It's Just A Phase, Really!

The other day I told my hubby, C$, that I was going to buy some yarn for a project. It's going to be a simply 2x2 ribbed scarf for my friend's little boy. So he said to "Go for it". So that's what I did. I went out in search of the perfect, water blue yarn. And how I did that was Google Water Blue Yarn. I couldn't find a yarn that was exactly labeled as Water Blue, but I did find several yarns that were in the same water family. I finally ended up ordering Knit Picks' Shine Sport River Blue yarn. Which arrived the other day and is absolutely gorgeous. So soft and light weight, I believe it will be a treat to work with.

But because I loved the yarn so much and Knit Picks' prices are so reasonable, I told C$ that I really wished I'd ordered more yarn. He told me to go out and get what I needed. Well, need is a realative term. Because do I really need more yarn... Well, yes I did, but did I need it right then... maybe not. But that didn't stop me. I hightailed it right back out there and ordered more more more yarn. To my defense, the bulk of what I ordered is for another promised scarf. But I did order me up a little something special though.

When this new shipment of yarn arrived I was in heaven. It is so gorgeous! Even more so than the images on the website. I'm ultra excited about using this yarn.

Now, I have to stop here and go back a little ways in time. See, this wasn't the first yarn I've bought. I'd gone on another yarn shopping spree very recently where I bought yarn to coordinate to some fabric I'd bought to knit/sew a few sundresses for my daughter. So that was a total of 3 other skiens of yarn.

In total, in the last month, I've purchased 15 skiens of yarn. Yikes! I know, I know. Right?! I'm crazy. I have so many projects all bubbling up in my head that I want to work on them all right now! But I can't. I only have so many hours- Ha! Did I just say hours? I mean minutes in the day that I can actually sit down and work on a project.

So what in the blue blazes was I thinking this morning when I went to eBay? To look at yarn? And then actually bid? On not one but three (3!) different auctions for yarn?

Holy hell! What am I going to do with that yarn?!

I've already won one auction this morning. The other two are up in a couple of days. My bids on those two are not that high, so we'll see if I win. But I want to win. The colors are so awesome!

Seriously though. This is not an addiction. I swear that it is not. It's a phase. I seem to go through them ever so often where I have to buy yarn. I just have to. The more the better. Someone mentioned on Facebook the other day in realation to a friend's comment that you can never have too much stash. And that's my story today. You can never have too much in your stash!

Goings On

Not sure what to title this post so I'm just going to type it up and then see if a title jumps out and grabs me before I hit go.

It was a busy weekend around the old homestead for me with a lot of goings on. Saturday it rained pretty much all day long and on into the evening. We had a very brief time in the AM when it wasn't raining and my daughter and I ran out to run an errand. By the time we got back home, about an hour later, it was starting to rain again. So with that small exception, we stayed inside all day.

Which was ok with me. We starting trying to wean her off the bottle this weekend. She did ok for the first day but by mid day Sunday, she wasn't doing so well. She wanted her bottle and refused the sippy. She drinks ok out of the sippy if it's water or juicy. She simply will not drink her milk out of the sippy though. So I'm not sure what to do. It may be that we're trying to rush her. We'll have to wait and see I guess. But in the mean time keep offering that sippy cup!

The rain cleared on out making it possible for us to go to my nieces tee-ball game on Sunday. That was a lot of fun. Those little guys were absolutely too cute hitting that ball and running those bases.

And during the inbetweens I frogged one of my Knitted finished objects (FO). I decided I could use that yarn for a better purpose. And actually set out to do so. That better purpose is a new design I'm trying to work up. I'll be sure to let you guys know how it goes. :)

And on that note, I'll sign off for today. And chat at ya later.

Gulp! I Did It!

Yes, that's right. I did it!

Now you might be asking yourself what exactly it is that I did. Well, I just uploaded my scarf pattern to the Raverly database. I'm officially listed as a designer. YIKES!

That makes me kind of nervous. But at the same time it makes me kind of excited since knitting and crocheting and even designing has become a recent passion of mine. I've been thinking about writing down my Ode To South Park knitted hat design and posting it as well. But first I must remember exactly how I made it, which means pulling out the hat and reviewing it. It also means taking more photos because the only photo I have of this hat is very old and not very good.

