Happy New Year

Some folks go look back at last year's happenings, and go over the high points, but I am plain too lazy for that! :)

I will, however, show you the pillowcases (pattern here) I whipped up last night out of some old fabric. I used to work at JoAnn Fabrics & Crafts part time, and have tons and tons of fabric I bought while I worked there! I haven't sewn in a while, but DH pulled out my Mom's old sewing machine that I inherited, oiled it for me, and made sure it was in running order! (He has an ulterior motive, he wants to get rid of all that fabric!) :) I know that I normally only show crochet or knitting on here, but I sew, too, and you will probably be seeing more of that in the next few posts, as I am getting a little burned out with crochet and knitting right now. (Besides, DD is having twins, and I have been commissioned to sew baby bumpers, etc......more on that later!)

I have also been cooking some, and made a cookie recipe this morning that I saw on Oiyi's blog, here. Yum!

Hope you all have a very safe and Happy New Year!

Stash Enhancement!

The title to this post says it all! Frogginqueen and I made the mad dash together at the unheard of hour of 3:00 A.M. over to "The Woolie Ewe" yarn shop in Plano, Texas, where we both happily lined up to enhance our stashes at their year end blowout half-off sale! We were done and I was back home by 8:00 A.M. !! I guess you are noticing all the new sock yarn? I have made a new year's resolution to myself that I will learn to knit socks this year - for sure! I made a small stab at working on learning it back in October, but as often happens, life got in the way, and I laid it down. Then one of the dogs got ahold of my second skein of yarn, tore it up, and my interest in knitting that pair of socks has totally died. KAPUT! But with this yarn purchase, a spark of interest has been rekindled, so there is still hope!

Bedwarmers and Pecans

My friend Frogginqueen, (in case you have been wondering where she is at) has been making a bunch of bedwarmers lately. What a great idea! I have an old one that was given to me as a Christmas gift several years ago. Mine was simply one long rectangle, folded in half, right sides together, sew up two sides, turn right side out, fill about half way with Deer Corn, then top-stitch the last side together. Heat bag in microwave for about 2 minutes, and man oh man! That puppy stays warm for awhile!

If you want a "dressier" pattern for gift giving, I found one closest to the one I have over at http://www.diamondthreadworks.com/microwave_heating_bags.htm. Also, the pattern that Frogginqueen is using can be found here, and look at this great looking one, here using the same pattern! I liked the last one made with chenille, so made a couple that looked similar for DD. Lots of great ideas out there, folks! The flat pink item under the bedwarmers is a "hair towel" that I also made for DD, copying an old one I had (probably made from a Simplicity or McCalls pattern), and sewed that sucker up in about 20 minutes.

Then, I made some sugared pecans, using Bron's recipe here (see her Dec. 15th post). My very kind BIL gave us a whole paper grocery sack full of pecans, and even went so far as to take them to the Ridgmar Farmers Market and had them cracked for us, ready to shell. Just in time for some Christmas baking! YUM!

We got to go see DD in South Texas for Christmas, and got to go across the border to Mexico. We had a great time seeing the sights and being tourists! I got a photo of the Rio Grande, below:



Hope everyone else had a good Christmas!

I'm a Millionaire!

WARNING! MESSY RECIPE AHEAD!!!

I made "Texas Millionaire Candy" or what some people call "Turtles" for Christmas. It is from a recipe that a co-worker from long ago shared with me.


Recipe:

Texas Millionaire Candy

2 Tablespoons butter
1 bag Caramel Candy, unwrapped
2 Tablespoons Water
3 cups chopped pecans
1 package (12 oz) semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/3 square Gulf Wax

Add butter and water to caramel candy in a microwaveable bowl. Heat until caramel is melted (about 2 minutes). Stir in nuts. Set aside to "firm up". Heat Gulfwax and chocolate chips in a double boiler on the stove. When caramel is firm enough to roll, butter your hands, then roll caramel into balls, dip into the melted chocolate with a toothpick (as you can see by the photos, I didn't use the toothpick method this time). Then place on waxed paper to cool.

In crochet news, still not much of anything going on. I got out one of my "Christmas" boxes and pulled out a few things I made last year, such as these snowflakes, below. I got the patterns for these from Leisure Arts Leaflet #3013, called "99 Snowflakes". As you can see, I still have about 96 to go.....................

