Interweave Crochet Spring 2010 Review

This is the review that was long over due! Sorry, I will be putting out the review for the Interweave Crochet Summer 2010 sometime this week or early next week. Enjoy and let me know what you like or dislike about the new review process! Such as if you would like some written stuff to go along with the videos. :)









Also, feel free to have a look at these items and let me know how you feel about them, the more opinions and ideas the merrier!

Video Blogging #4

~Raw Edge Circle Quilt

~Cloud Chaser

Sunday Inspirations

Wow, this week was quite inspiring, I have lots of things to show you!

~I love the look of this shawl that KnitWit knitted. The color looks beautiful and the shawl is simple yet very eye catching.

~America the Beautiful is a kettle dyed yarn from Jeanne ofLife in Cleveland. I am beyond in love with this yarn. Definitely a want. Can't get any right now, but hoping that she makes some more kettle dyed yarns over this summer. I think she has a talent for it.

~Raw Edge Circle Quilt from Cluck Cluck Sew is wonderful. I have ideas for making one of these already. I think if I can squeeze it in, I'll use solids, but love it with prints too.

~Pojagi and more Pojagi by Victoria at The Silly BooDilly. Love the transparency and geometric look of these. I had never heard of Pojagi before. Probably not something I have time for now, but I could see it potentially making some lovely items using this technique.

~This craft saying is my new favorite.

Wonder what these are for . . . ??

Crochet Lace Innovations Review

Crochet Lace Innovations by Doris Chan.

Here is the Ravelery link to her patterns in this book. I am not sure if you can look at this page if you are not a member.

I took a few patterns that I like and talked about them and my overall opinion of the book. I did forget to say that these patterns vary in levels of difficulty.

This is my first book review doing the Video Blogging and I use some editing software that was completely new to me. If there were things you liked or have some constructive criticism about I would love to hear your opinions. I would like to do reviews like this in the future and would love some feedback.

Introduction to the Garden

So, I have not shown my garden yet this summer and felt it was about time I did so.


Here is the patio garden as a whole group.




Here we have mixed pepper plants.


Here we have Strawberry plants.


This front plant is the tomato starter I bought from Wal*Mart.


Here is the Cilantro.


Next we have Chives.


Now this isn't a veggie, it's a regular plant called Coleus, it's suppose to be the variegated kind.


Here is the Dill!


My beautiful Zucchini plant has some lovely buds on there!


Here are my three tomato plants I started from seed.





There is quite a variety growing this year, instead of a large quantity. We shall see how we get along. :) There are also some cacti growing from seed, but they are having a difficult time.

Video Blogging Episode #3

Notes:
~Bakers Dozen Square
~Echo Flower Shawl = half way through 6th repeat
~Cloud Chaser = Going to swatch this week to see if my yarn would work.
~Sewn Animals = Some of these will definitely be made in the near future.
~Embroidery = Going to start a crazy quilting piece this week, hopefully!
~Reviews = will hopefully be doing at least 3 review this week. I want them to be a certain way, so I need to find some appropriate editing software.

Bakers Dozen Square

Yarn : Red Heart
Color : White
Content : 100% acrylic
Care : machine wash and dry

Yarn : Red Heart Sport
Color : Green (don't remember exact color, maybe spring green)
Content: 100% acrylic
Care : machine wash and dry

Pattern : Mosaic Knitting by Barbara G. Walker. Page 209, Magic Mosaic Square #36

Needles : US 6 / 4mm wooden circulars


Here is the square before it was blocked out some and when I had just started the duplicate stitching. Since this is a slip stitch square, I chose to do one stitch over the top of two stitches, which is why the red flower stitches look larger.


This after I blocked out the square, it rolled on the edges, since it is stockinette, so I loosely pinned it back out again, so you guys could see it all.




I really loved making this square, even though it took me about 4 or 5 starts to get the right color mixtures! I definitely see more mosaic knitting in my future. Because I haven't done much mosaic knitting it doesn't completely block out to 12"x12", but I hope the MoM(Member of the Month) doesn't mind. I'll stick an offer in there to make her another square if she wants one to the correct size. :)

I truly enjoyed this process. I am glad I joined this group because it is giving me chances to do new things and revisit things I don't do often enough.

Bakers Dozen Teaser

So here is a tease of my square, couldn't wait to show at least part of it. Will blog about it tonight when I get home from work!

