Skip to main content

Holiday Baking

It 'tis the season to begin thinking about baking holiday cookies.  Although I do bake real cookies it seemed appropriate to check out knitted holiday cookies to see what might be out there.  I started the search by looking at free sources and found this guy.

Knitted gingerbread man
The pattern for this appropriately decorated cookie is available from Ravelry by Alan Dart from the UK.  If you'd like to make one Alan makes the pattern available for free, just check into patterns and then food.  (Ravelry is place for yarn artists of all types to track their stash, projects and pattern information as well as become inspired by others.  It's free to sign up as well.)

But then the pickings got slim.  I did find these:

Felted fortune cookies
Tanya Brooks from the US shares the pattern for these felted fortune cookies that are really cute but not directly Christmas related.  Tanya suggests you can use them for Xmas, Valentine Day's or any other special occasion by simply changing the message inside or the colour of yarn.  (Again the pattern is free from Ravelry in the patterns, food section.)  Great idea for something in the future, but not enough Xmas for me.

So I turned to my own pattern books and found a cookie with a creamy center (like an Oreo) in my trusty Susie Johns' Fast Food book.  I've made this cookie both in blonde and chocolate with white filling.   Although it is a cookie, I don't think of Oreos as holiday fare. 

Light-coloured Oreo cookies

I also found a cookie pattern on a holiday stocking I just finished, but it looks more like an any day cookie.


Perhaps red sprinkles would have helped

So I moved on to pattern books I don't own and was struck by the lack of knitted holiday cookies.  More everyday cookie patterns were found but nothing readily identifiable as Christmas.  As a reality check (perhaps I should do this more often) I made a list of those cookies I actually consider associated with Christmas

  • Cutout sugar cookies (knitted shapes can be challenging to make, but certainly not impossible)
  • Pfeffernusse (spherical, hard cookies my German grandmother made only at Xmas time)
  • Spritz cookies with colours of white, green and red (of course!)
. . . And then I ran out of ideas for quintessential holiday cookies.

In conclusion perhaps I have located a new knitting niche or maybe knitted holiday cookies aren't really that unique as might be supported by my short list.  After this search I've decided I'm left with either trying to design some holiday cookie patterns on my own or better yet through my searching found some new ideas for other items.  They may someday show up as finished projects OR not, even I don't know for sure.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Anatomy of a Sock

I've been knitting socks for a relatively short time.  One of the disconcerting things for me as I started following patterns for socks is the pattern designer assumes the knitter (in this case that would be me) knows all the parts of a sock.  So I thought I'd devote a post to improve my own knowledge about the anatomy of a sock and maybe some of you will learn something about the humble yet necessary sock as well. Here's the names of the parts of the foot as I know them. #49 ankle, #50 heel, #51, instep, #52 ball, #53 big toe, #54 toe, #55 little toe, #56 toenail. There are some parts more important for this discussion; first the heel of a foot is generally used to refer to the entire C-shape from the ankle to the instep.  Speaking of the instep, it refers to that curve near the bottom of the foot.  And what seems to be missing in the design above is the sole which generally refers to the bottom of the foot in total or plantar aspect in more technical terms.  (BTW
2 comments
Read more

Ode to the Cat

It has been six months since Mike, the cat's, passing.  I think of him every day and miss him especially when Paul is away.  Mike was a being in the house with me and we were close.  Grieving his death has been muddled with my Dad's passing and sometimes I feel guilty about that happening.  As time passes the ache becomes less hurtful for both and I am starting to get mostly good memories in its place. Recently I helped celebrate Pablo Neruda's birthday with Jami, my poet and overall very creative friend.  Guests were asked to select one poem written by Neruda to read to the small group who gathered for the celebration.  I picked this one: Ode To The Cat -- Pablo Neruda There was something wrong with the animals: their tails were too long, and they had unfortunate heads. Then they started coming together, little by little fitting together to make a landscape, developing birthmarks, grace, flight. But the cat, only the cat turned out finished, and
1 comment
Read more

Knitting-Related Guinness World Records

I had to share some of the Guinness World Records connected with knitting.  It is amazing to me the type of skill, stamina and unique characteristics these record holders have in common. How about trying to knit with these SPNs?? Ingrid Wagner and her large needles and knitted swatch The largest knitting needles measured 3.5 m (11 ft 5.8 in) long and had a diameter of 8 cm (3.15 in). Ingrid Wagner, a rug and art creation artist, from the UK used the needles to knit a tension square of ten stitches by ten rows at the Metro Radio Arena, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK, on March, 10 2008.  (And I complained about getting certain SPNs stuck in my clothes.)  See how this swatch was done with merely 5 people managing the needles.  And what about the yarn?  It is truly ex-bulky.  It looks like they're knitting in a warehouse, but with a wingspan of almost 24 feet or 7 m, you'd need all that space.  Or how about the longest piece of finger knitting that measured 4,321.4 m
Post a Comment
Read more