Hello April

Well so far it has been a busy Spring. Lets hope that April is a little calmer. I did manage to finish Buster2 this past month in time for my friend's baby shower.

I used Rowan Wool Cotton for this one and really enjoyed working with it. It is size 1-2years.

And in a blink of an eye this little cutie will be big enough to wear it, whether Liz is ready or not! Isn't Julian just the most precious little guy. I couldn't stop sniffing his baby head, taking in that unduplicatable baby smell.

And look who followed me home today! He was looking so lonely on clearance at Hobby Lobby I just had to adopt him into my flock.

Any suggestions on a name for the precious ewe?

I was also busy buying presents for my FCS3 person. The bag is starting to fill with all sorts of crafty goodies. I sure do enjoy surprise shopping. Just a few things left to add and then off it will go next week.
And lastly here is the afghan a bunch of us knitters made for our dear friend Nicole . I hope it brings her warmth and comfort and she tackles chemo. I feel fortunate to know we have such a great network of knitters with generous charitable hearts. I pray I never need such an outpouring but I am so grateful to know that the support system is there. Well I am off to finish packing for a weekend retreat in the mountains. I can't wait. Leanne is picking me up at noon tomorrow and we are meeting Nachelle and then heading on up to Buena Vista. So far I have presents, wine, m&ms, wine, diet pepsi, and more wine packed. I think I better get on the rest or I am going to be naked with nothing to knit.

Favorite Color Questionaire

Favorite Color Swap Questionnaire
1. What are your top three favorite colors? crimson red, rich lush oranges (not bright) and blues
2. What crafts do you really enjoy? knitting, scrapbooking, cards, spinning, beads
3. What products do you really covet? any nice sock yarn
4. What other activities do you enjoy besides your favorite crafty things? kids, family, outdoors, reading, yoga
5. Is there anything you collect? yarn. lol. I would like to start collecting little sheep to display, so far I have three and they need friends.
6. What is your zodiac sign and/or Chinese zodiac symbol? Leo, Ox
7.What are your favorite……scents/smells?I like earthy rich scents, nothing flowery
…types of music and/or bands? alternative, modern rock
…authors? Amy Tan, Anita Shreve,
…animals? Cats
…places to shop? Target, LYS, JoAnne's
…season?fall and spring
…yarn/fabric/paper/other craft supplies? I like it all. Really would love to try some alternative yarns..bamboo, soy, corn etc
…candies or goodies? Anything chocolate, caramel...pretty much anything sweet
8. Do you have any wish lists?No
9. Are you allergic to anything? Nope
10. Do you have any pets? What are they? 2 cats
11. Please include anything else you would like your secret pal to know about you- anything that would be helpful in finding you little gifts that you will really enjoy. Also, if you have a Ravelry ID, please include it here.
I am pretty easy to please. My ravelry ID is Creativeprocess

Yarntopia Follow Up

I finally got the time to knit up some swatches of the yarns from Yarntopia Treasures. The yarn on the far left is bamboo, the center is the wool sock yarn I ordered, and the right is her best selling rayon boucle. I made two swatches of each yarn and tested one of them. The other set I simply got wet and blocked. Here is the first round of soaking in warm water. And this is the water after 30 min. I did a second soak, but I guess I forgot to take a picture after that one. On the first go around it looks like the bamboo bled the most. Cute little Pablo.



After the second soak I gave the test swatches a wash with a spot of dish soap. The bamboo and the rayon were clear but the sock yarn still bled some.
I gave the sock yarn one final soak in warm water and it bled minimally.
The control is on the left and the experiment on the right. This yarn is the one that faded the most, but not a whole lot more than other sock yarns I have bought from other big name manufacturers. It is still very pretty and I will most like purchase sock yarn from Tammy again.
The bamboo, again control on the left, which actually looks a little muddied from when I wet and blocked it. So I imagine that it would clear up if I subjected it to the same process. This one bled a bit at first but ran clear pretty quick. It is still just as vibrant however and has a beautiful sheen. I think I might order some more of this but don't have a clue what to make with it. Any suggestions? It is sock/fingering weight and I could probably get enough for any project so I am open.
Lastly the rayon boucle. This one, while bleeding a bit at the first bath, really looks the most like the original. It is super vibrant and lush, a very beautiful yarn indeed. Not sure what I will do with this one either, time to break out the One Skein Wonder book.
So in conclusion I am happy with the yarns I received from Tammy at Yarntopia. I appreciate her sending me the complimentary bamboo and rayon to test. I hope that my experiment was impartial and informative. I think there has been further clarification that Tammy is NOT MYC and is not affiliated with Danielle. I deleted a comment that sympathised with Danielle on an earlier post because I do not want anyone to think that I in anyway approve of the fraud that Mystical Creations has committed. I find it abhorrent to fake an life threatening illness and to steal from honest people. I hope that this experiment will allow others to have the opportunity to purchase from Tammy and enjoy her beautiful creations.

