Knitting up a storm

Sock, socks and more socks!  I am now obsessed with knitting socks.  I have finished one in the pair of my first socks ever and I LOVE the way it turned out and I love the way it fits my foot...perfect!  So I have cast on for the second sock in this pair (because I can't show them off unless I have both socks).  But got bored with the solid green color so I started another pair of socks in crazy, wild variegated colors and love them too!  The first pair of socks are light green with striped heels and toes in greens, blues and yellows.  I will eventually post a picture when they are both finished.

Now that I've started listening to a lot of knitting podcasts I've decided to go through my stash of yarn and get rid of the acrylic stuff and upgrade to nicer stuff.  I donated a whole trash bag full to the Wednesday morning knitting group at my church!  

As I was going through my stash I found a lot of UFO's (UnFinished Objects) that I'd like to finish.  So along with my two pairs of socks I am also finishing up two scarves that I started about two years ago. 

I joined Ravelry about a month ago and just today took some pictures that I hope to eventually post here and on Ravelry.  They are nothing spectacular so don't get too excited (just scarves) but I can't wait to take pictures of my socks!

Happy knitting everyone!

Holiday Tradition

I just love Thanksgiving.  I love when family gets together and visits and reminisces about holidays past.
As a child my parents and brother and I would go over to my grandparents house, a little over an hour away, for Thanksgiving.  I can remember the smell my grandfather's pipe and watching the balloons in Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade on tv.  I can hear my mom and grandmother putting all the delicious food on the table and I can't wait to dig my fork into grandma's SPINACH CASSEROLE!

But my grandfather died in 1989 and my grandmother moved into a retirement community.  My grandmother was a spunky lady.  She was fun and energetic and she lived to be 100 years old.  Sadly she passed away three years ago.  But her and my grandfather's memory lives on.  Not only through the times we've shared but through her SPINACH CASSEROLE. 

Now that I'm married and have children of my own we have Thanksgiving at our house and I make my grandmother's SPINACH CASSEROLE.  Thanksgiving was a few weeks ago and my husband's cousin asked everyone at the table if we would like to share any holiday traditions that our families had.  I was able to share the story behind the spinach casserole they each had on their plates and I told them that I would forever make it in remembrance of my grandmother.

Susan then asked my dad if he remembered having this spinach casserole as a child.  He said "Oh yeah!"  He also added that they had it on other occasions too, not just Thanksgiving.

I do not have the recipe as it's in my head.  My mom has it and she keeps telling me that if I want it she can give it to me but I'd just as soon make it as I remember it.  It consists of chopped spinach, cream of mushroom soup, hard boiled eggs, cheddar cheese and bread crumbs layered about 2-3 times and the put in the oven for about 45 minutes.

Happy Thanksgiving (a little late) everyone!

Nature is a great resource

Joshua, my four year old, enjoys being outside and it was a perfect afternoon to go on a nature walk and to explore the world around us.  We collected fall leaves, pine cones and pine needles to make a festive wreath.  I normally don't decorate much for fall (because I like to jump straight to Christmas) but this year I've been inspired by the gorgeous colors of the fall leaves.  Plus I absolutely LOVE doing arts and crafts with Joshua.  We made a huge wreath to hang over the mantle so all of our family will be able to see it for Thanksgiving.  After we were finished with the wreath I sprayed it with poly acrylic to preserve the colors of the leaves (hence some of the shininess).

  Pine cone turkeys and garland are still in the works!

Progress

Well it's not much but I'm super excited about my FIRST pair of socks!!  I'm not used to knitting with such small needles (sz 4) it feels like I'm knitting with toothpicks!  But this is my ultimate goal in knitting... knitting my own pair of socks and I'm doing it, hurray!

Thought For The Day

I attended a Women's Retreat a few weeks ago.  The theme was Worry.  What do we worry about and how do we let go and give our worries and fears to God.  Everyone's placement had a different quote and I liked this one the best.

Have a beautiful Sunday everyone!

