WIP'S

Time for a little knitting content on this knitting blog :)
I decided to post some of my WIP's some have been sitting in knitter's jail for quite some time now. I know I have said it in the past, I am self taught and get frustrated after 5 or 6 frogging sessions, so I just put the piece aside until I am motivated to pick it up again. This first project is from Knitty. So cute. It was for my girlfriends daughter who at this point is almost 2 (woopsie). I had a major problem with the bobble thing. I had even practiced the teqnique on a scarf before setting out on this venture. Yeah, I have bobble issues. I believe that there is a great tutorial on bobbles over at http://pieknits.com/tutorial.html . I should probably check it out myself and then I'll have ubercool baby hat for the next girl to be born. Project number two, also from Knitty , a lovely tank top that I originally viewed over at Faerycrafty. (check out Stacie's website she's got all kinds of free links for patterns and she's a very cool chick! Link is on sidebar). This also has been in knitter's jail for about 2 years. Problem was v-neck. I just couldn't see it, got very confused and finally in exasperation laid it down. I think I could probably finish it at this point, but it probably won't fit right now, and the summer is almost over, so.....maybe next spring (haha). Actually maybe I should give it as a BD present. The next project is something I just started yesterday so, it's coming along fine and I foresee no problems...This is from KnitScene. That little mag put out by the folks at Interweave press , I'm using stash yarn!!!!!! This is Baby Alpaca Grande from Plymouth yarns and it's really soft and yummy. I also have several ribbon yarns (in the 'ol stash) that I can use for this. The pattern is really simple and I should finish it up shortly. Will post finished project. There are alot of clothing items in this mag that I would like to make. My coworker and fellow knitter Janet told me I should really start making some clothing items for myself. She's right. I haven't made a sweater since my original lessons. Long,long time ago. So the final WIP is the peace tote. I took it to NY state with me last week. Guess what, I ran out of fricken yarn yet again. I'm probaby 1/4 of a ball short. I have 10 rows to go. I have yet to weave in all the ends on the intarsia side. But I have to say I think it came out pretty darn good.

Free Recipe Sunday

Thank you for all your thoughts and prayers for baby Kiona. She is the tinyest peanut, but her smile is radiant. She is finally beginning to eat on her own and gained 4 oz this week. Such a sweet baby, Aunt Becky held her and got lots of smiles. I will not go into things, but prayer is apreciated because her life is off to a rough start.

So here are some pics of my new craft table and sewing machine :) I put the shelves together all by myself, hubby just helped lift the top on. I placed my knitting books on some of the shelves.( sheesh I thought I had more knitting books than that..). I have alot of knitting magazines saved, so they will be next to get shelved. I do want to buy the magazine holders to keep a neater apprearance. That was the agreement with H, I can put the craft table in here but I cannot load it up with "junk". The sewing machine is a Singer. It's what my mom has always had, so, like mother like daughter. I figured it's a simple enough machine to get started with. It's not like I'm ready to go on Project Runway.. Don't you love that show? I did not watch it last season, but my friend Heather got me hooked on it. OK, so one more pic and I will give you the recipe of the week. When mom and I were in LBI, we went to this store called Sun Dog. I have been there many times before and I know they sell sari fabric. So I had an idea in mind for my living room window which is unusually small.. I bought the wooden piece on top and sari material from the shop. The wooden piece has a slot for the sari material to go through. I want to get a nice wide piece of gold satin ribbon to it with. Cute, right? OK so today's recipe is for Asian coleslaw. A yummy recipe that has been circulating through my family since the start of the low carb diet. Trust me it's anything but diet food..

1 head green cabbage, 1 head purple cabbage, 1 small red onion, 1 bunch scallions, 2 TBl olive oil, 1 cup rice wine vinegar, 1/2 cup sesame oil ( I buy the dark type-roasted?), 1/4 cup of honey, s&p and some cayenne pepper (optional),peanuts

chop up the cabbage, onions and scallions, combine in large bowl. sautee peanuts in olive oil until toasted. Add remaining ingredients and peanuts into bowl, mix well. Refridgerate this for about 2-3 hours..the longer it sits the better it tastes. You may have to play around with the spices to get the taste you like.. Enjoy!!!!!

Baby Kiona

Welcome baby Kiona. She was born on August 17th a mere 5lbs. Kiona is not well please send out your prayers for this sweet little soul. I have not met her yet but she holds a special place in my heart already. Kiona is an American Indian name that means brown hills. I am very emotional now and cannot find the words to explain my feelings. All I will say is that, life is such a delicate and precious gift. Treasure your life. Love your children.

