Steering Wheel Cover (free pattern!)

Hubbs and I got a different car less than a month ago and its had to have some things fixed on it so I just got it back from the last thing getting fixed.

Meanwhile back at the crafting chair.....

I decided I wanted to yarn bomb my steering wheel. Well, it gets cold and well, hot. The yarn will act as a insulator. Besides, its my car, and I can. 

So I got my pattern books out and found one that I liked and then went stash diving and found some single skeins of yarn that told me they wanted to be the "chosen ones", and made this. 

My son was playing around with it and put it on as a scarf and I found it to be quite attractive as a doubled up infinity scarf! But alas, this was destined to be around my steering wheel.

So I took it to the car and put my new cover on the wheel.

Im not sure what happened to the colors here...
the pic above is more like the true colors 

Sewed it on....

And now, I have a handmade, purty wheel insulator from the cold/heat/dirt!! And added some much needed color inside my car. Now, I need to make something for the shifter.....

                                    

Steering Wheel Cover 

Please note: this was written down after the fact and in just a few mins. Im sure there are mistakes, things  could be written better, or things left out, however, Ive read this a couple times and THINK everything is there. Please dont hesitate to comment with a question or comment!

Please note 2: THIS HAS NOT BEEN TESTED! however, if you would like to make this all nice and officially perfect, I would love you for a thousand years! Just let me know your outcome, uncandid thoughts, and send me pics!

Worsted weight yarn: dont know the amount yet.
"G" hook

ch 13

Row 2- [sc, dc] across, ch1 turn 

Repeat row 2 for desired length. Switch up colors as desired. 

Note: after you have done a few rows, PLEASE take it out to your car and make sure it will go around the wheel from front to back. (clear as mud? anyone wanna word that better?)

Note: you will want a bit of stretching going on so, depending on the stitch pattern you use, how stretchy it is, stop about a couple of inches short of all the way around your wheel. 

Finishing: sew/graft the two ends together. Working one of the outside edges, using desired color, do one row of dc's all the way around, slip stitch to join and fasten off. Repeat for other side.

Put on your steering wheel and whip stitch it on!  

TTFN 

Hurricane Sandy Relief Pattern Sales Fundraiser

Hi all!!

I am running a fundraiser for Hurricane Sandy relief.

All PATTERN sales for the month of November will be donated to the Red Cross to aid the victims of Hurricane Sandy.

Please visit my Etsy store here for patterns.

And here is my store in Ravelry for all my patterns.


If you dont want any patterns, you can donate directly by clicking this button.

Or, you can donate directly to the Red Cross by going here.

Please help!! And in the process, you get a great pattern to make!!

Thank you sooo much in advance!

Melissa

TTFN

Grafting Garter Stitch

Im just gonna put this out there....

I like to graft. There. I said it. I also like to seam, but that's another post entirely. 

Anyway, it occurred to me while I was getting ready to graft this project I'm working on that folks may not know how to graft a project that's garter stitch. It's different than the normal grafting. Not too bad, don't panic. 

So I went to do some research on the subject to see if there were ample videos and blog posts about this subject so I don't run this in the ground. There are a few, but in my opinion, most leave out a few key details. So I'm gonna try to do a short pictorial on this and add in those details. I am probably going to do a video on this too. Please comment that you would like one so it kicks me into gear on making it. And lets me know that it's actually wanted. LOL 

By the way, it's pretty important you have a firm grip on how to kitchener on stockinette first before you attempt this one. Not required per se, but incredibly helpful. Here is my video on stockinette kitchenering if you need it. 

So, you have this project that you have done in garter stitch, at least the edges are in garter and you want to magically put them together to where no one suspects they were ever two separate pieces! "Sneaky" or "Stealthy" knitting is what I call that, and make every effort to do that same thing in my knitting projects. 

Moving on.........

Exibit A: (click on any pics to embiggin)

I'm gonna graft these two pieces together using the dark pink. The light pink side is already done and sitting patiently waiting for its partner. 

