Naughty Blogger

My goodness I have been a very naughty blogger. Between work, having a nightmare of a cold and remodeling in our house I have barely blogged. I have been trying new recipes. A couple of them were bombs that I won’t share but I do have a couple that made us very happy. I have a new one in my crockpot right now. I hope to share it if we like it. It does smell good. I have a new fascination with Moroccan food so we may see a trend that way soon.

I bought a new cookbook last week at the hospital book fair. Every time I see they are having another book fair I tell myself that I am not going to go. I never succeed and seldom leave there spending less than $100. This time I only spent $79.  I think I did good considering I bought two cookbooks for my son for Christmas and a crockpot cookbook for myself.

Remember the grilling cookbook that I bought myself a few months ago?

http://grace2882.wordpress.com/2009/04/15/new-cookbooks/

I loved this cookbook so much and since Stephen has a grill and a smoker grill I knew that he would too. I also bought him a cookbook that I gave my daughter about a year ago that she loves. It is a Taste of Home Cookbook.

This time I bought myself the Taste of Home Slow Cooker Classic Cookbook and found many options that are low carb or can be easily converted to low carb. I am excited to try them out.

Wow. When looking online for a picture of the book I found that this book retails for $47 online. I bought it for only $24.95. I may have to rethink these book sales. That was quite a deal. When I buy a cookbook I read it from front to back and put post-it flags on all of the recipes that I want to try. It makes it easier to find them when I am thinking of trying a new recipe. Once I try it and like it I put  them onto pretty pages and put them in my favorite recipe binder.

When Samantha was here for Thanksgiving we spent the day working on crafts and she put some recipes that she loves on pretty paper and decorated with rub-ons. Then we put them in sheet protectors. Before she married I put many of her favorite recipes in a binder so that she could make them for herself since she was moving so far away from home. Here are a few of the pages that she made for herself.

I think she did a great job. I hope she brings her book with her at Christmas to do more crafts. I miss her living so far away.  :::sigh::::

I will try to do better with blogging over the next couple of weeks. We are making progress with the remodeling and I can’t wait to share the finished project. I am very excited about my spice cabinet. I will tell you all about it along with pictures once it is stained and has the crown molding added. It is SWEEEEEET!!!!!

 

Stephen’s Neck and Face Warmer

I knitted my son Stephen a neck and face warmer using this pattern from Bernat.  You have to be a member of www.bernat.com to see it but it is free to join and they have tons of patterns.

http://www.bernat.com/pattern.php?PID=1979

The pattern was easy to follow but I wish that it had been made on circular needles instead of straight and then sewn together. When you use the variegated yarn you can see a seam when it is sewn together. I don’t see any reason why it could not have been sewn on circular and when I make one next year for my brother-in-law I will do it that way.

Stephen loved it and is currently out in the woods somewhere wearing it.

He looks a bit like a masked robber in that last picture. haha. I hope that he puts it to good use keeping warm in the woods. What I liked about it was it offered warmth without having anything dangling to get in the way when he is hunting.

I am currently on vacation and have spent two full days cleaning on my craft room. I have come to the conclusion that I really can not buy anything else craft related until I make a huge dent in what I currently have. Especially yarn. I have five tubs of yarn that I need to use. Geeze, that is a lot of yarn.

I am currently working on a shawl for myself and beaded scarf for myself. I have been making so many things for everyone else that I am finally taking some time for me.

I have put a lot of my craft items into a stack for my daughter-in-law to go through tomorrow. If she wants them they are hers. She loves to do crafts and especially scrapbooks for the little man, Caleb. You can’t go wrong when you are doing something with pictures of Caleb. He is such a cutie.

Tight Knit Knitting Group

I went on another field trip with my knitting group yesterday. We had a blast. Unfortunately, there are no pictures of our little adventure. We had so much fun that I never stopped to take any.

We began our day at IHOP. To keep up our hectic pace we had to begin with a hearty breakfast. Only four of us managed to go on this trip. Our faithful leader Bev, Mary, Linda and I. We really missed Cindy and Retta. Next time these ladies have to go too.

After breakfast we went to the new Hobby Lobby. Let me say that I love Hobby Lobby. I used to have to drive about two hours to get to a store of this magnitude. Now I am within twenty minutes of my home. Amazing. I bought enough yarn there for our next class project. We are doing an amazing afghanand each square is a different pattern. It was funny that three of us chose the exact same colors of yarn.

Next we went to Michael’s. I bought some beading items. I want to make beautiful stitch markers that look like jewelry. They had yarn on sale here so I bought enough to make a scarf, a sweater and a shawl.

