Week in Review (vol 3)

Not too much has been going on around here this week. I've mostly been playing catch-up; however, I did manage to dredge up a few things to bore you with. Enjoy!

1.
This week I attempted to make homemade vegan yogurt. It wasn't all that good. I'm not sure what went wrong, but it didn't have that yummy yogurt tang. And the consistency was a little odd. I think that I will give it one more try though. I really like the idea of making my own.

2.
For those of you who are knitters, crafters, sewers, scrapbookers, etc., you know that Jo-Ann Fabrics is having a sale. I know, Jo-Ann's runs sales all the time, but this is a SALE! This time they have McCall's patterns for $0.99. And I've had my eye on this pattern for a while:

Ever since my Knit Sib Michelle showed me her little fold-up bag, I knew I just had to steal hers make one of my own.

For those of you who are familiar with McCall's patterns, they are expensive. And they don't go on sale very often. So while I was there I had to take a look. I may have picked up one or two additional patterns. Please don't tell the Engineer.

The fabric was on sale too.

3.
I noticed somewhere around Tuesday that we were out of food. So I'm not sure how I made it through the rest of the week without going to the grocery store. I went this morning. I only bring this up because I really hate putting the groceries away!

Pickles!

This post actually starts with my attempt to make homemade vegan yogurt. I needed some mason jars to put the yogurt in while it was "yogurting". Now I knew that I had some laying around because I had dabbled in canning a LONG time ago. And since I always knew I'd get back to it, I just couldn't part with them.

After some searching, I found what I was looking for hiding in a dark corner of the basement:

So I opened it up, and instead of a boxed filled with clean empty jars, I was surprised to see...

PICKLES!

Now, I can't remember the last time I made pickles. It might have been before the Princess was born. (I didn't write a date on the pickle jar.) I did remember however, that the last batch of pickles was exceptionally good. So I did what any sane a rational person would do, I tired them!

OMG! It was FABULOUS! All that was left was some pickle juice.

There, on the plate, can you see it?



Catch Up

As I mentioned yesterday, a lot has been going on here in the last two months.

1.
I've finished some knitting projects, are you surprised?

The Princess's Cardigan

Morgan (I know this is a very bad picture)

The Bear's Happy Birthday Vest. I finished last night!!!!

(I still have to get some good pictures of him wearing it.)

A baby gift (vest and hat) for the Bear's teacher, she had a beautiful baby boy at the beginning of April.  I'm sorry to say that I don't have a picture. I was up against one of those pesky knitting deadlines (she left on maternity leave 2 weeks early) and I plum forgot!

2.
I found out that I'm going to be an Aunt, twice! Both my sister, and my sister-in-law are due in October. Needless to say there is much baby knitting going on around here. I have already finished knitting Part 1 of The Epic Baby Project!  Sorry no pictures at this time as this is a big surprise, and I don't want to give anything away.

3.
Other than my spare bedroom (which I think will be a separate post), I'm woefully behind on my house cleaning and decluttering. Fly Lady and I have become more of occasional acquaintances than everyday friends over the last two months. I really need to reconnect!

I think I'll leave it here for now.  I wouldn't want to overwhelm you with two full months all at one time. Besides, I have to stretch this catch up post out a bit. I don't really have any ideas right now for the rest of the week.

Time Allocation

Wow I can't believe that it's been over two months since I’ve written a blog post. As you can imagine a lot has been going on over here. I will try to get you all caught up in the next week or so, but for now let’s talk knitting.

Last Monday, my baby boy turned 9! I really can’t figure out where 9 years have gone. What does this have to do with knitting you may ask? Well, I decided that I was going to knit him a sweater vest for his birthday. And not just any sweater vest, this sweater vest…

 Pembroke Vest

I’ve been eyeing it for few years now. Considering that the pattern only goes up to a size 8 (not that this has ever stopped me before), I thought that this might be a good time to actually knit it!

Now, I’m normally a fairly good judge of how long it will take me to knit an item. The baby version (6 month size) took me under a week. So I thought no problem, I can knock this thing out in about 2 weeks. I made some progress, but…

I forgot that I had invited 30 people to my Passover Seder, and I started it late. This is a bad combination when it comes to knitting deadlines. Needless to say I’ve missed mine. I still have half a front, and some ribbing left to knit. What are the odds that I can finish it by tonight?

Has it really been two weeks?

Ok, I know that I haven't been around for a while. Two weeks to be exact. I'm not really sure how that happened. I had good intentions, don't we all?

You probably want to know what's been going on around here. (Even if you don't, you're here so I'll tell you.) I think I'll put this in list form:

1.
To start right after my last blog post, I caught a cold, which is still stubbornly hanging around.  That made things a little bit difficult.