To make the pattern Gods happy by keeping row counts correct, you will need to finish one side as specified and stop short one row on the other side.

More specifically, and in English, the row you're grafting TO or finished side is ready for a knit row and the other side is ready for a purl row. 

I feel compelled to mention at this point in the show, that this pictorial is strongly based on grafting two different colors together. If you are garter grafting the same color, disregard the placement and scroll down to the how to. Placement just doesn't matter for you. As long as you see purl bumps facing you on both needles like the next picture, your good.  

You would get your two pieces ready to graft by having the the piece you're grafting to in front and the piece you're grafting from in back. Wrong sides together. So that when you look at them, they both look like you just finished a purl row. 

Like this: 

This is a sample piece just so I can show you easier. 

The reason for the placement this way for the two color garter grafting is due to the....well, look at this picture.  

The white side represents the done side. The side you finished. The pink side represents the side you stopped one row short on. The green is the graft. You want the joining ridge to wind up in the back. See how the grafting tucks the white stitches in and pulls the pink out? This is what you want. You are sewing in the last row of the pink, unfinished side. If you did it with the pieces reversed, you would be tucking in the pink and pulling out the white, your joining row would be in the front, visible and it would look weird and not at all stealthy. And we want stealthy. Now, click on the picture so you can get a real good look.

Now you say, How did you do that and make it look sooo amazing?? 

Try to stop laughing now and read on.... 

So you have your piece all ready and you start it out normally, but after you get done with the "front knit off, purl through", take it to the back and repeat. Yes you read that right. You take your yarn to the back and do the same thing "back knit off, purl through"

This creates the last garter ridge and finishes your piece, tucks the finish piece in and joins them together all stealthy like. 

Observe the finished graft~Front:

and the finished graft back: 

The two color join is in the back. green(which would be pink had this been a real graft) over white. Green over pink in the front. Had this been pink grafting yarn, you wouldn't be able to see it.

Here it is on the project.

I finished up the required ridges minus one row of the dark pink and now my assistant and I are ready to graft the two.

Here is the close up of it grafted. The left is the front and the right is the back.  

Here is a full view of the graft layin there all stealthy like......

Graft done. And no one is the wiser they used to be two separate pieces. Even a knitter woudnt know. Now, go be stealthy.

TTFN    

Glove Blockers

I've been making a lot of Coraline gloves for customers and so I finally broke down and decided I was gonna get me some glove blockers....yea, right.

Have yall ever tried to find glove blockers? Here's what I found in the DIY catagory:

Heres instructions for making them out of rubber gloves, rice and duct tape.

Heres some using surgical gloves and tape

If you want to buy some already made, you can go here and get "Hand Blockers from Perrfectly Catchy Designs"

But since we have construction going on building a new porch, I thought I would look around to see what scrap we have laying around that could be put to good use. 

So I found some stuff, traced my hand and arm in case I wanted to make longer gloves someday, and got hubbs' jigsaw out and made these.

Yall wanna see something funny? Here is what I came up with.

The problem is, when I tried putting a glove on it, it was difficult to put on. It didnt dawn on me that when a real person puts a glove on, they close their fingers while getting them thro the cuff. I got it on there tho.

Which proves one thing;

All the tugging and pulling I did to get this glove on this wooden hand, I feel confident that the glove will go thro just about anything….LOL

I’m about to go and try this again with my fingers a bit closer together. Wish me luck.

UPDATE:
Here is attempt #2.

I tried the glove on this one after I got it somewhat sanded, and it was much easier to put on. I think this one is a keeper.

One thing ive learned from this project….I have a weird hand. Or, I can’t use a jigsaw worth a crap. Prob both. 

Oh well, I have my blockers now! I just need to drill some holes randomly for ventilation. I may let hubbs do that later. The thing now is, I make a range of customers sizes, I have to wonder if I should make some in bigger and smaller sizes? hhmmm. Ill have to think on that.

TTFN

I'm Dyeing!

