Monkey

One of the many benefits of my newish job is the seemingly endless supply of baked goodies courtesy of a certain technician. All of her creations have been delicious, but when my coworkers started raving about her monkeybread, I had to taste some even though she was bringing it in on my day off and I was warned to get there early before it was eaten. Sadly my cold got the best of me and warm bed won out over warm monkeybread. Only crumbs were left by the time I dragged myself in to return phone calls. But she gave out the recipe and since I didn't have to go to work this morning due to a scheduling mix-up, I decided to try it out. I feel a little sheepish I didn't make biscuit dough from scratch, but I'd forgotten how fun it is to play with Pillsbury biscuit dough.

A little sweet, but tasty tasty

Meanwhile, a new shipment of knitting needles is finally ready to go to Shannon at The Spun Monkey including these monkeys and these mice.

In older glass news, my boss who collects tiny animal sculptures inspired me to make these little glass dogs. I made them back in December, but gave them as Christmas presents so haven't gotten around to posting pictures before. It was so fun to work really small (someone coached me that I should try working bigger so I've been feeling guilty for not working up in size) and I'm planning on doing more of these tiny sculptures.
Other Christmas gifts: Aaron and I made two different types of soap to give to our friends and family. We figured they'd be amused by the cheesiness of our labels promising "an invigorating and spiritual grounding cleansing experience."

Another leftover photo from December is this lace shawl. The pattern is "Handsome Triangle" from Jane Sowerby's Victorian Lace Today and the yarn is hand-dyed, handspun merino-tencel.

After a short trip home to Los Angeles for Christmas, I spent a few days with Aaron in Oregon, driving back to Davis from Salem. The coolest guy ever, he wove his mother a scarf for Christmas, and in Salem, he took me to an old textile mill where we got to poke around and see how it was all mechanized and run by water way back when as well check out the looms and projects of the weaving guild (ever the perfectionist, he checked the edges of the works-in-progress and pronounced them "good").

After a refreshing stop at Breitenbush Hot Springs, we spent a couple days in Black Butte near Bend where we went snowshoeing and I finally got some good photos of my landscape gloves.
Currently I'm finishing up Aaron's Christmas gift (he's learned I'm always late), another hat, a pair of socks, a Niebling shawl and I have some gloves on the back burner. Aaron is working on an alpaca scarf with some of my handspun which is keeping me busy spinning. And Meep is busy trying to eat all my fiber when he's not posing for the camera.