Giveaway Time!

Hello there! In honor of Crochet Month (and also achieving 25 followers of my humble little slice of Blogdom), I'm going to have my very first giveaway! And I'm offering up this book:

It is FABULOUS! It takes alot for me to decide to purchase a book, I guess I'm cheap lol. I take alot of books out from the library, but I rarely find one where I immediately say "I MUST have this for myself!" Here are a couple of the squares I have made out of this book for the Knit-a-Square charity:

Motif 114

Motif 109 (one of my faves)

But it's not just squares, there are circles, triangles, hexagons, flowers of all sorts, even hearts. Every design is beautifully photographed, and all patterns are given both in text and symbol.

Now I know some of my readers are knitters, but if you have any interest at all in crochet this would be a great book for you as well! But I will give the winner the choice of this marvelous book if you would prefer:

I bought this book when I thought I would get into knitting, and I absolutely LOVE the blue sweater on the front. But I've come to realize that crochet is really my love, and even if I do knit I will NEVER knit well enough to make that sweater lol. So I'm happy to offer up the book to someone who can get good use out of it.

So--rules for the giveaway. Leave a comment here--that's it! If you are a follower of my blog, leave a second comment telling me so, and you'll have a second entry. Easy as pie. Oh, and do leave a web address or email so I can be sure to contact you if you are the winner. International entries are welcome! I will randomly draw a winner at 5 pm eastern time next Sunday, March 13th. 13 could be your lucky number!

And speaking of giveaways, one of my favorite blog friends is also having her first one. Please be sure to check out Coffee 'n' Crochet, it ends on March 16.

And finally, your crochet eye candy for today--go look at this BEAUTIFUL work over at Where is She Now. Wow wow wow!

Yarn Swap!

Like the new blog look? That icy snowy background just had to GO, I'm in the mood for spring!

I had such fun yesterday at my "yarn playgroup", Columbia Sip 'n' Knit. We held our annual yarn swap. Beforehand I went through my stash and picked out some thing I knew I wasn't going to use but that someone else might like. Most of this came from my sister when she was de-stashing--some yarn could come with a whole genealogy lol.

So--there were just a few things to choose from at the swap:

Isn't it just BREATHTAKING? It's like an entire smorgasbord of yarn! Three tables full, and even more in boxes and bags on the floor. And not just your basic yarns, there was some cashmere and silk and merino and handspun--it all looked so yummy.

So, what did I come home with?

Yes, that is two THOUSAND grams of 100% wool worsted weight yarn. And it's all going to become blanket squares and hats for my favorite charity, Knit-a-Square. Knit-a-Square is a group in South Africa which collects 8" blanket squares, sews them together, and gives the blankets to AIDS orphans. They take squares made of all types of fiber, but for some of the children they need things made from 100% wool, because of wool's natural fire-retardant properties. Some kids live in places where their only source of heat is from a fire or open-flame heater, and it's important that they have blankets made from wool, not acrylic. So I was THRILLED to get this much wool at the swap!

And I did pick up a couple of things for myself, just a bit of fun yarn to play with:

So clearly this was NOT a "de-stashing" event for me, since I came home with more yarn than I got rid of. Oh, and all the leftovers from the yarn swap will be donated to senior centers, etc, so all the yarn will get a good home. I can't wait to dive into my new yarn!

WIP Wednesday (sort of) for March 2

So here we are in March! I'm always eager to be rid of February, knowing that March will bring warming temperatures and flowers and blooming trees and spring, my very favorite season. The bare branches and gray color of winter seems so drab to me, so come on spring!

This WIP Wednesday will be more of a report on my "Goals in Progress" from February. Long term, I have continued listening to the Daily Audio Bible podcasts every day and it works so well to listen on my drive in to work. The distractions of the day have not kicked in yet, and I can usually keep focused on the readings and not drift away too much. I did not exersize as much this month, but I pledge to get outside more now that the weather will be improving--another benefit of spring being on the way!

For February, you may recall that my resolutions involved reinvigorating my boring dinner menus and sorting out my disaster of a spice cupboard. I am pleased to report that I did indeed cook three new meals during the month! They all involved chicken, but hey it's a start right? For meal #1 I tried roasting a whole chicken in the crockpot. It definitely was easy to do but I found the chicken came out kind of dry. Edible, but not ideal. I don't know if I should have basted or what? Any helpful hints? Meal #2 used leftovers from the crockpot chicken, cooked up in a casserole with rice, cheese and broccoli. My brood is not a big fan of casserole type stuff, but this turned out to be the best of the three "experiment" meals, receiving nods of approval from the test subjects. For #3 I went to the crockpot again to make Crockpot Chicken with Cornbread Stuffing, which sounded delicious but didn't quite live up to its promise. The "stuffing" came out as rather a mushy lump--it tasted ok but the presentation left ALOT to be desired. And too much taste of overcooked broccoli.

I also expanded my dinner repertoire by going to Let's Dish--have you tried it? It's not exactly cheap but it is SO nice to go and make meals there and then just take them out of the freezer to make dinner. You choose which meals you want to make from their monthly menu, and they have everything prepared that you need to put the meals together. You stick it in the freezer, and follow the instructions to cook each meal when you are ready to serve it. It is SO convenient, I wish I could afford to do it more often.