So a friend of mine sends me this text message that I should do this baby sack and make it look like it was tie-dyed. Well my mind went to work trying to figure out how I could do this without actually dying it.

I couldnt come up with anything so I decided to knit the sack in Knit Picks bare and dye it myself. Mind you, I've never dyed anything before so this was gonna be scary! Well for me at least. All you dying guru's out there have my permission to laugh at me. But go easy on me please?

So I hopped on the computer and went looking for the pattern my friend showed me and as it turns out, the designer took the pattern down.

Strike one.

So I did some rummaging and found a couple places where the pattern was recreated and as it turns out...the picture that my friend showed me was a modified version of the original.

Strike two.

So my brain kicked in gear and came up with a modified version of the recreated version of the original version.(top picture) (getting dizzy yet?)

(hang on, strike three is coming up.....however, I think this win might qualify as an erasure of the second strike perhaps??)

I went to KP and got me some Bare Swish Bulky Yarn. Superwash cuz, its for a baby and you need to be able to wash it. One skein ought to do it since the original pattern page in Ravelry says it only takes 120 yards to do this, and one skein of bare is 137 yards. Right? Wrong. I got the yarn in the mail and began to get to work and got to the end of the skein and I wasnt even halfway through the baby sack.

Strike three. But not out...it gets better from here.

I had to put it down and go and get me some more. It was my fault really, I got the yarn and decided it wasn't as bulky as I thought. So I needed to hold this yarn double in order to get gauge. I suppose I should have looked a little deeper as to how bulky it actually was.

But none the less, after all that, I came up with this......

Aint it cute? Now I needed to dye it.

I had gotten a Tulip Tie Dye Kit after watching this video on dying your already finished knitted project. So I got all that out and got it ready, laid me a trash sack and some saran wrap out, studied which order I wanted the colors and set them out. And got some paper towels at the ready...

I soaked the sack while we ate supper and came back and got as much as the water I could out of it and started to put it in the bullseye position, rubber banding as I went.

I was nervous! I was ready to dye!!! HOLY COW IM GONNA MESS THIS UP SO BAD!! So I ate some chocolate, put my gloves on and went to work putting dye on this bound up pile of knitting and rubbing it in to make sure it got down into the centers and all kinds of work I probably didn't need to do, but did anyway because I didn't know what I was doing. But I was excited, so on we go!

The video said I should wrap up the project in saran wrap and let it sit overnight, and so that's what I did.  My son looked at it and said "Umm Mom? That don't look very babyish." I said "Good. I believe son, that was the point."

So all night long I kept turning it because I didn't want any dye to drain and pool under this rainbow worm as my son has named it.

I woke up this morning to this rainbow purtyness.

Im a bit scared to open it. It looks so purty sitting here. What if its a total disaster when I open it?? But I must. do. it.

So I took it over to the sink and took off the bands and rinsed and rinsed and rinsed ...ect...and then threw it in the washer and dryer and this is what it looks like all opened up to show all its glory!

As it turned out......I didn't mess it up at all! YAY! GO ME!

How do yall think I did?

Now of course I realize, this could be the beginning of another habit. At the very least, dying yarn like this is off my list of things to be scared of. The type of dye that is much more complicated....I will leave to the guru's. This is simple and works. Good enough for me.

TTFN

Knitted Lettering

My son started going to school this year, so I decided he needed some school spirit for winter. He on the other hand.....not so much. Oh well, he's getting it anyway, and how can he deny me this opportunity to knit something??

So I gathered the appropriate color yarn and went to looking for some lettering that would somewhat match the schools. I dont want to be exact...copywrite and all, but I wanted to share with you this blog post I found over at ChemKnits.

Its An Assembly of Alphabet Charts!!!! WHOO HOO!!

Definitely something to keep bookmarked!

Off to chart up the lettering.......

TTFN

Chuck Roast and Sauerkraut

Now I know what your thinking.

EWWWW!!

But really, you should give this a shot. I not a fan of sauerkraut particularly but I absolutely LOVE this stuff! Just read through the recipe and then make your decision.