Monday Inspirations

So these would normally have been posted yesterday as Sunday Inspirations, but since I didn't have a chance to video blog until yesterday they have been pushed to today.

Cloud Chaser - - This is a new pattern put out by Amy Swenson. I am honestly loving this! If I had the funds to buy the appropriate type of yarn to make it, I would be casting on today. I love the layer aspect of it. The drape is wonderful. Definitely a nice balance with the cables. Love, love, love it. Would probably try to make it in a medium/dark gray and would wear it to work.

Reverse Applique : at the end of Heidi's post she talks about an art teachers reverse applique. Love it. It is beautiful. Never thought about doing it the other way around. I would like to try this sometime!

Video Blogging Episode #2

I am now on YouTube! Thanks to the boy, he encouraged me to sign up for one, more on his enabling later. Here is my second episode for video-blogging.





Notes:
~ If you would like to read more about my non-crafty life, my other blog is Spiritually Wandering.

~Book I won in a contest! Crochet Lace Innovations by Doris Chan. I won the contest that was on Deneen's blog, Yarns and Musings. Will be doing a review on this book hopefully sometime this week.

~Echo Flower Shawl (Ravelry Link) is going well. I am finishing up the 5th repeat out of 13. Definitely loving it still.

~Bakers Dozen Square : still enjoying this a lot. I am so psyched about how I think it is going to turn out. I will probably do a mini video blog or at least a written blog update on it sometime this week when I finish it.

~Elijah : Very happy with my decision to wait and give it to Garren when he comes out in July instead of rushing to finish it. I so hope he likes it. We are planning on taking them to the Zoo. It's going to be so much fun!

~Super psyched about my sister,Rhoni, and her husband coming out. It's going to be so nice to see them again. You should check out her blog, she made Mongolian Beef yesterday and it looks super yummy!

~The boy has been encouraging me on the whole video blogging. He says I should get one of those hand held digital recorders. I might, if I stick with this for a few more weeks. Want to make sure I don't spend the money for nothing. I am looking at getting the Kodak Playsport Zx3. I researched about it last night and it seems like a good option and not too expensive. We shall see.

Video Blogging #1

Okay, here is my first attempt at video blogging.








Notes:
~Work is going well. I am now done with what is suppose to be the hardest part, so yeah! Still lots more training, but from what I understand it's more hands on to a degree so the stuff is easier to grasp. I hate just simple memorization.

~Echo Flower Shawl: really am loving this. I realize it's going to take a lot of time though because it is a shawl that starts out small and gets larger. I think this will work better for me though since I can see progress easier in the beginning.

~Bakers Dozen Square: yeah, I meant sky, not water! Oh well, still thinking around about that, I may add some green in there or only do green and the orange-tan.

~Elijah: I figure this as a way of initiating Garren into the fact that I am poor with deadlines.

Overall:
Please let me know what you thought. I do realize that I said the word "definitely" a lot. Which hopefully will get better with time. I did enjoy doing this, only had to do like 5 takes to get to this point. :)

Food Friday - Baked Goods

I love Betty Crocker's Gluten Free Devil's Food Cake Mix. However, we wanted to change it up a bit, so we bought some gluten free cherry filling and layered it. This was before I found out that Betty Crocker has a bunch of recipes on how to use their mixes to make other things.












It was delicious and I can't wait to try out some of the recipes on their site.

* * * * * *


We also tried Rice Crispy Treats. Kraft marshmallows are gluten free and we purchases some gluten free rice cereal.










Honestly, I think I like these are better than regular rice crispy treats! I am so glad the boy convinced me to try this out.

Adventures in Lace

Yes, I know I have a few dozen Works-In-Progresses(WIPs), however, I have been thinking about starting a real lace project . . . a shawl. I have been searching here and there, kind of halfheartedly.

Then last night before I went to bed, I saw THIS post from Gray La Gran of Haphazard Knitter. I fell in love with the look of this shawl and immediately cast on last night before I went to bed. The shawl is the Echo Flower Shawl (Ravelry Link).








I know it doesn't look like much yet, but it takes me a while as I haven't done lace knitting like this in a while. Lots of fiddly stitches in this. Plus, hopefully she'll look much better when she is finished and blocked out all pretty.

Yarn: Knit Picks Shadow
Content: 100% merino wool
Color: Basalt Heather
Needles: 2.75mm (I am using a smaller needle, I think it'll still work out well)

I have such high hopes for this. Although I am starting to see where some pointier needles would really come in handy. She's my new work knitting!