I’m not going to mention how many days we have left for our gift-knitting, but suffice it to say that it’s not enough. At all. (Next year I’ll plan better. That’s what I always say.) I finished up this scarf and had fun knitting it. It’s made out of Alpaca With a Twist Socrates, so a very fine fingering weight yarn (in Wendy’s Feather and Fan scarf pattern.) It’s soft and warm and lacey looking and I’m almost sad to send it off. 
But I’m happy to think of it with the person that it’s going to! I have another Feather and Fan scarf to finish up this week, and then I might be on to another scarf addiction, or two. I’ll keep you posted. I have 3 more in-progress that I love and want to get finished up sometime during the holidays. So many fun scarf patterns, so little time. (For those of you who bought up all of the Jojoland Scarf patterns this week, more are already on order. Hopefully we’ll have them re-stocked for you by next week. That is one of my new scarf addictions – the Jojoland patterns and yarn.)
Because life can’t be all about working at Loopy Central and knitting (although most weeks it usually seems that way), there have also been Christmas Cookies made. This is our favorite frosted sugar cookie recipe and we make them for almost every season. YUM. College Guy and College Girl always like it when I send a container full up to school for them. Our other favorite holiday cookie is here. They smell heavenly when they’re baking in the oven. Those are on my list for later this week or this weekend. And speaking of making wonderful things, my friend Meg sent a tin of her Peppermint Pudge to all of us here at Loopy Central, and I’ll share that recipe (and name explanation) on Friday’s blog post.
So I have two questions for you today: 1) Are you done with your gift knitting? and 2) What is your favorite holiday cookie recipe?
Sheri thinkingthatcookies,knitting,andafireinthefireplace
soundslikeanicewaytospendafewhours
I decided to add to the knitting, cause I have a sub-concious desire to obtain tendonitis. 🙂
My favorite holiday cookies are the peanut butter cookies my mom makes in mini-muffin tins. She adds a mini-reese’s peanut buttercup after baking. Sooo goood!
Nope, haven’t finished Christmas knitting yet. But the good news is that I have started. I have one of a pair of socks finished, one each of two separate pairs of fingerless gloves. As I got frustrated over the weekend by the pressure I was feeling (put on me by me, of course), and began to hate knitting and Christmas all in the same breath, I dropped the Christmas knitting, and started and almost finished a hat for a homeless teen program. And felt ever so much better about life. I need to learn from many of you and not treat the gift that is knitting like a factory just because it’s. . . well, just because.
My favorite Christmas cookies growing up–just because they are so darn pretty. The recipe is basically a variation on rice krispie treats that really, really looks like holly:
Holly cookies
1 stick butter (I use margarine)
30 large marshmallows
1 tea vanilla
2 teas green food coloring
4 1/2 cups cornflakes
Red hots
Melt and stir butter and marshmallows, add vanilla and coloring. Add the cornflakes and stir till covered. Splat by teaspoon on wax paper and put 3 red hots on each immediately (the red hots won’t stick on once the marshmallow coating cools).
1. Done with my gift knitting?? **cackling like a maniac** Um. No. Not even close. Keep getting set back, and keep adding things. I might get a few things done this weekend, though, since I’ll actually HAVE some knitting time.
2. I don’t make cookies at Christmas, but I do about 40 loaves of pumpkin bread. And I LOVE the cookies other people make. 🙂 I’m all in favor of cookies.
I *wish* I was done with my knitting. Alas, I’m in the panicked, eschew-all-housework in favor of getting sore fingers so I can get it all done, mode. I had to add a few knitted gifts over the last week, when Christmas shopping dollars didn’t stretch as far as I’d hoped. But I’ve got stash ‘banked’, so might as well use it! I think my goals are realistic as long as my dh continues to cooperate 🙂
And my favorite Christmas cookies are called ‘Double Chocolate Mint Treasures’. They remind me of thin mints, only these are better ’cause you get to eat them fresh out of the oven! YUM!
There’s nothing hand knit this year under the tree, unfortunately. I have another project that I’m trying to get finished up before we head to Virginia for Christmas with our daugher. 😀 Less than 2 weeks!
As for Christmas cookies, my mom always bakes these bar-type cookies in a pan that are all our family favorites: sweetened condensed milk, graham cracker crumbs, and chocolate chips….then after they are baked and cooled, cut them into bars and roll them in powdered sugar. YUM! Another one that is especially a favorite of mine is peanut butter haystacks, which my mother-in-law always makes for Christmas. Another YUM! 🙂
PS. I shoveled my neighbors sidewalk this morning while she wasn’t home. 😉
Only one gift and it’s nearly done — a baby jacket for one of my kids’ teachers…
Favorite are good old-fashioned chocolate chip, with sugar cookies (lots of red and green sugar sprinkled on top) a close second.