I usually start this in the morning somewhere between 8-9am and we eat supper at 6pm.

The how tos:

Gather a crock pot,
a good sized chuck (or whatever ya got) roast, just pull it out of the freezer, this works best with a frozen roast
1/2 cup of brown sugar
27oz of sauerkraut (When I don't have my own, I use "Franks")


Put your kraut at the bottom of your crock pot.

Then add your brown sugar. You can add more or less sugar, its up to yalls taste buds, but 1/2 cup is what I put in. 

Then put your frozen roast in. It would be my suggestion to leave it intact. Don't cut anything off, it adds to the flavor. You don't have to eat the fat, but you should leave it on during cooking.

Turn your crock pot on low, put the lid on and go on about your day. Come about an hour before suppertime, cut you up some potatoes and get them to boiling for mashed potatoes(skin on preferably) and some sort of veggie. And you have some goooooood eatin!

YUMMY!! 

TTFN

Knitted Broomstick Lace

No, not the one you do with a needle and a hook...... the OTHER one. The all knitted one.

Yep, that's right, you can knit the broomstick lace! YAY!

I made a video of the technique. Check it out and let me know what you think. If you like it, hit like and share it!

TTFN

Knit and Purl is amazing, and so are free patterns!!

Ahhh the ol' knit and purl designs...you can do just about anything in a knit and purl design and it will be reversible. But "We want pictures Melissa!!!"

Ok Ok, here is the first installment of my series.
Its called the "Double Seed Stitch" found on page 11 in Barbara Walker's first treasury. Or, anywhere on the net, here is a quick google for ya.

"Foxycrafters" from Ravelry, tells me that this 4x4 stitch pattern is also called ‘Sugar Cubes’ in some stitch dictionaries.
This was done in Knit Picks Shine Worsted, in the Terra Cotta colorway.

"Ok this is front," you say "where's the back?"

This my friends, is a mobius headband. The top is front and the bottom is back. Can you tell where they separate?

I think this stitch pattern is perfect for a mobius anything. For that matter, ANY knit and purl combination is perfect for a mobius anything.

Lookie at the whole thing, ain't mobius cool?

And just for grins, here's the pattern for this headband. And if you don't wanna make it?? I sell these in my store in whatever color you want.

Double Bump Headband

Materials:

Size: 19 inches circumference
Yarn: 22grams (approximately) of any worsted weight yarn
Needle: US8/5.00mm long circular needle (I used a 47" and I'm fairly certain it can be done on a 32" scrunched up.)
Gauge: 4 stitches per inch in pattern

Using a mobius cast on of some sort, I suggest this one except don't do the first round like she does it,  cast on 76 stitches, or any multiple of 4, or if you are using a different yarn/needle/gauge, a multiple of 4 that will fit your head. A note on sizing though, you want this a little smaller than the circumference of your head so it actually does it's job.

Place marker(fairly important in mobius knitting/crocheting) and....

Row 1 & 2: [k2, p2] repeat around. Just in case you have never done any mobius knitting, this will be a looong around, just keep going until you hit the marker again.

Row 3 & 4: [p2, k2] until you hit the marker again.

Repeat Row 1 and then do a tubular bind off for a 2x2 rib.

In case you're looking for a video for a tubular bind off for a 2x2 rib, I looked for one to put on the pattern and couldnt find one. I just did it like a 1x1 tubular bind off..

Basically, you take two dpns and put all the knits on the front needle and all the purls on the back needle and kitchener them together, making sure you start with a knit.

It will look right, trust me.

Or if you don't want to get all that elaborate with it, just bind off making sure your bind off stretches with the knitting.

Sew in the ends, put it on and show everyone how fabulous you look! And have someone take a picture and show me!!

TTFN

Reversible Stitch Patterns in knitting

So Im doing some mobius headbands to put in my store and was looking for some stitch patterns that were identical on both sides. Yanno....reversible.

