Mid-December report & a special gift for my grandmother

My last post included photos of the items I knitted and crocheted for my grandmother's Christmas gifts.  I didn't include this because I purchased it from an eBay seller who has been running an online estate sale and the auction had ended too recently for it to be here when I did my first-of-month post:

As you can tell, if you are from Chicago, this is an ornament featuring the famous clock on the Marshall Field's building* downtown.  It came with the original box, in which it is shown at left, with the Marshall Field's logo on the cover.  When I saw this in his postings it brought back memories of when my grandmother and great-grandmother took me to The Walnut Room for luncheon.  My great-grandmother got the pot pie, I don't remember what my grandmother got (maybe also the pot pie? I tried it once or twice), and I got the fruit salad with little date bread sandwiches.  They were such a treat!  I remember having to be very dressed up for these occasions, and when I spoke to my grandmother last weekend after the ornament arrived (with the cookies and rugelach I sent her for Hanukah, so she knew she could open it immediately), we reminisced for quite a while about these "ladies' luncheons".

*Yes, I know it's now owned by Macy's, along with everything else Marshall Field's.  But to longtime Chicagoans, the building itself will never be Macy's.

Channukah 2020

This year was the first one in a long time (maybe since childhood?) that I was home on all eight nights:

   

   

   

   

Because I am allergic to chocolate, I bought a chest (it looks like a miniature treasure chest) of fruit jellies gelt, and had fun coordinating each evening's treat with the candles.  I confirmed for myself that one box of 44 candles is exactly enough candles for the festival - it's been a long time since (a) I had a new box to open (purchased specially this year) and (b) I've been home every night.

My cooking club met on the 7th night, and the theme was "Christmas Cookies" so I made a Channukah treat.  I thought I should do something dessert-ish because of the theme, so regular potato latkes were not an option, and I didn't want to try to make a single sufganiyah.  I found a recipe for apple latkes, but decided to make levivot, which are a sweetish cheese-based pancake with raisins - or in my case, since I have a lot of them, dried blueberries.  I added some sautéed apples with a sprinkle of cinnamon, and the whole was yummy.  I had enough to make levivot for breakfast the next two mornings.

Mid-Month Mini-Resolutions Report

No progress to speak of in finishing this month's mini-resolutions, in part because some of my cleaning and organizing and looking in the stash turned up a book with a mitten pattern I wanted to try, and knit a pair:

That is actually the second pair I knit.  It's made from leftover odd bits of yarn that may have been part of a baby sweater for my brother and/or me.  I knit the first pair with some vintage Red Heart yarn from a time when it was 100% wool, plus some bits of brown alpaca and black wool lingering in my stash:

  

I had wool left (I just barely had enough alpaca for the mittens; it was very fine so I carried it with black) after finishing the mittens so I made the hat.  This finished off the multicolour.  Both pairs of mittens and the hat (garter stitch except for ribbing at the bottom) will be donated to charity.

The mittens work up fairly quickly, especially as I did the thumb side of both at the same time.  This is so narrow, it makes sense to me to do it this way.  The Red Heart ones are much too big for me, the pink-and-blue ones (I used thinner yarn and smaller needles than the pattern indicates) just about fit me, although I want to fiddle a bit with where the mittens divide.  Third time might be the charm - and those will be for me.