Feather & Fan is my all-time favorite pattern and I have most recently knit a lovely scarf out of one skein of DIC baby in Wisterious. It turned out quite lovely and I think I’ll have to knit more. Christmas knitting? One project left…the nephew’s sweater, which I’ll probably be knitting on Christmas Eve but he doesn’t mind. Christmas cookies…my mother has a recipe for this wonderful white chocolate cranberry cookie (can’t remember the name) which is just to die for. I wasn’t going to make any cookies this year, but might have to make those.
I’m making a baby blanket for my child’s caregiver’s new baby and all I have to do is seem it together. YEAH!!! No Christmas knitting this year, but I might have enough time to do an amigarumi toy for my dd.
My favorite cookie to make for the holidays is that “Neiman Marcus” chocolate chip cookie recipe that used to be circulated all over the net a few years back. It may be a fake, but it makes awesome cookies and tons of them so I can give them away.
I still have 2 hats to knit and a shawl to finish. It’s a race to the wire. Next year I’ll start earlier in the year. But then I say this every year!
My favorite cookie hands down is chocolate chip eaten while the chocolate morsels are still warm from the oven and gooey. Our dau-in-law makes me a special batch every Christmas and it has become tradition in our home to have at least a tin or 2 around on Christmas day.
Sheri, your Wendy scarf is gorgeous. This patter has served me well this year and I’ve made 3 that I’m giving as presents. : )
I am done with the knitting but have one more gift to spin. This weekend?
Our favorite holiday cookie recipie, the one we make every December and at no other time of the year is Julepepparkakor.
Not done with my Christmas knitting…..and I don’t know if I’ll finish.
My favorite cookie recipe is for Cranberry Ecstacy bars, which are a knockoff of Starbucks’ Cranberry Bliss bars. Cranberries and white chcolate…what could be better?
Hi Sheri, have you thought about getting all of the Loopy recipes that you put on your blog into a book, and selling it here on the site? Perhaps even a portion of the sales to a knitting charity?
My fave is the sugar cookies that mom and I make every year, and I’m pretty sure it’s the recipe she got years ago from the Crisco can. *L* And I have to know – is the cookie cutter you made those with old and metal? Because they look EXACTLY like the trees we make. Bizarre!! 🙂
I am not knitting gifts this year. It is too stressful. My husband and children love Sand Tarts (my mother-in-law’s recipe.) I love a recipe for roll out cookies that consist of mostly butter and nuts. They are the best with a big mug of coffee!
I’m done with my knitted presents (because I only did one this year!).
Christmas cookies I loved as akid: the sugar cookies, because they were fun to make (and had really tasty dough), the walnut horns, and the Mamie’s Million-Dollar Fudge.
I only made one gift this year and that was a pair of knee high socks that have already been given to their recipient.
Favorite cookies? Sandtarts. I’ve only ever bought them though — I wish I had a recipe. I love those darn cookies.
Holiday knitting I finished today, but I only planned 3 gifts. Normally I knit all year and give the gifts as I finish them because I do not do well with deadlines. 🙂
Favorite cookies? My mom makes pecan cutout cookies with an orange glaze on them from an old German recipe that has not been shared yet. I keep trying to get her to translate it!
Finished with Christmas gift knitting?…. uuum … No
Favorite cookie for Christmas – Spritz cookies
Your scarf is very pretty.
Almost done knitting. I have a norwegian mitten to finish 95% done now. And a 1×1 rib scarf to make. But I’ll knit it on the machine in a couple of hours.
My personal favorite Christmas cookie – lebkuchen
My gift knitting is never done! Ever. As for cookies, I have a recipe that tastes just like the fat, frosted sugar cookies at Cheryls Cookies. Yummmm.
Christmas knitting was limited but done – a scarf and a shawl. Favorite Christmas cookes – brandy snaps. A pain to make bu sooooo yummy.
Oh NO!! Not done. Not done at all. Lots to do. Why am I here reading mail? I should be knitting… Favorite Christmas cookies are not cookies, but Peanut Clusters. As easy as pie and everyone raves. Could it get any better?
Well, I was done with my holiday knitting. Then my colleague told me that her new grandbaby’s other grandmother is a champion knitter and she’s feeling bad about not having handknits to give. So I volunteered to provide the handknits for new grandbaby. Fortunately baby things are fast!