I cannot count how many times I have went looking for a stitch pattern in knitting or crochet that was reversible. So, Im gonna start a series on reversible stitch patterns so the ones I find will be in one spot. This will be an ongoing project and I will have a section over there on the right bar that will have all the links to the posts that include these in them.

I will put either knit or crochet,
in the round or flat
and show pictures of both sides.

I realize these things are all over the net and some in my books and all spread out all over the place...how inconvenient?

If yall have any stitch patterns you would like me to swatch up....let me know! I would be happy to include them here. I hope this will be a combined effort because Im sure I won't be able to find them all. And lets face it, new patterns are born every day!

What do yall think of my idea??

Stay tuned!!

The cat is in the plant!!!

I've been hearing this phrase lately around here so I decided to do something about it.

I mean seriously, Its not like Ive never had a cat and didnt foresee this coming! I guess I was just putting it off thinking this cat wouldn't do that!

Yea, fat chance.

Anyway, for one of my plants, I had the boy make me a cardboard circle, complete with pretty coloring. He said it was a field of flowers...LOL And then I cut out the center and then a line all the way out so I could fit it in.

Its been working pretty good so far, except he gets his little paw in the center there and starts to pull out dirt, but he doesn't see this as a second bathroom, and he cant get too much out anyway. 

For my money tree, I decided to go a different route. I wanted purty. So I went out to my rock garden and got some medium sized rocks, tried to get some that had a section out of one of the sides so it would fit up against the trunk. Then I filled in the holes with some river rock and stuck my glass hummingbird in there that I got for Christmas(isnt that the most awesomist thing EVER?? side note: I LOVE all things hummingbird) and voila! I have a source of humidity and the cat wont get in it. And even if he does get the little ones out, he cant use this one as a second bathroom either. And if I hear it, I can get the spray bottle out and stop it. 

Hopefully eventually he will get the picture. Cuz I would like to keep this method, its purty don't you think? 

Im sure there are other bennies to using rocks, if you know, please fill me in! 

TTFN

Sausage, Potatoes and Cabbage Skillet

Ive been doing a lot of recipes lately haven't I?? Im just getting older and more forgetful...and I just want to document things so I don't forget them...LOL And, my kids have somewhere to go to find out the burning questions of "how did mom cook that?"

Please note: I dont have exact measurements on things because Im a visual cook and I season to taste. Please use your own judgement when using these measurements....if you can understand them. LOL Also have fun with this dish! Add stuff and take stuff away! Im planning on putting a green pepper in next time. 

Today its sausage, potatoes and cabbage skillet.
This is a spicy hot dish....adjust according to your taste.

Cut up 2ish lbs of smoked kielbasa sausage into 1/4 inch pieces and throw them in a big pan.
Put 3 tbs of garlic in...more or less depending on your taste for garlic. Its healthy and tastes good. You should look up its bennies. 
Put in a tbs of crushed red pepper(ish...depends on how hot you like it)
and a couple tbs of celery salt.
4 or 5 glubs of red wine.

Let all that cook for a few mins. Long enough for the alcohol to burn off.

While your waiting, scrub 3 medium sized potatoes and slice them thinly, and put them in the pan and stir. If you don't cut your potatoes thin, you will be eating raw potatoes, which, you can fix that too by throwing them in the microwave before putting them in the pan.

This is what it should look like at this point.

Then grab your med sized head of cabbage and clean that up and cut it up into oneish inch sized pieces. 

When you think its time, put the cut cabbage in and 8ish glubs of worcestershire sauce in and stir. If you have some way of covering your pan, do that and let it cook on mediumish heat for 15ish mins (lots of "ishes" isnt there?) But I don't have any way of covering this pan...the hazards of cooking with cast iron, so its gonna take a little longer for me.

When your cabbage is tender....serve. I served mine when it was a bit on the crunchy side, we like it like that tho.

YUM! 

TTFN 

TSM Stainless Steel 5-Tray Dehydrator Model D5~~ Unboxing

YAY! Lookie what I got today!!

