Finished Object: Chloe

I really enjoyed knitting this little lady.  This is Chloe from the newest Susan B. Anderson book, Spud and Chloe at the Farm.  She was so fun, and came together quickly.  Susie really has a wonderful talent for character design.  She looks just like the little Chloe of the Spud-n-Chloe logo.  My head looks a little different from the one in the book- it seems I really like to stuff my toys a whole lot firmer than Susie does.  :-)

My Chloe, sadly, doesn’t get to live with us.  She’s headed off for adventures around the world:  accompanying her friend Spud, and all the little critters from the farm on a world tour to promote the book. 

LittleMiss has requested a “Chloe” of her own, but with brown curly hair like hers.  I will make her one, but I have to work out the “curly” part.

Pattern: Chloe by Susan B. Anderson {Rav link}

Source: Spud and Chloe at the Farm

Yarn: Spud and Chloe Sweater (Toast, Splash, Firecracker)

Needles: US 5 & US 7

Started: March 1st, 2011

Finished: March 25th, 2011

Notes: While knitting this up I found a small error, so be sure to check for errata if you are planning on knitting her.  The shoes have a small error that is easily rectified.

Balance Bike Review & Giveaway

The Chaos Twins are on the move! Our big reward for each munchkin becoming potty trained was a big kid bicycle.  We started with LittleMiss last year, and she was rewarded with her girlie pink princess bike complete with wobbly training wheels.  And you know what?  Every time the bike wobbles she freaks out.  Her balance is iffy and she really is afraid of falling.  So it’s been an uphill battle with her to get her to ride for longer than 2 minutes. 
Needless too say, when it came time for SpacePirate to get a bike, I was pretty apprehensive.  I didn’t think I could manage the fight that our daily walks/rides had become with two doing the same thing. 
Enter our solution:  The Boot Scoot Balance Bike from balancebiketrainer.com  
Please continue reading our review and ENTER TO WIN YOUR OWN!  Really… 

DIY Water Globes

 My poor Peace Lily (at least that’s what I think it is…) has been suffering.  The past winter has been long, dark and cold.  And I forgot to water it.  Alot.  Poor thing would be limp, drooping to the floor before I’d notice.   A nice deep drink of warm water, and you could sit and watch it gain inner strength, jumping to attention again. 

While the flakes  are still falling near Chicago and temps are still frigid, our north facing windows are getting more and more sun each day.  I picked the poor thing up off the floor and propped it up in front of the sunniest window.  Silly thing promptly shot up new leaves and even a flower.  I’ve had this plant for 3 years now and I have never seen it flower.  :-)

Yet I still kept forgetting it water it.  I looked around for some of those gaudy watering globes they show on TV – but you know what?  Those stupid things are EX-PEN-SIVE.  Stupidly so. 

Enter my solution.

Notice anything funny there? Yep, I have a glass Coke bottle shoved into the soil.  And you know what?  IT WORKS! 

And the solution to my forgetful watering was FREE! 

Simply water your plant well, and then fill your clean bottle with water to the top.  Quickly jam that sucker into the soil so that the entire neck is submerged in the soil.  If you put the bottle in while the soil is dry – it will immediately wick everything right out of the bottle.  The key here is for the water in the bottle to slowly keep the soil moist. I think this is a great solution for when you go on vacation too! 

Pretty neat, right?

General Contractor For Hire

I can’t vouch for the safety of what he constructs for you, but he’s certainly creative!  ;-)

University of Arizona Basketball

It's that time of the year... NCAA March Madness.

My team, the University of Arizona Wildcats, have made it to the Elite8.  They'll be fighting off UConn in about an hour...

BEAR DOWN ARIZONA! BEAR DOWN RED AND BLUE!

GO CATS GO!

Cake Wreck*

*as told by The Chaos Twins

Our Mommy is a bad cake maker.  She makes the messiest cakes ever.  But they always taste good. 

It was supposed to look like this cake from the Mickey Mouse magazine she is always reading (Mommy edit:  Disney’s Family Fun Magazine).

We’re totally into Jake and the Neverland Pirates around here, so when we learned our most favorite Papa ever was coming to town for his birthday, we wanted Mommy to make this cake for him while we “helped”

We sang Happy Birthday to Papa while he blew out the only candle Mommy could find in the house, a giant number one.  And then we all laughed at how funny looking the skully on the front looked. 

But it tasted good!

Mommy here:  I admit, I am a terrible cake decorator.  I really should stop.  I put the side pieces on the wrong way, the frosting came down on the backside, the skully melted.  Oh well, at least it tastes good!

Nutella Heaven

I was recently given the opportunity to host a Nutella party with a few of our friends.  We invited over all of our little preschool friends and we made a big batch of Nutella NoBake Cookies.  These little nuggets of Nutella Heaven were a HUGE hit, and they’re so easy to make.  I’ve gotten a few requests for the recipe, so I thought I’d share it with you here (I found the original recipe on Pioneer Woman’s Tasty Kitchen, but I made a few alterations that make then sooooooooo much better)

Ingredients:

• ¾ cups Nutella
• 1.5 cups Quick Cooking Oats
• 1.5 cups Old Fashioned Oats
• 1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
• 2 cups Sugar
• 1 stick Unsalted Butter, Diced
• ½ cups Skim Milk
• ¼ cups Dutch Processed Cocoa Powder
• dash of kosher salt

Directions:

The key to this recipe is to make sure everything is ready to go, because once it starts it goes quick and there is no stopping to measure things.  Measure out Nutella in a small bowl and set aside. In another bowl, measure out oats and set aside. Line a couple of baking sheets with waxed paper.