My favourite Christmas cookie recipes are old-fashioned classics – shortbread, butterballs (aka Russian teacakes) and snickerdoodles. I won’t be getting any of the last this year though, because I can’t make them. It’s bizarre. I can bake anything (heck, I baked my own wedding cake!) but I cannot get these to work. My mother has to do them for me, and I’m not going to be with her this year for Christmas. No snickerdoodles for me. 🙁
Not doing holiday knitting this year – although I have several projects to give for “just because” gifts afte the holidays have settled down. I probably should start my knitting for next year now – and then the pressure will not be there and I can really enjoy what I am doing without looking at a clock or calender.
My favorite Christmas (or any special time cookies) are my Nana’s Pizzelle’s (Italian waffle cookies) I make them regular with the anise and also my version vanilla/almond flavor. I also like Biscotti – regular, and I have a Hershey’s version that is chocolate almond with chocolate drizzled on top. Also like my other grandmother’s molasses raisin cookies, the Russian tea cakes, and of course Toll House Cookies!
I . . . um . . . have done no gift knitting.
My favorite Christmas cookie recipe is for a Swedish cookie: “Sandkakor.” You melt and brown the butter, then let the butter cool and solidify, then cream it with the sugar. It gives the resulting cookies the most wonderful sandy texture. There’s also a slightly exotic ingredient: Hjorthornssalt, which is actually “Baker’s ammonia” though the literal translation is “shaved deer horn” or something like that (and that’s probably what was used originally).
The first time I made them, as a teenager, my brother ate the whole batch as soon as they came out of the oven, so I had to immediately make another batch! On pain of death. 😉
Technically I’m done with my Christmas knitting because I don’t do any 🙂 I just hate knitting with deadlines so I don’t. Mostly.
My favourite Christmas cookie is a kind of saffron biscotti, sometimes with chopped chocolate in it (saffransskorpor)
Not quite done with my knitting……finishing up a scarf…….It is a combo of 2 patterns, and I’m lovin it…I’ll post pics on Ravelry when I’m done…..
My favorite Christmas Cookie….are my Chocolate Dipped Macaroons……and Italian White Anise Cookies…….
Merry Christmas…..someone sent me a sticker that says “It’s OK to say Merry Christmas”……..
Getting close to being finished with my gift knitting — thumbs on a few pair of fingerless mitts and finishing a scarf are not yet finished. Favorite Christmas time cookies are sugar cookies — both frosted and sprinkled with colored sugar. Yummy!
My fingers are trying desparately to knit like the wind right now so I can get some packages in the mail. This is the first year I’ve ever had to ‘mail’ packages so I’m missing the extra two weeks I normally have to finish gifts! My favorite holiday cookies are the Buckeyes (peanut butter and chocolate, need I say more……)
Done? What is this “done” you speak of? I am unfamiliar with such terminology. Done. Ha.
*hides under her desk with her knitting needles in hand*
For me, holiday cookies revolve around one thing: my great-grandmother’s nutballs. Russian Tea cookies, with a few variations that Mimi added. We’d lost the recipe (and a number of others of hers… it was a truly tragic moment when we realized they were gone) but my mom, who is a professional chef, managed with some tweaking of an original recipe, and benefit of having been Mimi’s sous chef for many years (whereas I only got to help her out in the kitchen once with these cookies; Mimi died when I was barely 4) to figure out what changes had been made. We now have “the Mimi cookies” as we call them, written down in a few locations. I tend to make numerous types of other holiday cookies as well, but these will always be The winter-time holiday cookies in my family.
I’m almost done. All that’s left is one sock and one fingerless glove. And about a fifth of a hat.
mmmm… I don’t really know. I love butterscotch brownies, but they aren’t all that Christmassy. I have a tendency to make scratch hot chocolate mix instead of cookies…
I was down to 8 projects, but then I added a few more. Lots of stash-busting going on at my house 🙂
I love Tollhouse cookies made from the recipe on the bag. For some reason, they are my favorite.
Two hats to go at the minimum. I had hopes for one more pair of socks, but we just started extended opening hours for the holidays, so I don’t think that it will happen. It’s okay – hopefully will get some done during the Christmas holiday.
My favorie cookie? My grandmother’s Walnut Powder Puffs – simple and fun…and they melt in your mouth like M & M’s.
Good luck to everyone still trying to sneek some knitting in!
I’m not doing much Christmas knitting this year – I got started too late (and am still finishing half of a gift from last year.) I decided my time would be better spent excavating the room where I store all of my fibers and beads, since there was a real danger of bodily harm due to the astonishing level of chaos I have created over the last year. I’ve nearly completed that project, so I can concentrate on the belated gifts and plan better for next year. I will be able to spend a day or so making a few pieces of jewelry for gifts, which is much quicker.