Yep I got two boxes! LOL But hold on....lets find out whats IN those boxes.

Im just trying to do an exciting build up....did it work??

Mr. H and I have been researching dehydrators for a few months now trying to figure out which one to get. We went thro a few different brands and cussed and discussed our two top pics and decided on this one.

Here were my requirements:
It must have a timer.
It needs to be square with a fan in the back for more even airflow.

Here were Mr. H's requirements:
It must last a long damn time. Which means it needs to be stainless steel to prevent rusting, and I'm sure there were other mechanical baloney he was looking for that I don't know about. Hence the reason I sent him on this search. lol

One thing we agreed upon was that it must be made in the good ol' US of A.

Whats in these boxes is the....

TSM Stainless Steel 5-Tray Dehydrator Model D5~ This is a TSM product and is a division of The Sausage Maker Inc. 

This is the unboxing of this dehydrator. I went looking for one of these for this brand/model and couldn't find one...so I'm gonna put one out there. Here we go! Click on any of the pictures to embiggin. 

Options selected were: 

Stainless 1/4-inch Holes

We bought one non stick drying sheet and one stainless steel solid sheet tray to try them out and see if I wanted more. I'm planning on drying wet stuff so I thought I would need them. We will see tho.

Opening of the boxes: 

The other box had my drying sheet and solid tray in it. 

When we dig into the box a bit more, we find......

Ok the stuff you see on the top of the dehydrator is a mirror image of, embarrassingly, my ceiling. Seriously, this thing is a mirror. 

Aside from the embarrassing parts that had nothing to do with the company......

This thing is packed very well to avoid any damage at. all. Let's take it out of the box. 

That white package that's laying up against the dehydrator is the shelving....the dehydrator was sitting on them. Some assembly required. LOL

Now for a view of the inside. 

The way you get the door open is to slide it up and off. My son is holding it for me to take a shot of it. That's his arm. 

But straight out of the box, this is what it looks like inside. 

And then you take those shelves laying on the side of the box in picture 3 and place them inside and these are what you place your shelves on. 

And slide your shelves right in..........

  

Put your handle on, plug it in, and your dehydrator is ready to use! And getting it to this point took no time at all...(unless you're taking pictures along the way.) And super simple! 

The literature that comes with it is an operating manual and included in the manual is Food Drying Guides for fruit, veggies, and jerky. It also has a couple paragraphs on "Food Storage", "Reconstitution", and "Cleaning the unit". 

Good, cuz one thing I can see I'm gonna have problems with is keeping it clean. Just unboxing it left an amazing amount of fingerprints on it. Meh....its alright, I can handle it. This gives me a reason to knit a cozy for it!!! LOL 

I do wish they would have put a book or at least a leaflet dedicated to dehydrating foods. I will be looking for one now.

First up in this dehydrator is onions. Lets see how this works.......

TTFN      

(Pork)Wiener Schnitzel Recipe

I came across Wiener Schnitzel a year ago and made it and it was WONDERFUL! My German friend gave me her recipe and I wanted to make it today and I couldnt find it!!!!

AHHHH!!

So Im gonna make this one and write it down here so I dont lose it and so yall can possibly share in my goodness.

Disclaimer: This is by far the original version...largely due to my using pork...but it is amazingly good!!

First you have 3 bowls:
One of them has 4 eggs milk and lemon juice in it.
One has flour, paprika, season salt and fresh ground pepper
and one has Italian breadcrumbs in it.

Then you have your pan with oil in it getting hot.

Take your pork tenderloin and dip them in these bowls, flour first, then egg mixture and then breadcrumbs. 

(sorry the pic is out of order.)

Then put them in the pan and cook them 3-4 min on one side, turn, 3-4 mins on the other side. You really don't want to turn them more than once. 

Take them out of the pan and put them on some paper towels and..........

Throw some potatoes and a veggie or a salad with this and your gonna be stuffed after supper!! 

