see that I also did an earlier eyelet row, but I think one is enough, so I will either do some clever coverage (I only did two eyelets in that row, thinking it would be a sort of mini-bow thang) or frog it back down and reknit.

I was a bit worried about the gauntlet staying on at the top, so after the eyelet row, I ribbed for a few rows before going into the ruffle, and it really did the trick!  It fits Ellie perfectly.

Hopefully my notes are as clear as I thought they were while I wrote down what I was doing, because I really want a pair for myself.  Ollie wants a pair too — his request is in for lime green and black, with skulls.

Ellie has been begging for gauntlets forever.  Knitted ones.  Purple.

She has a definite vision, this child, in all things.  The gauntlets are supposed to be elbow length and full of frou-frou details like eyelets with hand-dyed silk ribbon drawn through them.

After worrying that I wasn't up to the challenge, both pattern writing and detail-wise, I finally decided to start in last night.  I've been collecting yarn for just this purpose for some time now.

The yarn is Plymouth's Royal Llama, a yarn spun from 60% fine llama and 40% silk.  I have a pale lilac Malabrigo Silk/Merino blend to use for most of the arm and am still toying with the idea of dyeing a varigated yarn to use along with it.

I cast on on the "hand end," using a simple 2×2 rib to insure it is stretchy enough to stay tight on her little hands.  The thumb-hole is a 3 stitch cast off, which is cast on again in the following row.  It's a tiny bit tight on me, so I think it should be just right on her.  I'm looking forward to creating these as I knit, since I'm generally fairly rigid about working off of a pattern.

We have post-grandma holiday visit syndrome in our house.

Grandma bakes with children — one kind of funky new cookie each day for the first three days she was here.  Meatloaf.  A meatloaf so good the kids ate thirds.  No one cooks quite like Grandma.  And no one is as good at letting kids do things Mom is usually in too much of a hurry to slow down and let them do.

So this afternoon, we slowed down.  Ellie wanted to bake.  Cake is something of a no-no in our household because our littlest one is allergic to wheat, but I told her we would make one.  I pulled out one of my favorite baking cookbooks, Butter, Sugar, Flour and Eggs.  A recipe I had never noticed before jumped out at me:  Vanilla Souffles with Chocolate Sauce.  We had all the ingredients (thank you for those wonderful bars of chocolate, Ann!)

Aren't they pretty?

The Judge helped Ellie pour the chocolate sauce on.

And, here's the best part.  We ate them for dinner.

Yum.  Official New Years Diet starts, um, tomorrow.  Or maybe Monday.  I'm off to see what other recipes I haven't noticed before.