Thirty cents!

Can you believe I got all this for just 30 cents? Between sales, coupons and rewards points I got 10 sheets of craft felt, 20 hanks of embroidery floss in a great assortment of colors, and a skein of yarn (albeit a cheap one) for the price of just one sheet of felt!

I used to have a huge stash of floss, but it seems to have gone missing when someone moved out of the house. My felt stash soon followed, but at least that was my doing... given as a "gift" to that same person. Now I'm building those stashes back up whenever there's a sale.


And the yarn? I bought it especially for the color, a reddish brown. I'm making bacon. That's right, bacon. It is going to be a bacon and eggs pillow.

We had a very relaxing day today, which was just what I needed. It's not like I've been overworked or on the go very much lately, but I still needed today to be a slow day to recharge. So, that's what I did. I read blogs, and crocheted, and snuggled under a blanket, and listened to podcasts.

The hubby and I made a nice dinner together, turkey meatloaf. I'm not going to bore you with photos of the whole meal, but I will share a quick photo of the Gingerbread I made. Pay no attention to the poor decorating job I did with the powdered sugar. Don't ask. It tasted yummy and that's all that counts.

What was your weekend like? Fun filled and exciting, or quiet and homey?

This really is a knitting blog, I promise!

You would never know that I hate to cook for as many times as I post about food and the meals that I make.


I hate the drudgery of cooking dinner every night. I think of it the same way some people feel about making their bed every morning: "Why should I cook dinner? We're only gonna be hungry again in 4 hours!"


The truth is, I sometimes get in the mood to cook or bake, and I can almost convince myself I'm enjoying the process, especially if I'm making something everyone is going to eat. I like it when we have company because I can try out recipes that wouldn't be well received by my (somewhat) fussy family.


Tonight I'm going to share with you one of my favorite meals to make:

Turkey Pot Pie

It all starts with a dough from my bread machine.

Then simmer some potatoes, carrots, celery, onions, salt and pepper in chicken broth until tender.

Add some left over cooked turkey breast to the vegetables and broth, and simmer a while longer.

Drain off the extra broth and pile meat and veggies into the pie. Cover with the creamy mixture (basically cream of chicken soup, milk, and some spices.)

 

Add the top crust to the pie and "wash" with milk. I'm still trying to perfect the artistic end of working with dough. I'm getting better but I'm still a bit rough around the edges... literally.

Bake. And tah dah! Yummy comfort food for a cold night.

Although we have had a rather mild winter, tonight it a cold and windy night. The perfect night for a meal like this! Unfortunately, this is a meal I prepared a few weeks ago and I'm just getting around to blogging about it now. Tonight, I'm eating SUBWAY.

Project Sharing

I've been doing a lot of knitting and crocheting lately and I have some projects ready to share. I had planned to get a bunch of stuff done and share it all in one big blog post, but I don't have all the photos taken yet. I think it'll be best if I share them in several smaller blog posts.


I'm still technically finishing my Christmas knitting... things I would have liked to give as gifts had I had more time. Sure, I could tuck them away and save them for next Christmas, but what fun would that be? I just can't be that disciplined.


So, I finished another hat and fingerless mitts set and have given them to the loveliest of young ladies. The blue and grey look great together and look especially beautiful on her. (No, that's not her in the photo, silly!)

On Valentine's Day we had a valentine exchange between some of the women who work in my building. The idea was to exchange children's valentines like when we were kids. A couple of years ago we did this and it was fun going to Walmart and looking over all the themes and choosing one that I thought was the most "me". I can't remember which theme I chose, but I remember all of us laughing at the choices we made for ourselves. Who loves Winnie the Pooh? Who relates to Hoops and YoYo? Who thinks they are a super hero?


This year there were quite a few more people who wanted to join in the valentine fun. At risk of seeming like an overachiever, I decided to make my valentines. I (of course) wanted to make something with yarn, most likely involving a heart, something quick and easy to make, and I wanted it to be something useful that wouldn't be just tossed out later.


I finally settled on these heart bookmarks.

I stitched them up and added vintage buttons from my mom's and mother-in-law's button boxes.

Then I attached my little valentine wish. "Slip this crocheted heart bookmark between the pages of a book you love. Enjoy!" I thought this was a nice generic wish (what do you say to another woman you work with?) while subtly explaining what this silly yarn thing was... just in case they weren't sure.

That morning at work it was really nice to see so many of us arrive a few minutes early and scurry around from department to department delivering our valentines. One woman even had a decorated box on her desk to collect them in. Another woman taped the ones she collected up around her door jam like Christmas cards. It made her office look so festive. In a time when we are experiencing tough times, budget cuts and layoffs, this simple little activity was really good for morale.


This bookmark project was a  "use what you have" project. I've done some other projects recently using only materials that I have on hand and I'll be blogging about them soon. Until then...