Check it out yall...I was asked to add this recipe to the MyCityCuisine wiki resource! WHOOO! Click on that button right there to check it out!

TTFN

Lemon Poppyseed Muffins

I totally got a wild hair and wanted some Lemon Poppyseed Muffins. This is my SIL's fault really, shes the one that took me to Penzey's where I saw poppyseeds and its all downhill from there.

The problem? I've never made them before and so I had to go on a search for a recipe. There are no shortages of recipes for these things so I combined a few of them and came up with this one. I'm gonna write this here so I don't forget what I did cuz my boys ate every last molecule of the ones I made today and asked "Is there more?" LOL

Lemon Poppyseed Muffins


2 cups of all purpose flour
1/2 cup of white sugar
2 tsp of baking powder
1/2 tsp of baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
2 tbs poppyseeds
2 tsp lemon zest~ or more if you like more lemony taste. (I used two mediumish sized lemons)

What is "lemon zest" Melissa? I'm glad you asked....its that bright yellow outside of the lemon. Get you a grater (or if you're really fancy...grab your microplane) and use the smallest holes and just grate the bright yellow outside part of the lemon. You dont want the white under the bright yellow. Just the bright yellow.

Mix all that stuff up in one bowl and set it aside, you should have something that looks like this......

......and then, grab your measuring cup and put all this next stuff in and mix it right there in the measuring cup. (less dishes)

Measure 1/2 cup buttermilk and add....
1/2 cup sour cream
1/4 cup of canola or veggie oil
1 egg
1 tsp of vanilla extract

"Well I dont have any buttermilk Melissa." you say.....well if you have milk and vinegar or lemon juice...yes you do.
Get you one cup of milk and add one tbs of white vinegar or lemon juice and let it set for 5 mins. Voila...buttermilk substitute.
Or....
Here are some other buttermilk substitutions I found over at Good Life Eats:  Kitchen Tip: Homemade Buttermilk Substitute

Anyway...after you've mixed all this stuff up, you should have 1 1/2 cups of stuff, and look like this.....

Then you take your dry mixture and your wet mixture and mix them together...

Don't get crazy with the stirring, you want some lumps.

Then put your mixture in your prepared muffin pan. You can use papers but I didn't. I made some big ones and some bite sized ones. 

In case yall didnt know...just a little tip, if you use a ice cream scoop, you will fill them evenly and neatly. 

Bake these in a 400 degree oven for 15-20 mins...start checking for doneness after about 15mins. 

While those are baking, take your lemons you zested earlier, and cut them open and squeeze 2-3 tbs of juice and mix the juice in one cup of powdered sugar. (while your waiting check out my post on sugars)  

When they come out of the oven, take them out of the pan and drizzle your glaze over them.

YUMMMMM! I would love it if you guys had any variations you would like to share! And would love it if yall make these you come back and let me know how it went! 

ENJOY!

TTFN

Cabbage Rolls

Cabbage rolls tonight!! YAY! 

I make a crapload of these and then freeze them in bags of 4 to put in hubby's lunch. By the time he's ready to eat lunch, they are thawed and ready to eat. Throw a couple pieces of fruit in lunch box and hes good to go.

That is of course, depending on how hungry the boys are at suppertime......LOL

I was asked to share the recipe, sooo here ya go! Please understand that these are approximate amounts of all the ingredients, I am a visual cook. I will be more accurate next time I cook this and add the correct amounts. I will also take more pictures and add them.

Here is the recipe to make this yumminess for yourself.

When you get up in the morning, or approximately 5ish hours before you want to prepare your rolls, you will need to put out some "Rhodes" frozen dinner rolls to rise. Or whatever brand you want to use. I used to make them myself, but I only do that on rare occasions anymore.

For the stuffing, you will need:

1 1/2lbs of Hamburger/1/2lb sausage mixture.

1 whole large onion cut chunky

3 tbs of greek seasoning.

2 tbs of paprika

parsley chopped

(I suggest you play around with seasonings. And then come back and share so I can try them too!)

