Happy weekend!

Oh my I am so glad it is Friday! Happy for the weekend. I have just finished 2 Hot Hats since I came home from work. In honor of National Crochet Month my goal is to crochet as much as I possibly can. So I started off with Hot Hats and plan to crochet a few potholders. The Hot Hat are so easy and quick. We are in for a chilly and rainy weekend. If is was up to me I would not go out of the house. Tomorrow I will go out because I my friend as a going away birthday party for her son. He leaves on Monday for basic training he joined the Army. I am looking forward to the party but I hate getting out in the rain. After the party I will need to make a trip to the grocery store. I want to recreate the Zuppa Tuscan soup at Olive Garden I have a recipe from a friend at work, I am not sure if I will use that recipe or one from Youtube. I will update you on Sunday night about the soup. Still reading A Meeting in the Ladies' Room, by Anita Doreen Diggs it is a great read. Happy National Crochet Month.

National Crochet Month

March is National Crochet Month. So in honor of National Crochet Month my plan is to crochet as much as I possible can during the month. Tonight I started and finished a Hot Hat. I you love instant gratification crochet a few Hot Hats! You can find the pattern on Ravelry.com . Reading A Meeting in the Ladies' Room, Anita Doreen Diggs. Last Night I finished the Beth's Little Star Afghan. So happy with the way it turned out. Watching American Idol. Its Friday Eve and I am looking forward to the weekend.

Leap Day

It's Leap Day!, I hope everybody had a great Leap Day. My day was filled with lots of hard work. Now I am at home watching American Idol and adding the last round to the Beth's Little Star Afghan I started a few weeks ago. Reading A Meeting in the Ladies Room, Anita Doreen Diggs great read so far. Last night I downloaded Hard Times, Charles Dickens onto my Kindle. The group I belong to on Ravelry The Charles Dickens Group started a read along in honor of Dickens bicentenary. I did not start the first book and will have to go back the and read the first book A Tale of Two Cities. It was so cool to download Hard Times on my Kindle only .99 cents.

Gray and Soggy Monday

No snow or sleet this weekend. Unlike last Sunday it was dry mild weather. Today it was gray cloudy and rainy. Tomorrow promises to be sunny and warm. My plan for last weekend was to meet my friend from work so that I could help her with the baby afghan she's planning to crochet for a friend. I received a call from her on Saturday morning and she could not make it to the library so now we have to reschedule. Our library does not open on Sunday and I am not sure most of the restaurants around here would be happy about two crocheters hanging out most of the afternoon never spotted any crochet or knitting in the mall or restaurants in Asheboro. I know Asheboro has knitter's and crocheter's but I think most are in the closet. Finished reading The Choice, Suzanne Woods Fisher it is base on the life of the Amish. It is part one of the Lancaster County Secrets Series. Great read. Part to and three are out and books a million has both. Pay day on Wednesday so I will pick up part to on Wednesday. Current read A Meeting in the Ladies' Room, Anita Doreen Diggs just started during my afternoon break at work so only on page 3. My first knitted afghan off the needles and now all I need to do is weave the end's. Still working the Beth Little Start crochet afghan. Already added a round since I got home from work.

My Sunday Afternoon

The day started out cold and rainy. My Daughter planned for us to go out to eat to celebrate my birthday which was on the 16th since that is a day through the work week I did not want to go on my birthday. What I did not know to start with was she had invited almost 14 other people! 3 of my very good friends. My Aunts and a few Cousins. We went to Olive Garden. I love Olive Garden. I had the soup and salad. My Cousin Nicole Jones made and decorated a cake for me it was beautiful. She has started a business making cakes, and cookies. She make cakes for birthday's, weddings, and all sort's of event's . The cakes are homemade not from a box. The time spent with family and Friends was great. I am still working on both the knit and crochet baby afghan's. Still reading A Plain & Fancy Christmas, by Cynthia Keller. We had a little snow today so my ride home from Greensboro was a little rough and slow, slide just a Little but it was not bad no damage to me or the car. It took me an over an hour for me to get home normally it's only 30 minutes. What can I say it's North Carolina and it's snow.

Going On To The Next Round

My work on the Beth's Little Star Afghan I started continues to progress. Almost finished with round 16!. The afghan looks great. Added a row to the knitted afghan, watched American Idol. My plan is to spend sometime reading tonight. It is hump day and I am on the downward slide to the weekend.