And I also found this fast and easy dishcloth that I had forgotten I made. The pattern can be found free, here, and literally takes about 1 hour to make:

FUN, FUN, FUN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

New magazine, some crochet and cheesecake

I Got this magazine in the mail on Friday. Nothing much caught my eye, but maybe if I see someone else make something out of it I will get inspired.

I did another mindless crochet potholder over the weekend. I made this one a little larger than my last two.

And I did some experimental cooking on DH. Yes, he's still alive!!

DH loves sweet potatoes in any form. I found a Sweet Potato Cheesecake recipe here and thought I would give it a whirl. The only thing I would change is that the cheesecake is not sweet enough for us, so I would add some white sugar to sweeten it up a little when I make it again, and instead of fresh sweet potatoes, I would use canned.

Tonight I am hoping to make some "Millionaire Candy". It is a recipe I got back when I first started working, years ago. A co-worker made them every year, and was kind enough to share the recipe. If I get them made tonight I will show a picture and share the recipe.

YARN THEFT!

Say "hi" to Maxi. He is my son's dog that we are keeping for him a couple of months. Maxi is a Pit Bull puppy, and he actually has a really sweet personality, athough he is a bit mischevious........ I had always heard the scary "Pit Bull" stories, but no one warned me that they are YARN THIEVES!

As I was trying to crochet my illicit potholder last night, he was trying to steal the yarn ball away, right out of my hands! Here is a photo of Maxi posing with some old Red Heart yarn I let him have, along with some Lion Brand that I had been using to make my Monkey sock...... He now has his own yarn "stash"!

I fell off the wagon again!

First, let me say that it's my neighbor's fault I fell off the baby blanket bandwagon for a day!

After we got home from Thanksgiving lunch at the neighbor's, I got a little crochet time in. I just made another potholder/hotpad for fast and easy crochet gratification. This time the pattern was a plain old standby. My neighbor had several of these in her potholder drawer, and I thought to myself that I haven't made one of those in a few years! Here is one version I found of it, "Origami Hot Pad", another is here with step by step pictures, and it is easy breezy, mindless crochet that doesn't take months and months to finish! Besides, you can never have enough potholders!

I have to work today (UGH), while the rest of the US goes shopping on the busiest shopping day of the year. Personally, I would rather just be home crocheting potholders baby blankets!

Pass the stuffing, please!

The turkey is in the oven cooking and smelling wonderful! I began preparing food for the big day last night. First, I threw together an old Thanksgiving favorite of my kid's, as my DD calls it, "the green pie". It is merely a graham crust, with pistachio pudding (thus the green color) and topped with whipped cream. It came about one year after my Dad had married his second wife, who was diabetic. I came up with this pie in the sugar-free version for her, and somehow it hung on every year after that, becoming a huge hit with my kids! It is always requested by DD every year, and the years I can't be with the kids, I know DD carries on tradition..... :). This year, neither one of my kids can be here, but I made the "green pie" anyway (guess it has kind of grown on me, too)!

DD also gave me a new recipe to try, a banana nut roll. I have made the traditional pumpkin roll for the last 2 or 3 years, so I guess when she found this recipe, she thought she would give it a whirl. She liked it alot and passed it along for me to try. I made it last night and it looks YUMMY! We are eating with our neighbors today (I was trying to be totally anti-social this year, and just be home alone with DH, but NO ONE will let us rest unless we go eat somewhere else!) :) That is what holiday traditions are all about, right?

I made jalapeno bacon bites and will also be taking a Broccoli-Rice Cassarole with us to the neighbors. Can't wait to dig in! Happy Thanksgiving, ya'll!

Next in Line

Nothing much going on with Crochet or Knitting lately. I didn't finish the baby blankets in time for the shower, so that is what I need to continue to work on until done. After that, I am interested in making some of the items from this book:

Almost every item in the book is something I would like to make! I don't usually find very many crochet pattern books that I can say that about. But the main reason I got it is that I fell in love with the Teddy Bear pattern:

I saw a photo on Ravelry of the finished bear and it was so cute, I had to go find the book so I could make it, too!

Wedding, books, crochet

DH has a childhood friend "R", that he has known since he was 3 years old (ok, I'll do the math, they have been friends for 46 years). We don't always see each other that often, but we have managed to keep in touch with "R" at least 5 or 6 times a year since we got married. R's son got married in a small ceremony this weekend, and they had a reception afterward here at Lake Bridgeport. No photos of the wedding group, but pretty scenery, eh? This was the setting sun on Saturday.




