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.

A Great Weekend

Great weekend coming to a close. I wish I could have one more day off. Thanksgiving was okay it was not the best day in the world. I hate having Thanksgiving dinner. I love my family and enjoy spending time with them but I am tired of the same old same old of Thanksgiving day. Next year I plan to boyscott. I am knitting baby washcloths. A friend at works daughter is having a baby and I will attend the shower next Saturday. I plan to knit four washcloths. I am almost finished with one cloth. It is the sailboat, then I plan to knit the stork, baby bottle, rocking horse, and maybe the rubber duck. It is back to work tomorrow and I wish I would have asked for one more day off. I am posting a picture of my Christmas Cactus that never blooms during Christmas, but does bloom for Thanksgiving.

Another Weekend Coming To A Close

The weekend is almost over. It is Sunday evening I am trying to find something on tv and doing my laundry, and making Manhattan Catfish Chowder. It is a favorite of mine and most of the family. On Saturday we went to my Cousin and Aunt's church to the Festival of Tables it was a lot of fun and the food was great, The Pavilion did the catering for the event. First you had time to view the tables all decorated with different themes. All of the tables were beautiful. My Aunt and Cousin had two tables and my Cousin's Cousin on her Father's side of the Family had a great table also. After the viewing of the tables and dinner there was praise and worship and a speaker. I did not get the chance to hear the speaker but did stay for most of the praise and worship. I will post a picture of one of my Aunt and Cousin's table's. So no knitting or crochet this weekend. I am reading Unraveled by Maggie Sefton, I need to finish it so I can get started on The Wedding Shawl, by Sally Goldenbaum. I have not given up on How To Knit A Heart Back Home, by Rachael Herron, but I might have to start over. I feel bad because it has been weeks since I have worked on a dishcloth. I need a lot of dishcloths for Christmas. My Cousin Nicole has started a business Nikki Lynn's Cookies and Cakes she does a great job with the cookies and cakes and everything is homemade not from a box or mix. She's still working on her website, but she she has an email address Kima811@yahoo.com and a phone number 336-430-3475. The cake on the table in the picture I am posting is one of her cakes.

Farm Fest

Busy weekend most of the time on the weekends I go in my house and I don't emerge until Monday, with the exception of a quick trip to buy a Sunday paper. This weekend however was both Fall Festival and Farm Fest. So we made the trip down Old Liberty Road to Rising Meadow and The Goat Lady Dairy. At Rising Meadow they had music and several vendors selling yarn, fleece, soap, lots of things. Tinda Feir owner of Gate City Yarn in Greensboro NC was at Rising Meadow. It always surprises me that she remembers me and knows me by name. I have been in the shop several times and I took a sock class there a few years ago. I don't get to go visit the shop that often. I know it has been at least 2 years since I had the chance and the money to pay a visit. Also I am embarassed to visit because I never finished the second sock from the sock class. She was spinning yarn she is very good. The yarn was beautiful. The farm is beautiful. I brought lamb stew meat and wanted a leg of lamb but I could not buy both the stew meat leg of lamb and later buy goat cheese and The Goat Lady. Just not enough money in the budget. So after Rising Meadow we went to The Goat Lady they have a great garden, chicken, and of course the stars of the show the goats. Love tasting cheese. I brought two rounds of smoked and a spreadable cheese Triple Heat. Also brought hot sausage from Bradds Family Farm they had samples of their sausage and hamburger both sample tasted wonderful. I have a card and plan to buy again from them. I want to start buying more local meat and produce. The pork was Whey-Fed, and the Beef was Grass-fed. I am tired of buying beef, pork, and chicken at my local grocery store. If you look at the labels most of it has been injected with some kind of solution, if you have blood pressure problems I am sure meat injected with some type of solution does not help matters. The day was pretty good.

Fall Festival

It is that time of year. Fairs, Festivals, and Open Houses. Today was the 39th Fall Festival held here in Asheboro NC. The Festival is held every year to showcase handmade items. I did not plan to go because I lost interest a few years ago because I felt like the festival had drifted away from it's purpose. I did not attend the last two years. This year however I notice a lot more had crafted items. This time I noticed a lot of knit and crochet items. Dish cloths, scarves, shawls, hats, and afghans. I did not buy anything because I had to save my money for tomorrow, and our trip to Rising Meadow and The Goat Lady Dairy. So no knitting, reading, or crochet today. I am listening to Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. I can listen to the cd's over and over again. I find it very relaxing to knit, crochet, or blog while listening to a book on cd. Happy Crafting.

The Downward Slide

Well I have made it through Wednesday and this means only two days left before the weekend. Something I have been dreaming about since Sunday afternoon. No plans for Saturday so far because I find it very hard to make myself do anything these such as all my crafting hobbies. Like crochet, knitting, and blogging. So on Sunday I plan to go to Rising Meadows Farm and Goat Lady Dairy open houses. I plan to spend money I really don't have on lamb and goat cheese. I need to get out and stop letting the day to day life sucking stuff such as trying to figure out how I am going to pay the bills and get out of debt stop taking over my life. Maybe I should buy a few lottery tickets it would solve a lot of my problem. You know I would like to use a lot of foul language but I am not sure I am allowed to do so anymore for reason I feel I am not allowed to explain. So many my freedoms have been sucked away for so very little. Oh well life sucks and then you die. So no reading yet and absolutely no knitting or crochet tonight. Craft on to all of you that can get over your daily life sucking events. Posting a picture from my visit to Char-Amra Alpaca Farm last Saturday.

