Tamara's Papa Bear Sampler Scarf

Now, isn't this just the manliest Papa Bear Sampler Scarf yet??? 

Tamara sent us this photo. 

She used just over 1 ball of On Your Toes 4 ply sock yarn with aloe vera. 

What great colours. Although, you know, we think any lady would love it, too.

Bird envy

A very common, not exotic, well-adjusted woodpecker.

Karen wrote about her fancy, schmancy woodpecker just before Christmas. He's exotic. And flashy. A Come-From-Away woodpecker. He probably squawks with one of those sexy foreign accents and drives all the girl birdies wild. He's certainly colourful with his red-feathered detail but we'd like everyone to know we have a woodpecker, too. He's just more modest. Not flamboyant at all. He doesn't need to be. He's very secure. He wonders what's up with the weird feeder though.

Beware the Boxing Day Crowds

We've had an unusual reaction to our cookies. Oh, Karen tried to warn us but would we listen? No.

We put out plates and platters and trays of our cookies. We smile and say, "Cookie?"  People oohhh! and ahhhh! but there are very few takers.

They're delicious. Really. And, we're very fastidious in our preparation so we're pretty sure it's not a hygiene concern. No, it seems to be more of a "they're too pretty to eat" problem. Shoot! We keep trying to tell people we have to see these consumed so we can make more but it makes little impact. In fact, the only people who actually eat these things are very small children and certain varieties of men ... most notably, the kind who carve out a big hunk of the cake you're planning to take to your potluck tomorrow and then act all surprised and wounded when you threaten to divorce them.

We can assure you we have photographed each and every cookie with the greatest of care. Its place in history is well documented. There is absolutely no reason NOT to eat them before they go green with mould and heavy with dust and the odd stray cat hair.

Grandma Coco has decided she'll have to take extreme measures. When you're out in the malls today, braving the crowds, be sure and guard your shopping bags.

Copyright Cheryl Coville 2011

Gifts

Recently, we spoke (at length, as usual) about giving gifts. Today seems an appropriate time to think about receiving gifts. The first, and most important thing to remember is that not all gifts come wrapped in pretty paper and sometimes, it's a question of recognizing a gift when it comes our way.

This Christmas, as we reflect on the past year, we are grateful for the gift of friendship. We have met some really kind and wonderful people through this blog. And all of them are wonderfully talented as well. Some are great quilters. Some talented knitters. Many are artists who work in a whole host of media. Some realize they're artists and some don't know it yet. Some have a talent for friendship and we may value them most of all.

This Christmas, we are grateful for the gift of eyesight since we spent the summer without it.

This Christmas, we are grateful for something silly that the giver probably didn't even know she gave us (except that we already wrote and thanked her). We're allergic to milk (little known fact) and we haven't tasted a peanut butter cup in over 20 years. We've been able to work around lots of other treats so we can enjoy some of what "normal" people enjoy but never those peanut butter cups. Not, that is, until Paula (the Vanilla Bean Baker) offered up her recipe on her blog this week. She says it comes from Joy of Baking and we were able to tweak it very simply by substituting milk-free margerine and fancy dark chocolate. Such a gift!

This Christmas, we are grateful for the gift of our dad's company. This is his 90th Christmas Day and that's a lot of Christmases. We will treasure it.

The Cocos, Christmas 2011

And last, but by no means least, this Christmas, we are grateful for the gift of love and companionship that we are given every single day. That's the gift that makes it Christmas all year long. May every one of you be so blessed.

A cautionary tale in sugar and spice

Grandma Coco would like to take this opportunity to remind everyone to eat and drink responsibly this holiday season 

lest this be your fate ........

Copyright ã Cheryl Coville 2011
Did you really think she'd forget to make gingerbread men?

Christmas Cookies? Check

This is the last of the cookies we planned to decorate for The Big Day. We think they're the best of the lot. We saw a tiny photo of some Christmas birdie lights-on-sticks thingies in a weekend flyer somewhere. It might have been Canadian Tire. Maybe Home Hardware. Anyway, those birds just stuck in our imagination and after a while, they just begged to be drawn.....Grandma Coco-style in royal icing. 

Another finished scarf

Not by us!! No! We've been goofin' off baking cookies (as you well know).

No, this Papa Bear Sampler Scarf  is lilaclinny's (That's her Ravelry name.) She made it from Teksrena yarn which is new to us. The yarn description says it's similar to Kauni and comes from Lithuania. It's a lovely gradation from red to black. We think it suits the pattern perfectly. lilaclinny reports that she stopped at the 10th pattern because the scarf was plenty long. She sent it to school with her son as a gift for his teacher. Lucky guy! (or gal!)

Just a reminder....all the parts of the pattern can still be found on this blog (for free!). We've also prepared one .PDF that corrals the whole pattern into one manageable file. All the pattern stitches are written out as well as charted. It's available through our Ravelry store for $3.50.

If you send us a photo of your finished Papa Bear Sampler Scarf to show on this blog ....no matter when (we'll be here!)..... we'll send you a file for a gift tag as our thank you.