Next we went to Knitnhook in Huntington. We were surprised to see that they were going out of business after a successful 12 year run. The owner decided that she wanted to retire. She has definitely earned it. She has kept half of WV in yarn and taught so many to knit that she should be able to enjoy her grandbabies and knit in a relaxing setting.

At Knitnhook I bought some luxurious lace yarn that I want to do my first lace shawl out of. It is beautiful yarn. I will be making this next spring probably.

After the yarn store we went to BW3’s for lunch. I had their buffalo chicken tender salad. I love this salad. It is low carb and very flavorful. At BW3’s you can choose the level of hotness for your buffalo chicken tender’s. I got the hot. It was perfect.

We took a detour to a bakery and Bev bought her husband a birthday cake from Francois Bakery in Huntington, WV. The server at the restaurant mentioned that it was her birthday and that her husband never gets her a cake so the ladies bought her 4 muffins with buttercream icing from the bakery and took it to her.

After this we went to AC Moore. I have always loved AC Moore but after visiting Hobby Lobby, AC Moore appears much smaller. Everyone was able to find something that they wanted here. I bought coffees for my daughter and son-in-law that they should enjoy over Thanksgiving.

I can’t wait for our next field trip in February. I definitely want to go again.  With all of the new ladies in the class I hope that we have more people on the next trip.

Kristin’s Hat and Scarf

I finished the hat and scarf that I have been knitting for Kristin, my wonderful daughter-in-law. I found the pattern at www.ravelry.com in their pattern section. I can’t shout high enough of how wonderful Ravelry is. They have thousands and thousands of patterns to choose from. If it is on the internet it is pretty much available through the Ravelry search engine.

This is the hat and scarf that I made for Kristin. I will have the direct link to the pattern for the hat below.

The direct link to the hat pattern can be found here.

http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/lace-edged-womens-hat#

For the scarf I used a size 8 knitting needle and just did knit stitches for all rows until it was almost 6 feet long. Then I added fringe to each end. I use Caron Simply Soft yarn which was variegated. I loved the gentle way it was changed from one shade with burgundy to the next.

Hat And Scarf For Samantha

While we were in Virginia I gave Samantha her hat and scarf that I had made for her. I used yarn that I had purchased from the Kanawha Yarn Company store and it was exactly the right shade for Samantha’s personality. It was made by Plymouth Encore. She loves pink. It had just enough contrast of slight white spots in it to make a beautiful shading on the hat and scarf.

Because I wanted to share it with the blog I made her put it on for me early in the morning before we left to come home. I am sure she is plotting my demise for not giving her time to do makeup. bwhahaha.

As you can see this is a very long scarf. Samantha is very tall so she really needed a long scarf. I found this pattern at www.ravelry.com in their pattern section. Looking for patterns is wonderful there. You can put in the search hat, scarf, free and all of the hat and scarf patterns that are free will come up. Their website took me to the pattern which was at this website.

http://www.lionbrand.com/patterns/kcw-hatScarf.html?r=1

The pattern was very easy. You simply do reverse stockinette stitches and stockinette in different variances. The scarf got a bit boring after a while but that was because I had to make it so long. Did I mention my daughter is tall?

Her height has gotten her into so many problems over the years. While I was visiting she took great joy in hiding food on the top shelf of the cabinet so that I couldn’t reach it. Someday I will get even. As a matter of fact I have already plotted my revenge. bwahahaha.

Kanawha City Yarn Company

This is a wonderful yarn shop. Sara is the owner and she is very sweet and helpful. Trust me. She doesn’t mind you touching all of her yarn and is very helpful in helping you pick out a yarn that will go with your project. Just take your pattern with you and she will be more than happy to help you.

She recently moved and is one block over from where her yarn shop used to be. Her new shop is on 52nd street and next to a barber shop. It is much larger than the old shop and very well organized and clean.

She has knitting groups and teaches classes as well. You might want to give her a try. I love shop. It is much larger than the other independent shops that I have been to and her prices are very comparable. She has items that are budget friendly to most anyone.

Knit N’ Hook

On Saturday Mike and I went to a little yarn shop in Huntington, WV. This is a very small shop but the owner is very nice. I plan on going there again. The owner promised me that if you purchase yarn from her to do one of the projects they offer that they will help walk you through the project from beginning to end.

They have upper end yarns that you can not purchase at large stores such as Michaels, and AC Moore.  She had some beautiful yarn there by Cherry Tree Hill that I may have to go back to get. The more I think about it the more I think it belongs in my stash. haha

She is located at 703 6th Avenue. There is penty of parking available on the street.