I haven't finished the first "Starry, Starry Night" Baby blanket, but decided I needed to start the other one (they are for twins). If I can at least get it to the point of getting the "clouds" on it like the other one, I am thinking I can knock out the final rows on both in time for the baby shower. I have already added 5 rows of blue to this one, since I took this photo earlier today!

And I took time out of my crocheting this week to read this: "The Bone Garden" by Tess Gerritsen. I always enjoy each new book she puts out, and this was no exception.

Starry Baby Blanket

Here are some progress pictures of what I have been working on for the last couple of weeks:

It is a baby blanket pattern called "Starry, Starry Night" by Melissa Mall. I was browsing around in Ravelry and found the pattern. SO CUTE! The pattern can be found free, here. I am using Lion Brand Babysoft yarn in Pastel Yellow, Pastel Blue, and White. The pattern calls for an "F/5 (3.75mm)" size crochet hook. I still have about 8 more white rows to crochet around the outside of the blanket, and I will be done with the main body. Then I just need to make several small "stars" and scatter them out around the blanket. It would already be done, but I haven't had time to work on it much this last week! I got the yellow and blue part done in about 1 week of sporadic crocheting, but have been pretty busy and only gotten a chance here and there to work on the "clouds". I will post the finished product soon (hopefully by the weekend).

Birthday Boy

We went out of town this weekend to spend my dgs' birthday with him. He is now 7 years old and "standin' in high cotton!" :)

He saw the fields of cotton and after I explained to him that cotton can be made into yarn, he was interested in stopping to "pick" some.

X with some of his partygoing friends.

X posing with some of his gifts.

A good time was had by all! :)

It was a HEN party!.......

Hey ya'll, we had a HEN party this weekend....






but we weren't crocheting! MY SIL (bottom photo) and her Cousin (middle photo) and I were "Stampin Up" and trying to make a start on this year's Christmas cards. I was totally useless and just watched them make their cards. I didn't do a dog-gone thing except TALK. :) I have lots of experience in talking! I still remember bringing my 2nd grade report card home and the only comment I remember from it said, "Cynthia talks too much". Never a truer statement has ever been written! :)


I have been crocheting on a project, I promise, but I don't want to show it on here until I am done, which I hope will be this coming week. I am also wanting to crochet this for my dgs in time for Halloween. I think he will enjoy it! Wouldn't you? :)

Tresselating Fish, more new yarn

I bought some Vanna's Choice Lion Brand Yarn, and "hey Mikey", I liked it! I also found a pattern that I liked that I saw on Ravelry, called Tresselating Fish. It is apparently an old pattern found in Knitter's Magazine, and a lady out in blogland sort of figured out how to work a similar pattern. I am really liking the way it is working up. The bottom "fish" looks brown in this light, but it is really a mossy green color! The "fish" are fairly fast and easy, and I hope to eventually have an afghan of some sort in the fall colors I have picked out. I will post as I progress..................

Trying new things, getting new yarn....

Today I was off work for Colombus Day. I met up with my friend the "Frogginqueen" at a JoAnn Fabric store at a city in between where we both live (North Richland Hills, TX). They had some new yarn out and does anyone besides me see a resemblance to NORO colorways, here? I'm excited to see how it works up, but have no idea yet what I want to make.

After our "shopping spree" that took us from JoAnn's to Hancock Fabric (it must be the last one standing, they closed all the others in the DFW area that I know about), we went over to Chick- fil-A, where we had a nice lunch, and M was kind enough to break out the sock patterns and show me what I have been missing all these years of knitting, in the way of using dpns. Yes, dear readers, I have allowed myself to avoid dpns almost religiously over the years. I tried a couple of times and hated it so bad, I never wanted to try again. However, I keep seeing all the beautiful sock patterns out there that I would like to try out. I thought about starting out on circulars, instead of dpns, but then decided that what the heck, I will soldier through learning to use dpns on my *first ever* sock attempt. M makes it seem almost easy, and here is my beginning attempt on the "Monkey" socks pattern with Lion Brand magic stripes sock yarn (don't know the colorway, I guess I threw away the labels).

I feel confident that I will make it to the heel ok, but at that point, well, we'll see. :) Wish me luck, won't you?