Now on to the spice cabinet! Man of the House told me he approved whole-heartedly of this goal when he read my blog post, he too was tired of things raining down on him every time he opened the cupboard. Here's the "before" shot:

I couldn't turn the spice turntable on the lower right because there were too many other things blocking it. In fact the whole lower shelf was pretty much a disaster. And I had to move at least five things anytime I needed to get flour or sugar down. I also discovered that I had multiples of the following items:

Dill--2 bottles
Cayenne pepper--3 bottles
Curry--2 bottles (I don't even LIKE curry!)
Caraway seed--2 bottles
Thyme--2 bottles
Cumin--2 bottles
Lemon pepper--2 bottles
Yeast--4 expired packets

And the prize for the oldest thing in the cupboard? A package of slivered almonds with a "Sell by" date of 11-06-2007. That's less than 4 years expired right? Certainly not the oldest thing I've ever found in my kitchen lol. I have to give credit to Man of the House for helping me get this done, as he cleaned out the pantry last week, which freed up space for me to get the less-used stuff out of the cupboard and into the pantry, and I now I can actually find stuff in here. Doesn't it look spiffy?

I can find everything and spin the turntable and not risk a concussion!

So I need a couple of goals for March. I'm going to inflict make three more new meals for the family, and I'm going to have everyone spend ten minutes each evening straightening up some part of the communal living space. We get kind of lax about regularly scheduled chores around here, so I'm setting a goal for everybody--am I a great mom or what?!

Welcome to March--IT'S CROCHET MONTH!!

March is International Crochet Month! Are you ready to PARTY??

Well, I AM! I figure there's no better opportunity to bolster my fledgling little blog than to have some fun crochet-related content during this auspicious month-long celebration. So..........

I plan on sharing some awesome crochet examples with you, some of my favorite websites, AND a couple of giveaways! So won't you join me in celebrating the awesomeness of crochet? To give you a bit of inspiration, check out this video of one AMAZING lady.



(If the video doesn't load right inside my blog, go here to see it instead.)


PS: If you are on Ravelry, please come join the fun at the 2011 Crochet Party board--it's a BLAST!

It's DNA Day!

On February 28, 1953, Frances Crick announced to the patrons of the Eagle Pub in Cambridge, “We have discovered the secret of life." Crick and his collaborator James Watson believed they had finally worked out the structure of DNA.



The article outlining their proposed structure was published two months later in the scientific journal Nature. Of course we now know that they borrowed rather heavily, and without giving credit, to several other scientists. Most notably, Rosalind Franklin had developed an x-ray crytallography image of the DNA molecule, and this was a tremendous help to Watson and Crick in postulating the double helix structure.





Ummm, yeah sure, I can see that! Why, anybody could tell that's a double helix right?

Well, I freely admit I would not have come up with the structure myself, but I am oh so grateful for this discovery for eventually leading to the very cool job that I have! I'm much more into applications than basic research anyway lol. And I just couldn't let this auspicious date pass by without giving it proper due.

And here's a teaser: Watch this space tomorrow for an exciting announcement--it has absolutely nothing at all to do with DNA but I think you'll like it!

WIP Wednesday! February 23rd

Hello all! Well it's been over a week since I did a post here, finding time to blog isn't as easy as one would think, is it? But my hooks have been pretty busy the last couple of weeks, so here's a little sampler:

Shamrocks!

I like my Valentine's heart bunting on my desk so much I went searching for the perfect shamrock pattern to make another bunting for St. Pat's day. Initially I liked this one alot:



But then I found this 4-leaf clover pattern and it's going to make great bunting!



Cute, aren't they? Here's a link to buy the pattern on Ravelry if you'd like to make some for yourself!

I've also been making some squares for Knit-a-Square:



I'm also felting some wool sweaters I bought at Goodwill to cut into more squares. And I've started a new prayer shawl, but no pix of that one yet.

Over the weekend I started frogging an afghan to reuse the yarn--what fun! I bought this wool afghan at Goodwill (LOVE that place, can you tell?) a few months ago:



That's a whole lot of wool yarn for only $10! I've frogged a few small things before but never something this size. So far I've pulled out the border and one section of each color, wound them into hanks, then wet them and hung them up to pull the kinks out of the yarn:



All ready to be wound into balls and crocheted into something new! And I still have about 3/4 of the afghan left. A fair bit of work but so worth it for the yarn.

I've also been playing around with a couple of new crochet techniques, but I'll save those for another post. It's so nice to be so busy with hooks and yarn!

Have a fabulous week!

Happy Valentine's Day!

I hope you have had a good day today! Man of the House and I went out for Thai food Saturday night for our V-day celebration, good stuff. Today felt like spring outside! The high was around 60 degrees, oh I could just hug that groundhog for not seeing his shadow! Maybe I should have sent him a Valentine.

And befitting of the Feast of Saint Valentine, I decked out my cubicle at work with a little heart-y cheer:



I crocheted most of the hearts last week during a long boring meeting at work--sometimes I wish I had more of those meetings! The pattern is on Julia Crossland's blog, here. It was so easy, I'm thinking of making several seasonal versions--shamrocks, colored eggs, pumpkins, I could keep my desk festive all year round.

Have a wonderful day!