Catching You Up on the Christmas Clothes and Volcano Action

The week before Thanksgiving I realized that our annual Christmas event at church was earlier than usual this year, and I didn't have a Master Plan for 3 adorable matching outfits.

I happened to be in the car when I had this realization, came to a screeching halt outside LYS , and 10 minutes and 3 colors of Cascade Superwash later, I had myself a plan.

A stripey vest (no sleeves being the key concept here) sounded like the perfect jaunty Christmas wear for a 6 year old boy. It would match last years adorable dress for middle daughter, and well, the youngest was going to wear a hand me down. I'm not completely off the deep end.

Ann Budd book. Made up stripey pattern. Lots of car knitting. Chatting-with-relatives knitting. Good times.


My daughter's dress from last year still fit, except I had to add 2" to the sleeves! What's up with that?!?



Here's the finished vest!


"Winging it" may be faster at first, but it can create problems later into the knitting.

Like....the 3 row blue stripe is great when you're knitting in the round, but when you split for the armholes what do you do when you knit 3 rows and are now at the opposite side as you are supposed to be? (You knit on circulars and slide your knitting back to the other side.)

Or...how is that cute 4 x 2 rib that you did at the bottom going to look going around the tip of the v neck (in the end, I think it looks ok--thanks to that nice double decrease in the book.)


And here it is, the best of the 20 pictures I took:


I added the leftover burgundy Cascade to a ball of Gedifra Fashion Trend Stripe to finish up the week with a scarf for the Red Scarf Project. This was my small contribution to Knit Unto Others sponsored by Carole and Margene.


This yarn reminded me of Kureyon, although maybe not quite so artistic in the color arrangement. But nice. And definitely softer.


So that's it in knitting news. Here's what you really came here for. Volcano cake. (Thanks to Diane, Queen of all things Birthday, with the link for this cake.)


That's a chocolate bundt cake on the bottom, and cake baked in a bowl on the top, with a plastic 1 liter bottle poked down into the center. The Magma Chamber. (I like saying Magma Chamber. It's never really been part of my vocabulary before. Magma Chamber.)

Here is the entire tableau. Pre dry-ice insertion into the Magma Chamber.


Close up of the dinosaur kingdom.


Once I inserted the dry ice, things got a little exciting and I didn't really get a good picture of the voluminous smoke that filled the room. Here it is after the smoke is dying down. (Note the little raptor hanging from the side of the volcano in the upper left!)


A good time was had by all!