turkey tango

somehow, i got stuck hosting thanksgiving this year. i've heard and read so many horror stories about "the first holiday" after couples get married and try to cook for the families, and i'm a bit freaked. not really, because i actually cook for my family a lot, but i've never done a turkey before, so i'm just a teensy bit nervous.

i have an idea for a fabulous turkey though. i'm going to gently slit the skin, and rub in butter, sage, rosemary, garlic, pepper and a teensy bit of orange zest, and i'm going to put a bit of chicken broth in the bottom of the roaster to keep the turkey from drying out. oh, and i'll be brining the turkey the night before.

potatoes are also on my list, and i'll be making two small potato dishes - mashed sweet potatoes covered with a rosemary-ricotta spread and toasted frosted flakes on top, and roasted sage/pepper sliced new potatoes. and of course, we have to have the classic green bean casserole. i might also do some baby carrots, because i like carrots.

holiday season is tough because it means blogging without pictures. i have several super-secret projects in the works, and i was very fortunate this year to find enough material in my stash for things that i hardly had to buy anything. maybe a yard of fabric here, or a special hook there (yes, i needed it to do a special technique), but that's really it. i think almost everyone is getting homemade gifts this year, baked or hooked or sewn or knit or somehow otherwise crafted.

i'm blogging right now, even though i'm super busy, because the laundry is going mid-cycle and the paint is drying on my dotee. i still have to finish one last dotee for my swap, but i thought i'd show you what i crafted so far.

this is na'tuin (points if you get the reference, and bairloch, you don't count) - she has trouble keeping her elephants on her back. here she is in her new home:

and here's another version of the op-topus i made for the last dotee swap i was in, but this one isn't a creepy eye-ball octopus, just a regular little blue one.

i still did all the sequins and beading on the tentacles like i did last time, and look! there's lunch under there!

this is the one that's still in progress. i plan to absolutely cover the back of this one in sequins.

darn. washer stopped. time to get back to work!

i'm back... whew....

after a much-needed hiatus, i have returned with crafty goodness!

The first batch of pickles came out, and apparently i didn't sterilize a few of the jars properly cuz two out of the original eight had some sort of weird sediment in the bottom of the jar.... yeah... i didn't eat those. the other ones were good though. especially the spicy pickles. yum yum yum.

tomorrow i'm making butternut squash soup so i'll let you know how that goes.

on the crochet front, i finished a shrug out of noro garden yarn, and i'm, well, mostly pleased with it. it's my first item EVER with sleeves, but i left it in my office where i was covertly working on it in-between classes, so i'll have to post pictures later.

i also started a hat with the last of my bernat cashmere, some fuzzy curly white yarn (recylced!), and the yarn pauraniente and i dyed with kool-aid last winter. i don't have pictures of that either, but i will when it's done.

but i do have pictures. i finally got bit by the dotee bug. nobody seems to know exactly what they are. i mean, objectively, yes, they are relatively palm-sized dolls, usually with a round face, a hanger, not much distinction in the way of body parts... but what, exactly, are they?

i almost think of them as little prayer dolls, or little goddess dolls, but i guess sometimes you could just have silly ones.

like my Nessa. she's my first dotee! i had just finished reading "alone in the kitchen with an eggplant" and i happened to mention it to my fiance when we were riding in the car. he thought it sounded "quite sinister" and before we knew it, we were making up stories about a vengeful eggplant, in a british accent, with her "jaunty green cap."

so, here's nessa, my murderous eggplant.
she's made of felt with beaded accents and a sculpy knife. oh! and she has a friend, her pet spider leroy.

and here's a shot of her "jaunty green cap." ha, sometimes i crack myself up.

i don't think i'm done with her yet though. i want to add a bit more embroidery to the bottom, in-between the green beads, and also some more embroidery leaf detail on her cap. i have a word bead that says "green," and i'd like to try embroidery the "jaunty cap" phrase on the back, but i already tried once, got halfway through the word jaunty and tore it out because i mostly suck at embroidery.

tomorrow, along with butternut squash, we'll have the triplets, charlie, chelsea, and chester pea.