2.
The Princess has a birthday coming up on Friday! We will talk more about that later in the week. Anyway, we had an early party for her so Bubbie and Zayde could make it in. Here are some (not fabulous) pictures:

Hoppy Birthday!

There was some opening of gifts.

And there was some silliness

3.
My friend Sheila had an amazing brunch. There was food everywhere, and a ton that I could eat!!! And there were good friends to go with the good food. I was having way too much fun to take pictures.

4.
I finished some knitting projects, and started a few more, but we'll talk about those later in the week also.

5.
I'm sure that a lot more has happened over the last two weeks. Or maybe not, I do live a very boring life. But that is all I can think of for now.

Dying Delight

Today, among other things, I dyed two skeins of yarn using Wilton food dye. It's overcast here, no surprise there, so I had trouble getting the colors just right in the photo. They are just spectacular in person.

I love using food coloring, because I can use all of my kitchen tools/utensils. However, it only works on protein/animal fiber. It's lucky that I just so happened to have two skeins of natural superwash wool yarn laying around.

There are many tutorials out there if you plan on trying this, but because it makes a great blog post, I'll show you what I did!

Here is what you will need:

Yarn

Wilton Food Dye - I used Teal

Crock Pot

White Vinegar

Gloves (not pictured)

Measuring Cup (not pictured) 

Tongs (not pictured)

I dyed one skein of yarn at a time in a standard household crock pot.

Step #1:

Fill the crock pot 2/3 full with almost boiling water. You could use room temp water and let the crock pot heat it up, but I just didn't want to wait that long. Add 3/4 cup white vinegar. Set the Crock pot to HIGH.

Step #2:

Creating your dye bath.

This is where you add your food coloring. You could mix it separately in a small measuring cup with water and then add to the crock pot, but I threw caution to the wind and just mixed it straight into the crock pot.

It was sort of hard to see how saturated the color was because I have a dark green insert. So to check the color, I dipped a white coffee filter in the mix. Sorry no picture, I was way too involved to snap one.

Once you get to the saturation you want move on to step #3. A word to the wise, err on the side of less dye, you can always make it darker if its too light.

Step #3:

Adding your yarn to the dye bath. You have many options here depending on the effect you want.

For my skein #1, I wanted a tonal effect. Therefore, I twisted my skein first,

and then added it to the dye bath dry. Why dry? I did this so the outside would absorb more of the dye than the inside. My pictures didn't turn out because it was all very dark.

Note: make sure your yarn is fully covered. Add more hot water if necessary.

I covered the crock pot, left it on HIGH, and let the yarn sit for about 45 min. Then I went back, and using tongs, I slowly untwisted the yarn and gently swirled it around a bit. I covered it again and left it for about another 45 minutes or so.

.....................................................................................................................................

For skein #2, I wanted a more solid color. Therefore, the yarn was soaked the in warm water for 15 minutes, then the excess water was squeezed out. I slowly added the yarn to the dye bath and gently swirled it a bit , It should look a little like this:

Again I covered the crock pot, set it on HIGH, and let it sit for about 1 1/2 hours.

.....................................................................................................................................

At this point the water should be clear, and all of your dye exhausted. If it isn't, cover and let sit for another 1/2 hour. If you are happy with your yarn (I was) move on to Step #4. If not, mix more food coloring with a 1/2 cup water and carefully add to the crock pot.

Step #4:

Rinsing the yarn

Using the tongs, carefully remove the yarn and let cool. I just set mine in the sink. Gently run under warm water until no more dye bleeds out. Squeeze out excess water.

Step #5:

Heat setting the color.

Now, because the yarn was sitting in a nice hot dye bath for 1 1/2 hours, this step is probably not necessary, but I threw it in for good measure. I set mine using steam.

I covered and steamed the yarn for 15 minutes, then allowed it to cool.

All that's left now is to hang the yarn to dry, step back, and admire your beautiful hand-dyed yarn! Oh and of course take lots of pictures and show off!

Oh the weather outside is frightful...

Here in Northeast Ohio we have been having the most ridiculous weather patterns. This morning I woke up to heavy rain and thunder. Yes, thunder. In January. In Northeast Ohio. So I thought that I would share with you what January looks like to date. Let's have a look, shall we?

Here is the forecast for today  (courtesy of wkyc.com):

Monday will start out with Rain & Thunderstorms, becoming more widely scattered this afternoon. It will be very windy. Winds: South 15-25, gusts to 45 mph. High: 52 F.

As of right now it has stopped raining, the sun made a brief appearance, and it is a comfortable 47 F.

I think that I'm finally feeling the effects of this weather roller coaster. So please excuse me while I climb back in bed and take a nap.

