cookies and knitted hats and more yarn

Firstly, hats off to Stacey for hosting a very fun cookie swap on Wednesday night. Instead of terrorizing the local Border's the Columbia Sip n Knit group all went over to her house. She never told us she was Martha Stewart's cousin; the place was beautifully decorated, holiday music playing softly, comfy seating, punch, coffee, and cookies on every surface...

There's me in the red stripes (these are Pheelya's pics from the Meetup.com site, thanks Hon!) Stacey even made up cookbooks of all the recipes -I have another cookie swap Monday, I may use something from this book instead of to my usual recipe which is :

Raisin Ginger Cookies

Ingredients
3/4 cup butter

1 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup dark Karo syrup

1 egg
2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon ginger
1/4 teaspoon salt (or to taste)
1 cup raisins, washed

Directions
Cream together butter and sugar and then add Karo and egg. In a separate bowl, combine the dry ingredients and then add to creamed mixture. Blend well. Stir in raisins. Roll dough into 1 inch balls and then roll in brown sugar. Place on ungreased cookie sheet and bake at 325 degrees for 10-12 minutes. Makes 30-36.

These went quickly, which was very gratifying, till I remembered I packed them in handy wee snowman bags which also could hold cookie overflow.

So between eating, drinking and chatting I finished up the hat I was working on (for FIL) and started another (for MIL).

I will model them another time - I think these may actually fit the intended recipients though! I also went home with a great big tin of cookies (tin also supplied by the wonderful Stacey) and an overflow bag.

In other news - this week I was the lucky recipient of a sweater's worth of yarn from my neighbor -
Paddy is keeping guard. The yarn is from the UK, a Paton's brand, named Wendy. Black with flecks of color, absolutely beautiful. So once Christmas knitting madness subsides I am going to (drumroll) knit myself a sweater.