It is a fine line between just enough and to much !

It is a fine line between just enough and to much rain. It was really dry here in Asheboro North Carolina. So it finally started to rain on Thursday and it has rained and rained. I wanted the rain because of the greens and spinach my mother planted a few weeks ago. Well it rained so hard on Friday that one end of the garden had water standing in it not a lot of water but enough to cover some of the spinach. It is still raining, we had a little sun today, but it is raining now. Today I cooked this is not a thing I do very often. While I was looking a cooking videos on YouTube I came across two videos one on how to cook rice and one to cook chicken. The recipes are in Spanish. So I was not sure of my quantities of liquid in the first recipe. When you go to YouTube and type in Pollo en Adobo you will find the first recipe, it is the one with all the chicken parts not just chicken legs. I know what the ingredients are because he shows them to you, but there is only one place that he makes a note on how much water to use. Since I cant speak Spanish this is a problem. I gave the recipe a try anyway and tried to guess at the amounts of water and white wine. The second recipe was how to cook rice. If you do a search you can type in carmenlacocinera and you can find how to cook non or no stick rice(arroz). This recipe is more about skill because she did list the ingredients in English. My rice did not stick but it was mushy. It had a great favor. I will try again. So far no knitting or reading today. I am posting a picture of my niece and a long horn steer. I took the picture yesterday at Char-Mara Alpaca Farm.

National Alpaca Day

Today is National Alpaca Day. In honor of the day me, my niece , and my mother went to Char-Mar Alpaca Farm in Liberty to see the alpaca. They are beautiful animals and I think very sweet and funny. Everybody was very sweet and friendly. We had a great time and I took a picture of my niece with a long horn steer and an alpaca. It has been a long time between posts. I have been reading. Knitting but not everyday. I am lazy and after I get off work sometimes it is hard to get motivated to do anything besides sit on the couch and drink wine and watch tv. I have 3 different books I am working on How To Knit The Heart Back Home, by Rachael Herron, Unraveled, by Maggie Sefton, and The Wedding Shawl, by Sally Goldenbaum. I need to start back with my dishcloth knitting but I have not knit a dishcloth all month. I did start a bias scarf but not finished yet.

A Little Shaking Going On

Well today here in North Carolina we felt and earthquake. I was at work sitting in the break room during lunch. When I felt something and I was not sure what happened. I did not see the furniture move or anything but I felt this shake and the the women I was sitting with asked if the building was shaking? I said yes and I also said I am so glad someone felt that too. Because for a minute I thought I was losing it. So it turns out that we had an earthquake. The center was in Virginia somewhere near Richmond. This quake was felt all the way to Canada. This was the first time in my 47 years that I have every felt the earth move. It was very light but it still moved. I guess it was a great way to break up the day. So now I am at home watching tv and knitting a Feather and Fan Dishcloth. My Mother sowed spinach, kale, and mustard greens for the fall garden. I hope they come up. Last year the fall greens did not do so good.

Long Hot Summer

It has been a long hot summer and I have not enjoyed my summer. I have been reading and knitting dishcloths. I am reading How To Knit A Heart Back Home, by Rachael Herron. It's taking me awhile to read. I don't read every night. It is hard to fit everything into the short period of time I have to work on my knitting, reading, blog reading, watching tv. I have not blogged much this year. I find it hard to think of things to talk about. On vacation or exciting road trips. Well maybe things will be better in the fall.

Setting Myself Free

Well yesterday I let my daughter cut out the rest of my hair that still had relaxer(chemicals). She wanted to flat iron my hair after so I let her flat iron. So for now I have my Natural hair just straighten with a flat iron. Next weekend I will have to try and get a good picture of my self with my Afro. I finished reading the Help on Friday it was a great read and it remind me of going to work on weekend's and during the summer with my Grandmother. My Grandmother and My Mother worked as maids. I Grandmother worked as a maid until the late 80's. My Mother through the 60's and some of the 70's. My Mother went to Illinois and worked you got paid more in the north for the same work. I remember summers and weekend's playing with the lady my Grandmother worked for Grandchildren. When they came to visit or stay a few days during the summer. I remember once Grace who was this ladies Granddaughter asking if why I could not eat lunch with them I don't remember Mrs McDuffie's answer or if I ate lunch with them but I don't think I did because even though no one ever told me I think I knew it was a rule not to eat with them. Like I say the memory is fuzzy on that part. I might go to the movie next weekend we will see depends on my funds. The bad knitter has returned and I have not knitted this weekend. I did start reading How to Knit a Heart Home.