Fishing Buddy

My grandson X has a special bond with his "great-uncle" (my brother-in-law, "W"). X and I went to visit my sister and her husband, W one weekend (see photo below) when X was about 4 years old. W has a pond on their property that is filled with fish. You guessed it, W set X up with a fishing pole, hot dogs for bait, and started X out on his love of fishing! X still remembers that fun trip, and is always asking when he will get to go visit "uncle W" and go fishing again!




We found out Tuesday evening that W had been taken to the hospital with chest pain. He underwent an emergency double by-pass on Wednesday. He has been around most of my life, so I consider him to be another brother. My younger brother and I got to go visit him in the hospital at Tyler, TX last night, and he really looked good for just having gone through surgery. They already had him sitting up! Please keep him in your prayers, 'cause we sure do want him up and fishing with X again soon!

Fall fun...

Fall is here and Halloween is coming up! I love this time of the year! I remember going to the fair in September... candied apples, caramel apples, cotton candy. Then going for blocks and blocks with my big Sister at Halloween, trick-or-treating when I was little. So in the spirit of Fall, I made the potholder above from a pattern out of "The Happy Hooker" by Debbie Stoller.

Tribbles, Birthday

While looking through Ravelry the other day, I found 1870 Pearl's "Tribble" pattern (above). They are knitted and are fast and easy to make!

Yesterday was my birthday and DH got me several goodies.....He gave me perfume (Dior Addict) and at work I got a dozen red roses from him! He later took me to dinner at Mimi's Cafe. Also, a co-worker took me to lunch, and I got several "birthday" phone calls from various family members. All in all, a very, very nice birthday!

Saturday chores

This is what I did Saturday while Hubby went to work. Instead of sitting myself down and doing anything I wanted to, like knitting or crocheting, I heard a voice in my head told myself I needed to mow the lawn and weedeat the flower bed. The riding mower was on the blink, so I mowed with the push mower (pictured above). I was lucky and found a couple of fire ant mounds (my feet being in flip flops instead of shoes - WARNING, KIDS DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME!). Whew! It sure was hot! I took a breather on the park bench (pictured) when I was finally done! Then afterward, to reward myself for a job well done, I went to the Library. Upon trying to leave the Library, my car decided not to start for a couple of hours, and so when Hubby got off work, he got to come rescue me (MY HERO). I think NEXT Saturday when I start telling myself to do chores, I'm going to ignore the voice JUST DO WHAT I WANT! :)

Food Friday

Last night my DD called and wanted me to share one of my *many* quick and easy recipes that I used to experiment on them with made over the years. I thought it might be fun to share for you to experiment on your kids, too. So, here it is:

Ice Cream Sandwiches

1 (3.4 oz) package instant Vanilla pudding (or flavor of your choice)
2 cups cold milk
2 cups whipping cream
1 cup miniture chocolate chips (or candy bits of your choice)
Graham crackers or large cookies of your choice

Mix the pudding and milk. Let it get set. Once set, fold in the whipping cream and mini chocolate chips. On a cookie sheet, spread cookies or grahams in one layer, top each with pudding mix, then top that with another cookie. Place in freezer for one hour to set. Take out of freezer, wrap "sandwiches" very well with cling wrap, place back in freezer until served.

Various meanderings.....

I just finished reading the last "Harry Potter" book in the series (no, I'm usually not this slow to get a Potter book read, but I waited in a queue to check it out from my local Library instead of buying it). Without giving anything away (if there's anyone left who hasn't read it!) let me say that while the story plot for Severus Snape ended up just as I figured it would, the rest of the book struck me as sort of "bleh". I think it was definately time for J.K. Rowling to move on. The book lacked the "Oomph" of some of the earlier ones for me, with just a smige too much of death and woe. And come on, guys, Dudley suddenly "loving" Harry? Let's get real! :)


Now that I have given my opinion about THAT, *smile*, a look over at Bron's blog this morning reminded me of a pumpkin I made a couple of years ago that I made using Sculpey. I won $100.00 in a contest at work for the first place pumpkin! Our customers all voted on the pumpkins, and I found out later that at first, a lot of people thought I had just slapped a mask on a pumpkin until they got a better close up! Ha! I didn't feel like I did it full justice with the "painting" of the face, (I was in a hurry the night before the contest) but it turned out o.k. I didn't "bake" it, so it dried out and fell apart later.

I also FINALLY got my invite to Ravelry last night. To say the least, I was very excited! All I can say is that I can tell it will be a fascinating place to look around in. I will probably lose hours there, and I can see why there are still about 20,000 folks on the waiting list!