I hope everyone had a nice Christmas. We were able to spend lots of time with family and a little time at home with our critters (dog and cat). It's been a lovely few days with plenty of good food and good conversation, cold weather and warm fires, and many good wishes.

I was responsible for making the pudding this year. I was a little intimidated at the prospect. I have made Christmas pudding before to share with friends, so I knew how the recipe worked, but it was a little different to be making The Pudding. The Pudding that is lit on fire and served following Christmas dinner. One of two traditional desserts that we all look forward to for that special evening (and again for breakfast on Boxing Day).  Suppose it didn't hold its shape? But it did and it tasted just like it always does.

Our family pudding is a plum pudding (sugar plums, as in candied fruit, not actual plums). A full recipe is huge so I made half and it filled Mum's large pudding basin (40 oz?) with just a little room to spare for rising. Everything is measured in weights which I find rather fun and is a lot easier than having to level stuff all the time (especially the stuff that doesn't level well - like raisins). My mixing bowl wasn't big enough by the time I'd added half the stuff so I turned it into my stock pot to be able to stir. I discovered (because it turned out all the mixing spoons needed washing) that a rice paddle is great for mixing heavy pudding batter. The last thing added is a half glass of brandy and that smell mixed with all the dried fruits was Christmas to me.

Just before I packed the pudding into the basin I grabbed a button, wrapped it in waxed paper and stirred it in. Before we cut the pudding I asked everyone to agree on some meaning for the person who found the button (the traditional bachelor/old maid meaning was not going to work for our gathering). It was decided that the person who got the button would do something for everyone else but no one was too concerned with what.

This is the stocking I started a little while ago. It has been my slow project (it's not a surprise so I can share it here). Doing the colour work is too complicated for me to be keeping track of Abby at the same time so I have to wait until Rob is able to watch the dog in order to work on it (puppy watching is a full attention job - we take turns). It seemed to take me forever to get through Santa and his sleigh; it really felt I had accomplished something when I finished it (even though I was only half way down the stocking).

I'm a little past what shows in the above picture now. There are houses below Santa. The number of bobbins of yarn I was using for the houses was crazy. There were so many colours at once. It was a relief to get past all that so I was only working with two or three colours per row.


I've still got seven or eight hours of work before it is finished but that seems so much more manageable than it did before. All of what's left involves either very little or no colour work at all and the toe and heels have lots of decreasing which will make them seem faster. I'll need to gently block and press the stocking before I seam it up; despite my best efforts, a lot of my colour work features strange tension changes.

Everyone in our family has a stocking made from these patterns.  Everyone ... aunts, uncles,  cousins and spouses. Most of them were made by my grandmother. My sister got married last fall and wanted one for her husband but Darney isn't able to knit anymore. Jane asked me if I thought I'd be up to it. I got out my stocking and looked at how it is made: knit flat and seamed up with some stranded colour work and some picture knitting. The only new skill would be the picture knitting and I thought I could handle that so I told Jane "yes, I could" and we called Darney for the instructions.

Darney sent me a package with copies of all the patterns (there are five different designs), her hand-written instructions and a bunch of yarn bobbins to help me deal with all the different colours. Each design has the names of everyone Darney knit it for written across the top and, frequently, drafted out onto the graph paper to be knit into the top of the stocking.

I choose Cascade 220 for my yarn. I like working with a pure wool and this one is sturdy and comes in lots of colours.

It's been a lot of fun knitting this so far (a little confusing at times but still very fun). The back side is not as neat as the stockings Darney made because I'm still learning how to deal with all the floats and ends but it makes me smile every time I see the front and realize that I really am knitting a stocking just like she did so many times. I feel so honoured that I'm able to carry on a family tradition.