My First Knit Afghan

Last night I started my first Knit afghan. Over the weekend I brought 5 skeins of Bernat Baby Blanket in Pitter Patter. A very pretty color. It is a chunky soft yarn . Friday night I tried the Beth's Little Star and did not like the way it looked, then tried The Crazy Stitch did not like that either. So last night on Ravelry I did a search and found a few projects using the Bernat Baby Blanket. The project that stood out for me was the diagonal blanket you can find the pattern on plymouthyarn.com it is a free pattern number F 138. You have to use circular needles. Even though I learned to knit in 2007 I have never used circular needles to knit straight or in the round. I have used double pointed needles. So after reading the pattern and what you needed to get started, so I went in search of size 15 24" or larger circular needles. Found them in my bedroom. Took a deep breath and cast on. Went to youtube to find a video to make sure I was going in the right direction. I feel like I am off to a good start. Added two rounds to the Beth's Little Star Afghan. My friend Angela called me tonight to help her with her Beth's Little Star Afghan. Tomorrow at work I will help her and make sure she is off to a good start. The Afghan is knit like a Grandmother Favorite Dishcloth you cast on four and knit two rows after that you knit 2 yarn over and knit to the end of the row. You repeat this row until you have 62 stitches on the needle. Over 40 rows end and so far so good. Getting ready to go to bed an read. Happy Crafting.

Great Day for Reading and Crochet

Spent the day reading and crocheting. Picked up a book at the library yesterday, and started reading last night. The book is A Plain & Fancy Christmas, by Cynthia Keller. I Know a Christmas theme book well what can I say it appealed to me. So far I am enjoying the read it is about the Amish and I love books involving the Amish. Working row 10 on the variegated Beth's Little Star Afghan. Marvelously long week ahead of me and I am trying to prepare. All crafty people craft on!

Cold and Windy Saturday

Well today has been a cold windy day. Also a shocking day just found out not long ago Whitney Huston died she was only 48. She was a tremendous singer and I feel so bad for her family, especially her Daughter. My day started with me getting up and putting to bags of can goods on my front door step , every year the boy scouts leave bags and come back a week later to pick up donations. Did not have a much to give this year and I really feel bad about giving less this year. The for next year is to be better prepared. Went to the library to meet my friend from work she wants to crochet a baby afghan for one of her friends. So I told her I would help her get started on an afghan. We tried some chucky yarn first and a different pattern than what I thought she was going to use. This did not work out well so we went to a pattern I felt it would be easier for a beginner. We used Beth's Little Star Afghan. I am not sure the website is still up for this pattern, but I think you might be able to find on Ravelry. To me this pattern seems easy and you repeat the same stitch's over and over again. In order to prepare on Friday night I practiced getting started and the first few rounds of the afghan. Then I started one today at the same time she did so she could see how to get started read and work the pattern. So now I have 3 Beth's Little Star Afghan started the plan is to finish all three no need to rip them out. Last night finished reading Behind the Seams, by Betty Hechtman. Great book loved the ending. Can't wait for the next in the series.

Quite Sunday

Spent most of the day in bed watching Say Yes To The Dress on TLC great show I love it. I am watching Dateline on ID love the show. I enjoy watching all the shows about murder and other mysteries. After finally getting out of bed sorted my laundry let the cats in and started watching tv. Finished a Red Hot Hat, so far so good on the use up all my cotton scarps and cotton before buying anymore. While searching for all the cotton yarn I found a lot of I love This Cotton! from Hobby Lobby. It is a great cotton for baby washcloths. It is a very soft cotton. Well I have loads more than I realize once I gathered it all together. When I get around to cleaning out my closet something tells me more cotton yarn will be found. Another goal for the year is to get all the stash yarn organized and use as much of it as possible. Next weekend is the annual sheep shearing at Rising Meadow it is free and open to the public, they will have yarn, lamb meat, and roving on sale. You get to see a sheep shearing in person and help if you want. Would love to attend but not sure due to fiances. The yarn sold at Rising Meadow is beautiful, it is always a temptation. The lamb is great and I hate it when I can't buy a leg of lamb. I have some lamb bones and meat that I need to cook. Just not sure what to do with the meat and bones. Maybe lamb stock with the bones and then maybe soup or lamb stew. Posting a picture of Hermes, don't let the sweet look fool you. I have a very hard time keeping off the counter's.

Potholder's

Crocheting potholder's for my Daughter. Using stash and scrap cotton yarn. Still Reading Behind the Seams by Betty Hechtman. Great book and I love all the Tarzana Hookers. Quite Saturday got up went to Greensboro Public Library to return over due books and books on cd. Then made my way to the grocery store and back home. Killed time watching tv and on the internet. I am watching 48 Hours a Mystery. A rainy day but not to cold. This has been a very mild winter in North Carolina. So far no snow or freezing rain. Very happy about this because this means my heat does not come as much. I love snow and watching it snow but still happy about the mild winter. The time I have spent alone has been wonderful. I used a pattern from ASE Knits 'n' Crochets http://asenc.blogspot.com/ Sunflower Potholder/Hotpad . Posting a picture of my version of this potholder added a lot more petals to the potholder.