Week in Review (vol 2)

I know that this is becoming a theme this week, I meant to post this yesterday. Better late that never, right?!
1.
I have a favorite pair of gloves. They look like this:

I knit these back in 2010. A couple of weeks ago I was wearing them when I noticed they had a small hole between the first and middle finger. That's funny it wasn't there when I put them on. So I took them off to have a closer look.

Sure enough one of the tails had worked itself out. I set them aside to fix them, and they quickly became buried under all the junk stuff that had accumulated in the sitting room. As I was cleaning up, I came across them. Yet another bonus to the mad cleaning.

I'm happy to report they they all fixed and I'm happily wearing them. I will have to remember to do a better job of weaving in my end in the future.

2.
We had a birthday here this week. The Engineer turned...... (OK, you know I not going to say.) What's a birthday without a cake? I made banana cake with caramel frosting. Everyone enjoyed it, and it didn't last very long.

3.
Valentines Day is fast approaching. This means that I have to come up with valentines cards for the kids to take in for their classmates. We've had some issues recently with food allergies (and parents disregard for them). Therefore, I was determined that this year I'm going to send in completely food-free valentines.

I'm also not a big fan of the cookie-cutter cards that you can get at Wally mart (thanks Deb), and each of the kids come home with 2 or 3 of each one. So, thanks to my addiction to Pinterest and my wonderful Knit Sib Larissa I made heart crayons.

I used up all the old broken crayons we had lying around the house. They're not done yet, I still have to turn them into valentines. Stay tuned and I'll show them to you when I'm done.

4.
One of my favorite Disney movies is Beauty & the Beast. The kids and I met some wonderful Friends at the theater for some 3D fun. We all had great time. I think I enjoyed the movie more than the kids.

5.
This week the appliances felt that they were feeling slightly neglected and need some attention. I had to have a repair guy out not only for the washer, but the oven as well. My bank account is significantly lighter, but the everything is in working order, for now.

And because I know that you've been on pins and needles waiting for the update. The house survived the 4 day weekend! I even managed to make some progress.

6.
I'm beginning to recover from my recent bout of startitis. I'm making progress on my Traveling Woman and The Last Holiday Gift. My gloves however are still mocking me from the bottom of my knitting bag.

Going overboard in the process

**Warning**  This is a LONG post!

I had originally intended for this to be two posts, but since I didn't get a chance to blog yesterday, you get to enjoy one big blog today. Lucky you!

Let's start with Post #1:

As you are probably aware, I'm in the process of cleaning and organizing our house. This is a difficult task for me as I'm a bit of a pack rat. I know that we have way too much stuff, but I can find an excuse to keep almost anything.

So to keep me on track, I'm going to start posting pictures of some of the items that are in the process of finding new homes. I'm not near as good as my Knit Sib Deb over here at The 100 Days Cleanout, but let's just see what we have.

These came from a picnic basket set that we had many years ago. I had to get rid of the basket a while ago because it fell apart, but for some unknown reason I hung on to these.

I think that the kids have out grown their plactic IKEA dinnerware set (at least I'm getting tired of trying to find a place for it in the cabinet.) I seem to have collected just a few glass measuring cups. I know they're useful, but really how many do I actually need?

There are also some random items, like old coolers and clothes the kids have out grown, but please forgive me for not taking a picture of those. 

Moving onto Post #2:

The last holdout.

I was very much focused on getting my main floor cleaned and organized. I tackled the kitchen (including most of the cabinets), the dining room, the foyer and foyer closet, even the laundry closet.

All that was left was the sitting room (so called because I like to sit in here and knit). But it was overwhelming! I just didn't know where to start. Let me show you the chaos that has run rampant. (As before please don't judge me on the before pics.)

I started attacking it very meticulously. I set my timer for 15 minutes and started with one small corner. Overall, it took me about a week to cleanup. Since I know you're just dying to see how it looks now lets get going with the after picture!

This is about the point where I went overboard. In the process of cleaning out the room, I decided that something had to be done about my picture wall. At one point I had just slapped some pictures on the wall and they'd been there ever since:

What was I thinking? Please don't answer that!

So I pulled down the old pictures and went running around the house looking for more pictures and frames. This took about an hour or so. Then came the fun part. I laid all of the picture on the dining room floor and started arranging. 

Once I was happy with it, I snapped a quick picture (so I wouldn't forget the placement) and started to put them up on the wall. I have a lot of nail holes that I have to go back and fill in! But in the end I was was very pleased with the gallery wall I created.

Please excuse me while I take a moment and pat myself on the back. Ok, moment over. Before I leave you for today, I wanted to draw your attention to the piece in the middle. This is a shaddow box that the Teacher made for us after our wedding.

I'm embarred to admit tha this wonderful piece of artwork has been hiding in the guest room for the past ummm cough cough eleven years. I want to say "I'm sorry" to the Teacher for having negected it for so long. But, it really is very happy in it's new home. (Please excuse the lousy picture, I'm not a very ood photographer.)