'Ol Buddy 'Ol Pal

Having sisters is a great thing. My one sister and I are seperated by 2+1/2 years. This is the perfect age gap. You are basically going through the same experiences at the same time while growing up. Don't get me wrong, we had those sibling fights when we were kids, but for the most part... I had a built in pal to play Barbies with. To get into mischief with. To set up the Haunted house in the basement, put on "musicals", etc.. My sister has 3 beautiful children. For a long time she was in an abusive marriage and I did not get to spend very much time with her. Abusive men tend to seperate their wives from their families. But she has been divorced for many years now and I (as most of my family) was there to help her when she finally left him. She now has a wonderful man in her life and I finally have my 'Ol pal back. We try to spend lots of time together. I am very proud of her. She went back to school 2 years ago and has almost received her Associates degree. This is an awesome achievement. She got her GED from highschool and was out of school for about 20 years when she decided to go to college. You go girl!!!! So this past weekend hubby and I went to a wedding in Pittsburg. Nice place!!! Very clean and we both said we would go back to stay and check it out. Has I known how nice it was I would've applied to Duquense. But, that ship has sailed. So we went to an Indian/American wedding. Very nice. I got to wear one of my sari's that I bought on the India trip. Let me tell you, they are comfy. I would wear one to all the weddings I attended if I thought I could drape myself. My mother inlaw has to help me out with that part :) But then again, that is part of wearing a sari. The tradition of the draping.

Five Generations of fun

This past weekend we had something really cool happen. My gram is up from florida so we had a group photo taken of the women. Five generations of women. I think I have mentioned that with the birth of Maricella my mother has become a great grandmother. So my gram is a great,great grandmother. How completely cool is that?????? I remember my great grandmother and my great grandfather, she spoke hungarian and my ggpop(on the other side) used to take us out for rides in his fifties style station wagon. He always brought circus peanuts (those sickly sweet orange candies) and malted milk balls. He always had candy! What a great way to be remembered-"sweetly". The other cool thing about this picture is that my sister(the one with the big belly here) hasn't even given birth to Maricella's second cousin yet. All of my second cousins are in my mother's age group. These two will be more like sisters!!! It was a fun weekend. I enjoyed spending time with my gram and getting to hold that precious little baby. She's extremly alert and is already beginning to teeth (at 2 months!!!!) Her mommy is going to have lots of fun :)

Free Recipe Sunday

Going to a family get together today and decided to bake a plum tart. This Recipe is from the BareFoot Contessa. One of my favorite cooking shows. You need a 9-10 inch false bottom tart pan. I found mine at Michael's Arts and Crafts. (it came in a three pack, this was middle size pan)
mix 1 cup flour, 3/4 cup brown sugar and 3/4 cup finely chopped walnuts in a mixer.
add 1 egg yolk and 1+1/2 sticks of butter (chilled and chopped in small pieces) until mixture is crumbly. Take 1+1/2 cups of mixture and press into pie tart for crust. Slice 5-6 plums into half moon shapes. Arrange plums in a lotus pattern on crust, cover with remaining mixture. Bake at 400' for 40-50 minutes. Everyone at the get together enjoyed this. It was gone really fast. Here is pic of finished pocketbook. I'm proud of it, my first bag pattern. I need to tweak the handle connection because it's a little too tight, but otherwise I'm satisfied with the results. I have also been working on the peace tote, check it out.. Almost finished with the front. Now my question is should I do the back in solid blue, yellow or a mixture of the two. Anyone want to share an opinion?

Big Loser

Just came back from trip to AC with my grandmom. She moved to florida 2 years ago and only comes back to jersey maybe twice a year. We went for our second annual overnight AC trip. We stayed at the Taj. It was fun,but we both lost, pretty big(ssshhhh don't tell anyone). It's nice to spend time with her. I also haven't posted in awhile because I was away with my mom this weekend. Our annual Long Beach Island trip. 3 days of sand and surf. Last year it rained the whole weekend. This year we had lovely hot, sunny weather. We stayed at a B&B run by a lovely irish couple. Her daughter owns a coffee/dessert place accross the street called The Chocolate Bar. They have a shop in NYC also. The inn keeper bakes all their goodies. I personally am not a big sweet fan, I prefer salty crunchy snacks. However, I (upon this woman's recommendation) tried the spicy brownies. Holy cannoli! They were awesome. I have a new favorite dessert. I bought 4 of them back from LBI and they are gone. Imagine choc and chipolte pepper, with a dash of cinnamon. If you are a hot food fan (which I am) this is the dessert to try. If you google it, there are some recipes. I will attempt a few and get back to you on the results. I also received my sewing machine and craft table. Now, I bought the craft table from Target thinking it was a complete table, wrong, only a table top, for an additional $400.00 I can buy the book shelves that the table fits ontop of. However in the picture it shows it as one unit. In my excitment to buy it at 7am I overlooked the fine print. So now I have a table top. It's a large table top sitting in a box in my foyer. Hmmm, hubby says to send it back, no room, too big. But it is exactly what I wanted if I dish out the additional money for the remaining parts. What do you think? Imagine having a space that is designated to crafting? No using the kitchen table to measure stuff out. 12 built in shelves to store all your crafting items. 1/2 the price of the pottery barn craft table, and it looks the same. What's a girl to do?????