Mmm Dinner

One of my other favorite creative outlets is cooking. Using fresh ingredients and cooking comfort foods are some of my favorite inspirations. This past week I did quite a bit of cooking and I thought I would share with you a few pictures of the process. Tuesday we had homemade pasta. If you have never made your own pasta before I highly recommend it. All it takes is flour, eggs, a bit a of salt and a splash of olive oil and you have a endless possibilities. Maddie's favorite part is cutting the dough into the noodles. The whole process is indeed easier with an extra set of hands. We made both skinny spaghetti and big thick fettucinis. The spaghetti is in the freezer for future use.

Just a simple tomato sauce is all that is needed and some sausage makes it complete. Strike that, good Parmesan and Romano make it heaven.
Thursday we had Shepherd's pie. I had some of the filing from the rice balls from Santa Lucia left over in the freezer. I made some more and mixed it all together.
Then I made homemade ricotta cheese. Another delicacy that I highly recommend. See that spoon there, it is for tasting the warm soft cheese as it strains. Mmm...the best stuff in the world.
The cheese gets added to my mashed potatoes which also get flavor from a whole stick of butter. This is not a low fat meal by any means, and not something I cook often.

Mmm...the richest potatoes you'll ever taste.
And here is the shepherd's pie all ready to go into the oven.
Not everything do I make from scratch however. I do cheat occasionally and use this for my brown gravy. It actually is a good substitute for the real thing when I am lacking drippings for a proper sauce.
I had made two pies and froze one of them to give to my IL's but my children insisted that I keep it. So I guess I will take that as approval. Now with the rest of the ricotta I will be making ricotta gnoccis this coming week. They are like the potato ones but w/ the cheese instead of the potatoes, sorta like a ravioli all in one package.
But the only dilemma I have is where to put the left overs.

I can't think of a title Tues.

This weekend was a rough one. Our garage door broke and consequently dh was parked in the driveway. I unfortunately forgot this fact and managed to back into his truck denting both our vehicles in the process. Ugh. I also foolishly and carelessly have lost something I treasure and to all of you who believe in prayers and saints or some combo if you would please say a little prayer to St. Anthony I would be grateful. I will know Thurs. whether or not it is lost forever.

On the brighter side of things. Here is what I am currently spinning. It is a beautiful merino/tencel blend.

I started spinning it on the drop spindle with quite some success albeit slow. I was shooting for a nice fingering weight when plied. The consistency is pretty good, but not quite there yet.
Unfortunately it seems I am having a tougher time of it with the wheel though. This fiber is definitely more tricky than the others I have spun so far, and I am constantly breaking it. I am debating whether or not to go back to the spindle to finish the rest of this fiber or just stick it out with wheel and hope that it looks better when plied with the first spindle spun batch. We will see.
Recently a bunch of us local knitters pulled together to make an afgan for my dear friend Nicole who is kicking breast cancer's ass. It turned out to be quite lovely and I enjoyed working on the blocks that I contributed. I have never made an afgan before and although this project is now complete and gifted I feel the need to continue making squares.
So I bought a few more balls of the Berroco comfort, which is mighty soft but awfully splitty and am going to see how many squares I can make before I lose interest. I can't decide if I want to give this to my friend who just had a baby or continue with my plans for the Buster sweater V.2. If I do gift this afgan, I have figured I need to start whipping out a square a day to be done in time. Do you think 4x4 squares would suffice? The blocks are about 8.5 inches. Add to that the crocheted edge and then I would probably do a border as well. I like the one that Marly did on the afgan for Nicole, but I am not sure that my crochet skills are quite up to par to do that, so we will see.