Cotton Yarn Stash

This weekend I spent time going through my Cotton yarn stash. When you spend a lot of time knitting dish cloths you have a lot of left over yarn. This weekend I spent a lot of time rolling left over yarn into balls. My goal for this year is to not buy any cotton yarn. I think some of my left over yarn can be used to crochet Hot Hats and potholders. Another plan is to knit or crochet grocery bags. Still reading Behind the Seams, by Betty Hechtman. So far a very good read and I am sure I will enjoy it to the very end. So far no knitting, crochet, or reading today. My Daughter was here yesterday for a visit. She wanted to try cooking Chicken Marsala. She loves the Chicken Marsala at Olive Garden. So she brought half the ingredients and we brought half. She found the recipe online. You need to give yourself a lot of preparation time. Chopping and slicing. My Daughter was not pleased with the final product. She did not like the sauce. She felt like the dish had to much Marsala wine. So I told her maybe she should consider reducing the amount of wine. I liked the sauce myself. I hope she will give the recipe another try or find another recipe. Really enjoyed the time spent in the kitchen with my daughter and our time spent together. I crocheted two potholders for my Daughter and forgot to take pictures of the potholders. I have another potholder almost finished. Plan to start another tonight. The potholder are for my Daughter. After the potholders the plan is to crochet as many Hot Hats as I can out of my cotton yarn stash as I can. Yarn stash picture to follow. Happy crafting.

Back to Crochet

Another calm quite weekend alone has come to a close. My Mother is back from visiting her Sister and her Mother, my Niece is here so she can have someone to watch American Idol with. That's me I love American Idol. So far it has been okay I think they need to show a few more of the bad and the crazy people. That part had a lot of entertainment value to me. I finished reading The Wedding Shawl by Sally Goldenbaum. I enjoyed The Wedding Shawl it had a great ending and I was shocked and would have never been able to guess the killer. I started reading Behind the Seams by Betty Hechtman. I am 36 pages into the book and I have missed all the characters. The description of the clothes Adele wears is wonderful. If you are not familiar with with this series of books, they are crochet mysteries, and you should start with the first in the series. Hooked On Murder. If you love a great cozy mystery you will enjoy this series. I enjoy the cozy murder mysteries because I am not a CSI person. I don't want all the gory details. I ripped out my knitting project it was a heart dish cloth what else that is all I seem to knit. Started and finished a crochet project. I crocheted a Hot Hat it is basically a pot holder for pot tops. The Hot Hats are very easy to crochet and can be worked up very quickly and easily. The only problem for me was adding the little tie. The pattern states add the tie on the 5th round, I did not mark my 5th round and I am not sure I weaved the tie in the correct round. It still turned out well and on the next Hat I plan to use a stitch marker to the 5th round. I found out about Hot Hats when I participated in a dishcloth swap a few years ago, the person I swapped with sent two Hot Hats one large and one small she also sent me a copy of the pattern. You can find the pattern on Ravelry. It is from the February 2006 issue of Crochet World. The pattern is for a large and a small Hot Hat. I am trying to prepare myself for my work week ahead. I am already counting down until the weekend. It is so hard to fit everything you want to do in a day. I want to get started on another Hot Hat, and read. Adding a picture of the Hot Hat

So we cooked a standing rib roast

Today my Mother and I cooked a standing rib roast. We put a rub on the roast we got from The Chew. When I watched the episode I did not realize you needed to put the rub on and leave it for at least 12 hours, then cook the roast. So I did the rub today and let it stay on the roast for around 30 minutes. We cooked the roast for 1 1/2 hours and I think maybe we could have cooked it for and hour and forty five minutes. I tried a new rice Lundberg Wild Blend A Gourmet blend of wild & whole grain brown rice. One the package it states to cook for 50 minutes then turn off remove from heat and let stand 10 minutes. I think I should have cooked for another 10 to 15 minutes. I plan to give this another try also. The butternut squash was great and I have another one to cook. The roast was still very good. We also cooked watercress and bok choy. So a great try new recipes day. So far no knitting and very little reading. I am watching All American Muslin it is the season finale, I love the show. Desperate House Wives was great and I recorded Oprah's Next Chapter. So I am off to prepare for a long hard week, but I am ready for the challenge.