Looks can be deceiving

I don't like to cook.  My husband is the chef in this house and he makes dinner every night.  But I like to bake... cookies, cakes, pies, you name it.  So when I came across this book called Two-Bite Cupcakes by Viola Goren I had to have it.  Just the photos on the front let you know that there is more to cupcakes than cake and icing:

And then when you flip through the book it definitely expands your mind to think outside the box, or cupcake liner as it were.  For example on page 104 there are "Sun-dried Tomato & Basil Cupcakes".  This will definitely be a finger food I'll be making this holiday season:

For breakfast you could serve up Sticky Bun Cupcakes (found on page 55):

There are, of course, more "sweet" cupcakes such as Snickers Cupcakes and Chocolate Porcupine Cupcakes.  But I believe my absolute favorite is going to be the Orange & Chocolate Cupcakes.  Wow how yummy is that? 

This is one of my secrets (and I'm glad to see that someone shares my taste buds): I LOVE orange and chocolate together.  And when I'm really craving these two flavors I've been known to buy orange sherbet and put Hershey's chocolate syrup all over it.

Today my little mini cupcake pans were just staring at me waiting for me to  bake something in them.  So for starters I bought a fudge brownie mix from the grocery store and made little brownie bites:

Wow don't they look delicious?!

Looks can be deceiving... they were as hard as ROCKS!!!  Or as my mom and I would say "They were as hard as HOCKEY PUCKS!"  But have no fear I made another batch that turned out yummy and chewy and chocolaty and delicious.

I will be adding a new segment to my blog posts and that will be baking because I do believe baking is a form of creativity.

Update on my knitting projects:

1.  I now have about 400 of the 725 beads strung onto my skein of yarn I will be making a beaded scarf out of.

2.  I started knitting my very first pair of socks!!  I have cast them onto my double pointed needles and have done about two rounds so far.  I am super excited but Ive never worked with needles this small, I'm used to working with size 11 (US) and my socks are on size 4 (US) needles.

For great craft ideas check out...

There is this awesome website out there that I think everyone should know about, it's called One Pretty Thing.  It's so different from any other website I've ever visited.  She gathers links to other websites on crafting ideas and tutorials and posts them here.  She updates every single day and, well, you just have to check her out:  http://www.oneprettything.com/ 
I copy and pasted Rachel's description of her own website which is a lot better than I did: 

Welcome to One Pretty Thing- a daily website dedicated to bringing you inspiring projects for a handmade life. I'm Rachel and I scour the craft forums, sites and blogs to bring you the best tutorials and DIY projects from across the internet.
Weekday mornings One Pretty Thing will showcase a different holiday, seasonal or project-specific Roundup of projects from across the internet.
In the afternoon I publish The Daily DIY- a compilation of the day’s DIY projects from around the blogosphere. On weekends I feature reader projects from the One Pretty Thing Flickr community, and an additional Weekend Roundup!
One Pretty Thing welcomes submissions, ideas and project requests. If you’d like your project included in The Daily DIY, just email! If there is something you would like to see featured, email as well! While I cannot respond personally to every email, I will let you know if I'll be linking to your project.
If you'd like to share a completed craft, consider uploading a picture to the One Pretty Thing Flickr group. You might see your picture and link in a future Flickr Friends Roundup post!
One Pretty Thing
P.O. Box 6397
Eureka, CA 95502

"Friday's Photo"

Even though today is not Friday I've decided to add a little something to my blog, I'm calling it Friday's Photo.  Before my knitting needles, paint brushes and sewing machines I had a camera.  My first "real" hobby was photography.  Around the age of six my dad taught me how to use his camera and ever since then I've been fascinated my them.  He didn't have to explain much to me because it was a 110 film camera, but I was amazed that you could push one little button and capture an image on paper forever.  As time went on he taught me how to use his manual focus SLR film camera.  I fell in love with photography all over again.  We are in the digital age now and I remember it taking me a long time to convert over because if I didn't have a negative in my hand then chances were I could loose an image forever.  I've since gotten past that and have been shooting digital for about 15 years now. I have two cameras that I love and do not travel without them; they are my Canon Digital Rebel and my Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ18.

So all of this to say that I have hundreds if not thousands of photos I've love to share with the world.  I am on Flickr but I initially set that up so I could share pictures with my relatives that were far away.   

I may be changing the title of Friday's Photo to something else if I find that I'm posting more than one a week. 

I welcome you fall with open arms...

(Photograph taken at Colonial Williamsburg).