Yummy new yarns

There has been a lot of talk on message boards about MCY (mystical creations yarn). Apparently they have been banned from ebay and etsy and have cheated a lot of innocent people out of their money. Unfortunately another ebay seller has been ensnarled in the mess and been accused of being MCY selling under another name. So I sent an email to Yarntopia and flat out asked what her affiliation is. She informed me that she was indeed a former employee but had been doing business on her own for several years now. After some correspondence I went ahead and decided to purchase some sock yarn. I received it last week and it is every bit as gorgeous as pictured in the auction. Tammy also sent me a skein of her best selling rayon boucle to test out as well. The colors are so vibrant and it has such a beautiful sheen. In addition she also sent me some of her 100% bamboo in the Starbucks colorway. It is so yummy, I want to drink it up like a big latte. She was quite kind to send me these complimentary skeins and I had indeed mentioned on ravelry that I would give her yarn a test. So in the next coming days I will knit up a swatch of each and give them a wash and see how they do. So far I am pleased with the yarn and eager to knit it. I do believe it is best to have a little knowledge before one threatens the reputation of a business. Sometimes our manners get lost on the internet and it is a shame.
I also recently purchased this mohair blend at Knit Knack. It is so soft, like big giant cotton candy skeins.
I am planning on knitting this sweater out of it. I think it is just darling and will hopefully be flattering.
And it was serendipity to find this yarn on sale. It was with all the Valentine colored yarns at Knit Knack calling out to me. It was in fact the first yarn I fondled as I wandered around the store.
And just merely a half an hour or so after I had been eyeing this pattern. Sure enough when I looked back at the pattern this indeed was the yarn it called for. So tell me now could you resist?
This will be a lovely spring garment, I hope to knit it soon, but I do have a long quere, so maybe it will be done next spring. I really need to get some of these projects done.

A Very Monkish Sunday

It started very innocently. Sat. evening while dh was napping I perused the gallery over at Two Peas in a Bucket. Looking at the pictures of some of these women's craft rooms are inspiring, daunting, and some just plain jaw dropping. Now I am happy with my little room and thrilled to even have a craft room, but there are a few things I would like to do in the future. I love the idea of an island, and built in cabinets would be awesome too, but for now, with two mortgages that just isn't in the cards. However, I could use the inspiration found in their rooms to improve mine at least organizationally. So alas when I awoke at 8:30 am on Sunday (I should have slept in since we were kid free) I began my task. I gathered all my scrapbooking embellishments from the various places they were currently inhabitating and started to sort. I began with all my letters. About half way into this I was starting to doubt my sanity, but I need not fear, when Dh walked in and surveyed my project he confirmed my suspicions that indeed I had crossed over into new OCD territory.
I must say that the payoff is good however. All my little letters and numbers now have a new home in the cute cubbies that sit on my desk. Oh and see the cute little hearts adorning the wall, my dearest little boy made those for me.
See, look at all the pretty Zs. Completely worth it.
Next I started sorting all the other embellishment by color. About the time I finished with this task my friend Mariah showed up for knitting. Ha, fooled her. Off we went to find the necessary storage devices to house my new organiztional system.
And after a couple of different stops and a bribe of dinner I found what I was looking for. I already had a few of these drawer units, but to do what I needed
would require 8 more. Thank goodness Mariah was there to help me get them out to the car. Each drawer hold a different color. And in each drawer is one of the these tackle units to hold the smaller items.
I also did drawers for my stickers. These are the baby and Christmas drawers. The other drawers are: flowers, sports, nature, travel, birthday, cards, saying and quotes, neutral alphabets, colored alphas and misc. Here are the colored alphas. So now I should be able to find things more readily. At least that is the plan.

Six of the 8 units. The other two are under the dresser (see baby/christmas pic). And lastly I sorted all my buttons and placed them in these cute little glass vases.
I found quite a few buttons that will be used shortly for knitting projects. Its amazing what you forget you have.
And while out shopping we hit Archivers and I purchases some goodies for V-day cards. I neglected to send Christmas cards this year due to all the commotion in our lives so instead I think I will have the kid's pics taken and send them with the valentines. I also plan on making some funky magnets with the papers on the left for some special people.
Can you guess whose card will be bestowed with the Love of My Life die cut?

It was indeed a productive day. I finished around 8pm, so almost a good 12 hours of work and a few more inches over the OCD line.
XOXO