So, this isn't exactly the post I was going to post today but it certainly took precendce over everything else when I took the plunge. So tomorrow I'll post about what I was going to post today. Now, I'm going back over to Raverly to look at my designer page again.

I Did It My Way Crochet Scarf

As I mentioned the other day, I created this scarf in my attempt at teaching myself how to crochet. It started out with me just wanting to learn the basic crochet stitch, or stitches since there were two basic stitches involved, the chain and the single crochet.

I call this scarf "I Did My Way Crochet Scarf" because well, I did it my way, without a clue as to what I was doing. And now I'm going to share that way with you all. I've never written up a crochet pattern before, so bear with me as I try to get this right.

I Did It My Way Crochet Scarf

Hook :
9.0 mm (M/N)

Yarn :
YA - 1 skein Lion Brand Hometown USA Pittsburgh Yellow
YB - 1 skein Lion Brand Hometown USA Honolulu Pink

Additional Materials:
Yarn needle to weave in ends

Gauge: I didn’t really check gauge on this project since I was just going with the flow.

Instructions:

With YA Ch 9

Row 1: YA starting with second st from hook sc 8 through top loop only ch 1
Repeat row 1 6 times.

**Row 7: YB sc 8 through top loop only ch 1
Repeat row 7 2 times

Row 9: YA sc 8 through top loop only ch 1
Repeat row 9 2 times

Row 11: YB sc 8 through top loop only ch 1
Repeat row 11 4 times

Row 15: YA sc 8 through top loop only ch 1
Repeat row 15 2 times

Row 17: YB sc 8 through top loop only ch 1
Repeat row 17 2 times

Row 19: YA sc 8 through top loop only ch 1
Repeat row 19 4 times**

**Repeat this alternating pattern until scarf reaches desired length

Then using YB sc 8 through top loop only ch 1
Repeat closing rows 6 times

Weave in ends.

All done!

So how’d I do in writing and relaying my first written pattern? Let me know. Also, if you happen to try the pattern out, I’d love to hear back from you.

Or if you'd rather I email you the pattern, I have it saved as PDF complete with a graphic display. I can forward. Just leave me a comment.

The Continuous Law of Learning

Or could it possibly be the Law of Continuous Learning?

Or the Continuous Learning Law?

Either way, I think the point of it is that we are all continuously learning something. I know as a new mom, I think I can still say that even though my daughter recently turned one, I am constantly learning something new. Life is never dull, and it seems like time moves much too fast these days.

Even though, that learning is perhaps the most important learning I'm doing these days, it's not the learning in which I'm going to talk about today. I was thinking the other day about all the things I want to learn that are personal things. Things for me, to help me grow as an individual. All the things I'm interested in and how I can improve and possibly put that knowledge to a better use for me.

Well, I am interested in crafts, and I do know how to knit. I've knitted several projects and even designed few of them myself. Which I'm kind of proud of. So my next step was learning to crochet. I wanted to learn for the longest time. And every time I picked up the hook and yarn, I couldn't make it happen. The only thing I would have at the end of the day to show for my efforts was a long chain of yarn. And even though the chain stitch is important, it doesn't really get you anywhere. You know what I mean? Not unless you know what to do with it after you have. That was the part I couldn't make happen.

I read instructional materials, books, etc. Nothing seemed to get the process through my thick skull. So finally one day I decided I was going to see if video would do the trick. YouTube here I come.

I found this very helpful video from the Knit Witch on how to do a single crochet. So I practiced. And I practiced. And I practiced some more, until I thought I might have it right.

Since I wasn't really sure what I was doing, or how to read a crochet pattern, I decided a simple scarf might be the thing for me to do to practice my newly learned skill. So that's what I did.

And the result is this scarf.

I'll attempt to type up the actual pattern I created in my head as I worked along the stitch process and post it soon. But in the meantime, I am extremely proud of my "I Did It My Way Crochet" scarf. I finally tackled the dreaded crochet and improved my skills.

The Dinner That (almost) Was(n't)

As promised, I'm here today to tell you about that dinner fiasco the other night. It all started because I had some cube steak (That's what we call it down here in the south) in the freezer that needed to be cooked up.