I get together with a group of family and a random rotating group of friends to bake cookies. We concentrate on the fussy ones that don’t get made other times of the year. My favorite are cream wafter, and incredibly flaky, melt-in-your mouth sandwich cookie with a butter-cream filling (Betty Crocker Cookie Cookbook). My husband and sons prefer the kefli, a cream cheese dough with an apricot filling (that I make from dried since the commercial stuff is too much filler.)
Beautiful scarf! I have to finish the beaded ornament I made from Socks That Rock Mediumweight in Jewel of the Nile (with gold-lined beads). Then I want to make my sister a Sheldon turtle, but that’s probably not realistic. No other Christmas knitting.
Favorite cookies are the chocolate crackles. Our family calls them Jewish cookies since our Jewish friend gave us the recipe. I gave some to MY Jewish friend and she loved them and makes them now!
I am not finished with the holiday knitting and I am about 90% positive that I won’t make it by the 22nd when they would need to mailed off.
If you have a good idea of how to turn a full time job instead to a full-time knit on this project job, I’m all ears! I’d love to be able to mail it off by then!
Christmas is coming?
The geese are getting fat?
Please put a penny in an old man’s hat?
I’m just knitting and knitting and knitting. I’m not sure it will ever end.
My favorite Christmas cookie? Thumb prints, filled with jam or a chocolate kiss. Mexican chocolate cookies are pretty darn good too.
Okay, back to knitting and knitting and knitting.
I am so done; I am overdone. My family’s favorite cookie is the pecan dainty
or some people call them the Wedding Cookies. I love your white feather and
fan scarf. If I get lucky, I may try one of them. I am also looking forward
to making one of the JoJoland scarves.
I was done until my friends kids saw my scarf and they decided they wanted one. So I added 4 more scarfs to the mix. 2 are done, the other 2 will be done this weekend. I officially hate pink fuzzy yarn but if you are between the ages of 4-6 and you are a girl, you will love it.
As for cookies, I love those White Cookies. The ones that are covered in powdered sugar. They are yummy.
I am within three projects of done with gift knitting. It may end up with balls of yarn wrapped with an IOU to my mom for the socks she mentioned at the last minute last week (not on my original list for Xmas) but she will understand.
Favorite holiday cookies – Snickerdoodles, because that is what Grandma used to make as a last minute treat. Yummy!
Happy holidays to all!
I am very much not done with my holiday knitting… I still have two pairs of socks to knit that I haven’t even started yet… but both of the recipients will be OK getting cool little IOU notes with the promise of hand-knitting goodness in the relatively near future.
Let’s see.. I have to tack in ends on 2 scarves. .. and I’m done. One has to be mailed Monday, so I know what I am doing this weekend. Favorite cookies? Oatmeal lace cookies… yumm-O! And Italian Rainbow Cookies.. but haven’t mastered that recipe yet =)
Christmas knitting…is by no means done! But we are knitting like crazy here.
Favorite cookie…has to be gingerbread cookies…have a wonderful old german recipe that make the house smell like Christmas. Second to that good old sugar cookies!
Also, was a good RAK girl and paid for the person behind me today at Starbucks!
I’m getting through my knitting by sheer determination. I rec’d my TLE package on Monday with Cascade 220 that I needed to make felted clogs for a gift axchange TODAY!! They are DONE, I am proud to say. I’ve got’em in the washer right now. They’ll be slightly damp… but it’s the thought that counts right!
On the RAK –
In my neighborhood lives a set of elderly sisters. On my early morning walks with our dog, Addie we stop at the bottom of their driveway and pick up their news papers and place them at the garage door. Addie and I do this not only on cold Decmember mornings but year round. One of the sister has a health issue that often has her in overnight hospital stays. The other sister does not leave her side. So often the news papers or trash can are not taken back up the driveway. Addie and I help out by moving these items out of site so that the house does not have a “nobody home” look. I do not know if the sisters know who does this for them, however I know they do appreciate it.
After a severe ice storm last night where my sister lost power(perhaps for
days) I picked up a generator and will deliver it to her tomorrow if the roads
become passable. Her cellar is filling up with water because of the high
water table in her area and no power means no sump pump! I’ll also deliver
some HOT coffee and something yummy to eat. That is my RAK
That is such a pretty scarf. Yup that was what i was doing last year knitting scarfs. This year it is fingerless gloves, demands are different. And then there are socks too. I have finished 2 pr of socks, 2 pr of gloves, 2 hats, one lace scarf and one sweater. I till have to do at last one pr of fingerless gloves, toe pairs of slither gloves, some socks and sweaters.
I love baking. My favorite cookies are two my grandma made, one was without eggs and nuts i know and then it melt in your mouth like butter. The other was a cookie that had dates in it. I never found the recipe for eithr. But i will bake any cake or cookie just hand me the recipe.
loveya
Sabrina
That picture of those cookies makes me hungry. Sigh