Crochet Stars and Little House by the Fire

One of my favorite parts of this time of year is reading Christmas and winter time stories. Lately, when time allows, we've been reading stories by the fire. Our pellet stove is conveniently located in our dining room, so we just sit at the table and read a chapter of a book or short story (often times, stories with no pictures, so we can listen and imagine a little) by the firelight. It's nice because it keeps us from our tired-end-of-day auto response of putting on a movie or documentary... not a bad thing to do, but I'd like to do it a little less. Recently, we started reading some of the stories in "A Little House Christmas" which features chapters from various "Little House" books. I mostly missed out on reading these as a kid... my sister had the whole collection and gave them to me, and I've still only read one of them years ago, which happened to be the last book! Silly me! Anyways, I do hope to get to read the longer books with my girls, but they're still quite little, and this seemed a nice introduction. The first Christmas story starts off with Laura at four years old, and so she immediately captured Oona's heart, as kids the same age are obviously awesome. There are a few pictures in this, but not many, so I was glad that she was mostly able to pay attention... it is hard to ignore your toys for too long.

An added bonus to family story time is that if I'm not reading, I get to crochet. There are so many projects in the crochet basket, but I've had a grand time making these sweet little stars. I can't decide if they should be ornaments or a garland. I'm so grateful for all the freebie patterns out there, as it has made it a lot easier to learn and improve. I'm hoping in 2015 to find the time to make some tutorials of my own. Are you making any handmade ornaments this year? I'd love to see what others are up to!

One more thing... Oona was asking recently about how you make a candy cane, and as I didn't really know, we turned to YouTube for a demonstration. Here are our favorites, if you're curious too:

This first one shows you how they are made in a big factory.

The next one shows how they are made in a smaller candy cane shop. This one is in Swedish, but still fun to watch if you don't speak the language!

This one shows how you can make them at home.

I'm thinking about trying it at some point, but it looks like it gives you quite the work out!

Joining in this week with Yarn Along.