Now, I think I should give you a little background at this point. You see, me cooking cube steak is about like me cooking pork chops. I can't do it. For some reason, the dish always turns icky! Don't ask me why, I don't know. It just does.

Anyway, I bought this cube steak a while back in hopes that I would make a wonderfully delicious meal. So it sat, and it sat, and it sat in my freezer until I couldn't stand the sight of it any longer and broke down and pulled it out.

"I'm going to cook you up and you will be yummy!" I says to the package of little buggers.

I actually found a recipe that I thought, hey, if I alter this and change that it just might work. Mind you, this original recipe was for pork chops, which if you remember, I'm not so great at cooking up in the first place. But I was determined, dang it!

So that night I set out to make the devine dinner for my family! Cube Steak in a Mushroom sauce, Mac 'n Cheese, rolls and Strawberry and Spinach salad.

First, the pieces of cube steak were HUGE! Way too big for my pan. I should have opened the package, cut all the steaks in two and then froze in seperate batches. I mean to say that these pieces of meat were huge would probably be an understatement. But at this point it was too late. I had to cook them all. So I started out on my mission.

Step 1: Cook the steaks.

This took way longer than it should have. Because they were so large it took me twice as long to cook them. Not only were they large, but they were thick as well.

Step 2: While steaks are cooking get water on for Mac 'n Cheese.

This was easy. Done!

Step 3: Cut up strawberries and mix dressing.

While working on step three, I was running back to step 1 to check the steaks and flip the steaks and put more steaks in the pan to cook.

Step 4: Assemble salad.

Well, this took longer than I thought. I cut up all the strawberries and feed some to my daughter and then I had to mix the dressing. I actually started to get into a groove until... I smelled something that didn't smell quite right. Then the lightbulb went off.

ARGH! The steaks are burning!!!

As luck would have it, the steaks themselves did not burn, only the pan. But that pan was to be used for the mushroom sauce. And I can't serve up burnt mushroom sauce. Oh no!

When I say burnt, I mean the pan was black! In no way, shape or form could I use it. I had to pull out another pan and make the sauce. So there was no goodness to be used from the pan from the steak seasonings.

The sauce did mix up ok and after that the rest of the meal came together fairly quickly. I had three large pieces of cube steak that were not put back in the sauce to simmer. There simply wasn't enough room. And surprisingly enough, the dish turned out more than just edible, it was pretty good. My hubby said he'd eat it again if I made it. I thought the main dish was a little bland. Maybe because I had to cook the sauce fresh without using the seasonings from the steak pan. Dunno.

The absolute best part was the salad though. And I will let you know about that little dish in an upcoming post. Until then, Ta!

Fiddle-Diddle

Well, it is now officially after Easter, after my baby girl's first birthday and I believe officially spring. I have to say, my Easter dinner did not go as planned below. We ended up going over to my in-law's house. Therefore, I did not cook. So the ham is now frozen, awaiting another day to be enjoyed. The Strawberry and Spinach salad however, was in enjoyed last night. Of which I will tell you all about in tomorrow's post.



But for now, I'm going to tell you that I'm working on a couple of projects that I'm actually getting kind of excited about. I don't have any real details to share yet. Everything is still in the planning stage. But I have become a slight bit obsessed. It's all I can think about. Which isn't a good thing when I have my day job to get done.

Speaking of day jobs, I have to get moving on mine. But don't worry. I'll be back tomorrow, promise, to tell you about that dinner. And be sure to keep an eye for updates on my projects as well.

Dinner is Planned

I have my Easter dinner all planned out I think. This will be my first big dinner. As in, the first big Easter dinner that I, myself, have fully executed. So for good or bad, it’s full steam ahead at this point.

The Menu:

Ham (cooked in the slow cooker with a coating of brown sugar and pineapple)
Strawberry and Spinach Salad
Baked Beans
Bunny Rolls

I may toss in another veggie. Not sure yet. But for now, that’s it for dinner. Now I have to do the shopping to get everything I will need.

Sunday is also my daughter's first birthday. So I'll be cooking up some birthday cake for her as well. Can't wait!!