Put all that stuff above in a really big pan and cook it. You will need the bigness later. 

In the meantime....turn the oven on 350sh, clean and cut your cabbage into large chunks, about 1 inch pieces. 

Once your meat mixture is cooked, put the cabbage in and stir.(this is where the bigness comes in) Once the cabbage has cooked down, cook just a little bit longer to let flavors mix up.

Turn burner off and get you a place close by to start to fill these rolls and get you a big cookie sheet out.

Put a pile of flour down and then take one risen roll and put it on the flour and flatten it, flip it, pick it up and stretch it out on all sides. (sorry I cant describe it better....just visualize a pizza man throwing the dough up in the air and it stretching out....LOLOL) 

Place a bit of mixture in the center of your flattened roll and bring up the roll around the filling on all sides. Squeeze the edges of the roll together around the filling and put the roll, squeezed side down on the cookie sheet. 

Continue with remaining rolls and bake in a 350ish oven for 20ish mins or until golden brown. Be careful because the flour will deceive you as to how brown they are. 

When you take them out, brush them with melted butter and serve. A nice salad goes well with these. 

I KNOW this would be better with pictures to help explain, and I will add pictures next time I cook these. I hope you understand the recipe tho....if yall have any questions...just ask.

TTFN

DIY Brown/Powdered Sugars and a new section on my blog!

Im a DIY kind of gal...so when I ran across a link to make your own brown sugar, I thought it was amazing!! And then I wanted to find out if making your own powdered sugar would be just as amazing...
it is!

What do you need for these things?? (the links go to the original sites where I found this awesomeness)
Brown Sugar~ sugar and molasses
Powdered Sugar~ sugar and a blender

THATS IT. Holy crap.

Guess who's never buying either of these things again??

Think about all those times you passed up a recipe because it called for one of these things...or you decided to make a cake or cupcakes and forgot to get the frosting. (in case you dont have one, here's the recipe for buttercream frosting that I use)You dont have to worry about it anymore! Most of us have sugar at the ready in our kitchens, now you have all three with a little bit of work.

Anyway, this prompted me to add a section of links to DIY projects over there ---->
There's just the two there now, but I will be adding to the list as awesome DIY's come across my path.

Do yall have any you want to share with the class? Would love to hear them! Please provide a link.

TTFN

Crochet Grafting

Is this technique heard of?? Cuz I couldnt find hide nor hair of anything about it on the net.

Pipe in "Crochet Grafting" in any ol search engine and see what you come up with. Go ahead........I'll wait.

You get a whole gooooooooogle full of knitting stuff. Which is great, but thats not what I was looking for.

So what did I do? I made one up. Yep, Yep.

Wikipedia says the definition of Grafting in knitting is: (because I couldnt find it in crochet)

In knitting, grafting is the joining of two knitted fabrics using yarn and a needle.

Lets replace the word "knitting" in that sentence with the word "crochet" and thats what we're talking about today.

Heres a shot of it on my latest doily. Wanna guess where it is?

You have to know your gonna graft when you start the project tho. Well, maybe. Depends on which one you want to do.
These are the swatches I made during the video(below) I didnt do any sewing in, sorry. They are both grafted pieces, one is just 2 colors to see where the graft is, and to see what it would look like on a granny or something. The other is grafted in one color to see that you umm....cant see it.

Theres this one.

It starts out with a chain, and then you work into the backs of the chain. When your done grafting, you will have this row of chains on the back along the graft line.

And then theres this one.

You start this one out, working your first row on the yarn tail. Which is very much in my opinion, a provisional start. This is the one I prefer......its virtually invisible. On both sides even! I like invisible in my crochet and knitting.

But both have their place! I can see using the first one on my granny squares. I always sew as I go anyway. And the other one I will use for applications like the first picture of my doily up there.

Heres more details on how its done, what do you think? (I cant get the video to upload here so here is the link on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQLMRy1pKcc

It really isnt all that hard. I hope I didnt make it seem so. Please let me know what you think? 

TTFN