Sock Monkey!

This has to be my largest knitting project ever! I am not sure when I will take on another project of this size but it sure was fun! And isn't he cute? I didn't have a pattern so I just made it up as I went along.

Nice sweater!

The sock monkey costume was requested by my husband after seeing the car commercial with the life sized sock monkey. As I have knitted smaller sock monkeys I figured "how hard could it be to make a life sized version?" Well, it wasn't hard but it was a lot of work.

Showing off his tail! It was the last thing I finished knitting.

The sock monkey was knitted using three Caron Pounders in Lace and a second brown yarn from a cone of lace weight (3/15) I had on hand. The off white was from Red Heart (1 skein) and a partial skein of red from my stash. 

I made the arms first. i knitted them two at a time from the closed mitten ends up the arm. I am planning to redo part of the hands to make the "hands" removable. It sounded good at the time but not super functional.

First Thanksgiving

This Thanksgiving was very special. It is always special to bring together family and friends over great food and wine. Time to eat to much turkey and pie.

This year was special because for one person it was their first taste of a traditional Thanksgiving turkey dinner. I know every year new people enjoy the holiday: babies, immigrants, visitors from other countries, etc. So why is this interesting to anyone? Let me share.

First Thanksgiving dinner (this is the third serving on his plate)

Our traditional Thanksgiving dinner was the first for someone that has lived here almost all his life. How could that be? besides being vegetarian, Ketul is from a traditional Hindu family that has grown up without ever experiencing the turkey overload. No, he didn't eat the turkey. His favorite dish turned out to be vegetarian stuffing with a close runner up of the skittles salad. (That's another story.)

It was a very diverse group of eaters that we had the joy of cooking with and for. We had a vegetarian, lactose intolerant, peanut allergy, and gluten intolerant. And the best part is that everyone had a variety of things they could eat. Nobody starved or felt left out.

The plan this year was for everyone to bring their favorite Thanksgiving dish or a dish with a great memory from Thanksgivings past. We enjoyed an amazing smoked turkey, Grandma's mashed potatoes, Honey Glazed carrots, Grandma Gray's Broken Glass Salad, quinoa salad, Megan's first vegetarian and regular stuffing with water chestnuts, homemade pumpkin pie from our own pumpkin, homemade apple pie and Kylie's first pumpkin cheesecake. And much more...

We also shared the day with some wonderful folks from California. Son has been dating a great girl from California for several years. This year they made the long drive up from the bay area to enjoy Thanksgiving with us. Since we both live in wine country, we shared some great wines from Sonoma. Last year was Courtney's 21 wine run. In honor, we shared some nice wines from Sonoma including a 2008 Cab from
Kunde Family Estate and 2007 Cab from B.R. Cohn Winery. There was one more but frankly I don't recall. :) apparently California Cabs goes very well with the game Apples to Apples. They both seem to improve with the paring.

Family game time

For dinner we paired our amazing assortment of food dishes with a custom blending of three Lembergers from Yakima Valley Vintners. The Lemberger were produced using three different oaks and bottled separately. This let everyone choose the flavor profile they liked and eventually progress to custom blending.

What a great day. The diverse dietary restrictions could have been an issue but it wasn't. Everyone was creative in their cooking and everyone left the table stuffed at least once.

Playing with templates

I am playing with templates and trying to get rid of the cutest blog on the block mystery code. Bear with me it should get better soon!