The Laundry Closet

All of us have a space in our home that is just not very functional. Mine is the laundry room Well, seeing as it is only slightly larger than the foyer closet, for all intents and purposes its a laundry closet. And like most closets it's difficult to organize and it collects clutter.

With the repair guy coming to look at the washing machine today, I thought I should take some time and clean it out. I actually took some before pictures, but I'm a smidge embarrassed to show them.

before

(please don't judge me by my before pics)

After

(yes, I really needed four pictures to show-off)

Now, before you think I'm superwoman (ok, you can stop laughing now), I only organized one cabinet and one drawer. My goal was to make sure nothing falls on the poor unsuspecting repair guy. I'm really hoping that he can fix it TODAY!!!!

Week in Review (vol 1)

I have decided that Friday's will be a week in review. My chance to ramble on about the comings and goings that didn't make it into the blog. That being said, I'm having some trouble remembering what I did this week. I will have to take notes in the future.

Morning Routine:

If you've happened to pop over to Fly Lady, and looked around a bit, you would notice she's a big fan of routines. My big push this week has been my Morning Routine. So here it is:

Get up
Make the bed
Get the kiddos ready for school (with help from the Engineer)

Make breakfast
Make lunches
Empty the dishwasher
Run a load of laundry
Clean the main floor bathroom
Get the kiddos on the bus.

It's been working for us so far. We'll see if it still works next week.

Yet anther knitting group?!

On Monday I met a friend at the local Starbucks. We hadn't gotten a chance to sit down and schmooze since the holidays. While we were there I stumbled upon a knitting group. How did I not know that there was a group that met right here in my fair city?

I don't know how I could have missed this! They seem like a great group of ladies. I would love to try and go for a bit. Not next week though, the kids are off for MLK day.

The washing machine fiasco:

If you noticed from my morning routine, I've been running a load of laundry every morning. Yesterday however, I decided I needed to run an extra load. So before dinner I loaded up the washer, hit start, and went merrily on my way.

About a half hour later I hear a beeping coming ominously from the laundry room. Hmmmm, why is the washer not spinning? May it's just feeling a bit tired. So I hit cancel and let it rest for a few minutes. Then I ran a rinse/spin cycle.

Then I hear it! Clunk! Clunk! Clunk! And the washer starts hollering beeping at me again.

Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

Needless to say, I still have a soaking wet load of laundry that needs attention, and the repair guy is scheduled for Monday. Wish me luck!

Startitis!

It happens every January. I get a bad case of startitis.

startitis: refers to a rarely fatal affliction that often affects knitters and crocheters where they begin several projects all at one time but don't really make much progress on anything before starting another new project.

In the past week I've knit 3 hats:

Started the Traveling Woman Shawl (I know it doesn't look like much now):

Started the Princess's birthday cardigan:

and, started the last of my holiday knitting. Yes, I'm a little behind. I won't show a picture yet, because the recipient might actually read this.

On a more encouraging note, I did manage to restrain myself from casting on this amazing shawl:

I plan on casting on in February after I've finished the 4 projects I'm currently working on. I'll let you know how that goes.

Updates:

I'm making slow, but steady progress on my gloves. I have the index fingers and the thumbs left.



My kitchen and dining rooms are still clean. So is my foyer and foyer closet. I'm also still working on the sitting room. Next week will be our first big challenge as the kids are off of school both Monday and Tuesday.

I can't believe I actually did this!

As I was trolling Pinterest, I came along this neat idea for the inside of the cabinet. I fell in love with the idea as I always have trouble locating the right size measuring spoon. It always seems to disappear just when I need it. So, without further ado...

I would like to proudly introduce you to today's project! I'm not sure how my husband, the Engineer, will feel about the pink, but I love it!

Let me take you through the steps.

1. This is what I started with. (The only thing I had to buy was the hooks.)

2. I painted the paint stirrers a beautiful pink. I was planning on doing 2 coats of paint, but I was very happy with how it looked after the first coat. Why do extra work? I then pre-drilled the holes for the hooks so the wood wouldn't split.

3. I used a black paint pen to write the measurements on the stirrer, and screwed in the hooks. Everything was moving along just dandy until this point. This is where I realized that the screw was longer than the thickness of the the paint stirrers.

Not to be deterred, I went out to the garage and found these handy things to snip off the end of the screw. (And before you ask, yes I was wearing my safety glasses.)

4. I wasn't prepared to permanently attach this to my cabinets, so I used these hady damage-free hanging doodads.

5. For the measurements chart, I used black poster board and a pink paint pen.

All in all, the project took about 2 hours! And just to update you, my kitchen is still clean.