A Hat and 2 Scarves

I have been knitting away and having a blast. I finished the black and white scarf that I had shared a couple of weeks ago. I was pleased with it but wish that I had used a larger knitting needle to make it softer. I had used funfur and black holding yarn to help give it base.  I plan to make gloves that have the matching trim around the cuffs for a nice Christmas gift for a co-worker.

 

I finally finished my multidiagonal scarf. Boy was this thing work. I am pleased with how it turned out but my poor knitting teacher had to help me correct a million mistakes along the way. I definitely learned a lot while making this one. I promised her that I would never make another one. haha

If you want to make one you can get the pattern here.

http://douma.net/Karen/knitting/Accessory-Scarves/Multidirectional_Diagonal_Scarf.htm 

I worked this week making my grandson, Caleb a Candy Corn Hat for Halloween. It is so cute. I loved making this hat and learned many new techniques along the way. I had never used double pointed knitting needles before. I started out making the hat using a circular needle but as the hat got smaller it wasn’t working for me any longer .

The nice ladies at www.ravelry.com assisted me with providing a video to a technique called Magic Loop Knitting using circular needles. This worked great until I got the top point of white on the hat. Then I had no other choice but to switch to the double pointed needles. You can see the video for Magic Loop Knitting here.

You can get the pattern to make this cute hat here.

http://www.skeinsandbeans.com/candycorn.pdf

 

 

 

 

 

The Kindness of Strangers

As I mentioned yesterday the message boards at www.ravelry.com are amazing. I am new there but a woman with a heart of gold send me a private message offering me yarn that she wanted to get rid of it. She swore that if I didn’t take it she would just donate it to Goodwill so I accepted it.

I never dreamed that she would send me so much yarn and that it would be so beautiful. She sent me enough of each color to do several projects. I am very excited about the Red Heart Light and Lofty. It is a beautiful shade of purple and is the exact thickness that I need to make a shrug for work.

A few weeks ago my sister and I went into a local yarn shop and they had a scarf made from ribbon yarn. They told me that ribbon yarn was no longer available so I sadly left the store. Heather sent me three skeins of this. I know that I can make something very cute with this.

Heather I truly appreciate your generosity. You are amazing. Thank you so much.

On The Road

Yesterday I went on a field trip to Parkersburg, WV with my knitting class. I left my house at 6:00 AM to meet up with our wonderful driver Linda. She volunteered to drive her Lincoln Navigator so that we could all go in one car. Linda is such sweet wonderful person. I could easily be best friends with this woman. She has a fear of sitting next to me when I have knitting needled in my hand but I think with time she will get over that. hahaha I tend to talk with my hands.

We drove to the hospital where we all work and the rest joined us and we were on the road again. This picture is of me and Retta. I am in the front passenger seat wearing green. Retta is such an inspiration. She is very independent and active. She is an animal lover like me so I knew when I met her that we could be friends.

Retta and Mary sat in the second seat of the Navigator and Bev sat in the third. Mary is possibly the funniest person I have ever met. She could be successful at doing stand up comedy. She had us in stitches. Bev is possibly the most giving and patient person that I have ever met. She never gets frustrated when she is helping us fix a mistake for the twentieth time in the same project. She calls our class her gifted class. All of her other classes the students graduated after 6-8 weeks. I think we will be lifers. haha

We first went to Crafts 2000. This store only has craft items and is about the size of a Super Walmart.  We spent more than two hours in this place. I spent $66 and thought that surely I would have spent the most but I wasn’t. I won’t tell who but someone spent more than $100. Made my heart proud. I have to admit that I went three weeks ago and spent another $47. We want to go back on another field trip here in about six months.

After this we were all ready for lunch so we found a little bar and grill that specializes in wings and ribs. They even had what they called Naked Wings. These are boneless chicken wings that are not breaded before cooking that have buffalo sauce on them. These are great for us low carbers. I had a salad with buffalo tenders that reminded me so much of my trip to Cozumel last year. 

With this place you got to choose from a very long list of sauces and hotness for your wings and ribs. We spent over two hours in this place laughing and sharing. We even had a sweet waitress take our picture for us.

Our next stop was at Market Street Yarn. This is a small local yarn shop but they carry some very nice yarns. The owner Sue was very sweet. She didn’t mind us touching all of the yarns and making a mess.  She was very good at explaining how to read a pattern to know which yarn thickness to use.  We spent about an hour here.

Here is a picture of Sue the shop owner.

If you don’t knit I highly recommend learning and if you don’t have a way to find a knitting group in your area I recommend you checking out www.ravelry.com. You can go to groups and do a search for your state. There are message boards for each state where people list their areas and local knitting classes and groups. They are very active. You are bound to find one that you fit in with.

Ravelry also has a very large database of knitting patterns. Many are free and the ladies over there are very generous in helping you out with a pattern if you need it.