It's Saturday Night

Why does the weekend pass by so fast. It is Saturday night and starting to rain. The day has not been half bad. My Mother and I got up and went to Greensboro we met my Daughter at A C Moore looked around did some shopping I brought a holiday knit dishcloths pattern book, it is from Leisure Arts, 11 projects by Katherine Satterfield. My Daughter and Mother brought Christmas Decoration. Then it was off to Super G Mart and international grocery store. It was wonderful. I found the dried mushrooms. The Super G Mart in Greensboro can be found at 4927 W. Market St. Greensboro, NC 27407. I paid a visit this store because I could not find dried mushrooms and any of my local and not local grocery stores. What brought this search on was the fact that my Mother brought a standing rib roast and I watched an episode of The Chew, on this episode the cook a standing prime rib. They used the dried mushrooms to coat the outside of the roast. It looked great and I thought it would be a good idea for the standing rib roast. I don't think it is to much difference between the standing rib and standing prime rib. Dried mushrooms purchased it was off to Olive Garden for lunch. It was a great lunch. After lunch off to Macy's to return two recalled Martha Stewart cast iron pots. I am back at home knitting a dishcloth and of course posting to my blog. I will do a little reading later on tonight.

2012 Day Two

Back to work tomorrow, at least it's a four days. I am not ready and I wish I had one more day. I am hoping to have a better blogging, crafting, and reading year. However so far today no crafting or reading. Maybe later on tonight. I spent the day looking around the house and I have figured out that the house needs a lot of cleaning. So next weekend my plan is to force myself to start in the kitchen with the cabinets and small pantry. Get rid of all the sour cream and ricotta containers, and any old pots that I no longer use. I have at least 3 pressure cookers and I have not used one in a long time. I will not throw them away just take them to Goodwill. All of this cleaning will be very hard because I am very lazy and I don't like to clean. However I think a nice clean house will help me feel peaceful. So much to do so little time. My Rosemary is in bloom, it is very pretty. I need a brighter new year.

Happy New Year!

Well we had a great day. I think we have started the new year off right. My Mother got up this morning and put the chicken and pork tenderloin in the oven. Later on I put the duck in the oven and my Mother started the blackeyed Peas. Everything turned out great. My Sister and her husband and children came over, my daughter, her boyfriend. My sister and brother in law have been married 27 years today. We had Champagne and the traditional New Year's day meal. So no knitting or crochet so far today. Maybe later and I am happy about the fact that I have tomorrow off so I have a four day work week. Once again Happy New Year!

New Year's Eve

Another New Years Eve, only a few hours left and 2011 will come to an end. This will also end my worst blogging year since I started my blog December 19, 2005. It just seems to me that every year I have done less and have less to say. I did not make any progress in advancing my knitting or crochet skills, I don't think I did any crochet at all this year, I did not finish the sock's I started in 2009. I did knit 35 dishcloths, 5 baby washcloths, and half a scarf. I read 12 books and if you can count listening to books on cd 17. My finances and the roof are still in the same shape bad and no money to fix them, I am still praying for something great to happen. I did lose a few pounds so that is good. Just like last year I have the Champagne in the refrigerator. Well maybe things will change next year. Happy New Year.

Christmas Day!!!

Christmas Day It started out very quite and calm. Then I went to my Aunt's house had a very nice visit and dinner. Then off to the nursing home to visit with my Grandmother. Last night I finished a dishcloth and started a new one. Spent some of this morning working a few rows of the new dishcloth. I am enjoying my Christmas gift from my Daughter. She gave me a Kindle I have wanted one for a longtime. I would have never brought one for myself. I think I will enjoy it!.

It's Christmas Eve

It's Christmas Eve and I thankfully have the house to myself. I have spent most of my week with my Daughter. She has been on vacation all week and I started my vacation on Wednesday. We started with a trip to Piggly Wiggly in Siler City and to Compare Foods and I like Compare Foods. We did the shopping for the Annual New Years Day dinner. So we went in search of Pork Stomach (Hog Maws) then off to Walmart for Queenella Chitterlings(Hog intestines). If you have no idea what I am talking about visit YouTube. On Thursday we made a trip to Greensboro I needed to pick up a book on cd from the Library and then off to Harris Teeter, and several other stores. Once we arrived back at home I cooked a duck. It was the first time I have tried to cook one and I think it turned out great. Picture to follow. Another trip to Greensboro on Friday it was long and terrifying, traffic was awful and people everywhere and the constant feeling I was about to be run down by one of those damn triple or double decker baby strollers!!!!. I am not sure why people think just because they are pushing a baby stroller they have the automatic right of way. So today we enjoyed a nice quite afternoon and then my daughter left to spend the rest of the Christmas Holidays with her boyfriend and his family, my mother is off to spend tonight with her sister and her family and most of Christmas Day and I have the house to myself, well at least mostly the cats are still here and my daughters dog. At this time I am listening to a book on cd and blogging, my first in a very long time. No knitting or crocheting this week. Maybe later tonight. Happy Holidays.