In a medium saucepan, combine the sugar, unsalted butter, salt, milk and cocoa powder. Bring to a boil and stir frequently. Boil for 2 minutes. Be sure to boil for a full 2 minutes or cookies will be too soft.

At the 2 minute mark, add in the Nutella, vanilla extract and cooking oats. Stir everything together quickly.

Work quickly now!  Scoop little dollops onto the waxed paper.  A cookie scooper works well here, or just two spoons.

Let the cookies firm up on the cookie sheets and then enjoy with a tall glass of cold milk!

 

Disclosure:  Mommyparties provided gifts for myself and my guests to help host the party.  Thanks!

Garden Seed Starting Day #4

We’re on day 4 and already we’ve got big smiles from little faces because the broccoli has already sprung to life.

The Chaos Twins are just so excited.  I can see them eating veggies right from the garden, little stinkers!

Rainbow

A little leprechaun dressed in drab blue, driving a white truck delivered a rainbow to me today. 

This is a color wheel charm square swap I participated in.  Everyone signed up for a different color.  I picked blue because that is what I had in the stash.  I am just so excited to come up with a pattern to use these beauties.  I think a baby quilt that fades from one color to the next would be just sweet. 

Hmm, I wonder which little baby coming to the world to those I love would love a rainbow quilt…

Recipe: British Mint Picnic Salad

Growing up as a child in the UK we always had this salad on hand from almost the minute winter turned to spring until the start of winter once again.  It’s sweet.  It’s tart.  It’s crunchy.  It says “Hey Little Lamb, come out and play!  Spring has Sprung!”  It soothes my soul.  It contains a secret ingredient that I rarely tell people about, hoping that they’ll love it so much that they beg me to bring the salad over whenever we meet… 
After we moved back to the US, the salad came less frequently.   Usually only when we were headed to a potluck or squadron picnic.  I remember my brother and I asking (practically begging) my mom to make this salad for us.  It turns out she only made it for special occasions because the special ingredient wasn’t readily available in here.  She was having it shipped to her,  snuck into boxes of chocolates and treats from our dear friends in the UK.  Later, she’d rejoice when she found a random jar or two on the shelves of the base commissary, rationing the secret potion like it was gold.  Once I moved away from home I would search the local Britshoppes in the hopes of finding some of the elusive Colman’s Mint Sauce.  One kind shop owner finally told me she wasn’t allowed to import it anymore because the FDA didn’t approve of the ingredient used to boost the green color (Copper Chlorophyllin).  Once she told me this, I begged and bartered with internet knitting friends to get jars and jars sent from the UK. 

Mmmmm.  Minty Goodness!

But guess what?  You can get it here again!  This natural food colorant has been FDA approved and is perfectly safe!  HOORAY!   I pick mine up at World Market, but you can also find it on amazon for a decent price. 

The recipe really couldn’t be simpler. 
1lb rotini pasta
3 or 4 granny smith apples, cut into bite size chunks
5 or 6 celery stalk, cut into bite size “moons”
prepared Italian salad dressing*
3 or 4 tablespoons of Coleman's Mint Sauce**
kosher salt to taste

Nom Nom! 

 
Boil your pasta to a firm al dente.  Remember that this will be sitting in an acid and will soften slightly. 

Put your chopped celery and apples in a large mixing bowl and dress liberally with the salad dressing and mint sauce. This will keep your apples from turning brown on you. 

Rinse the pasta with cool water, but make sure it’s still warm when you add to your bowl of chopped apples and celery. 

Stir well and taste it.  You can add more dressing and mint if you find your salad needs more moisture, but don’t go overboard.  I also find that a pinch of kosher salt is needed, but it will depend on how much you salt your pasta water and what italian salad dressing you use.

Cover and store in the fridge. This salad only gets better the longer it sits, and the BEST part is that it does not spoil easily so it’s the perfect picnic salad!

So deliciously out of focus!

* a note about the salad dressing.  I very FIRMLY believe that you MUST use Good Seasonings Italian Salad dressing – you know, the kind that you mix in the little glass cruet with the lines marked for OIL, WATER, VINEGAR.  I have tried other prepared dressings and it’s just not as good.  I make ours with red wine vinegar and olive oil.

** yes I know there are other mint sauces available out there that are US made… but they are just flat out disgusting and contain so many fillers and un-natural ingredients.  We are making a very conscious effort to eat only natural ingredients (no chemical food dyes and corn fillers, thank you very much!).  Try the others if you must, but please try this one first.  Gilway makes another very good traditional mint sauce as well, but Colman’s is my favorite – hand’s down.  OH!  And don’t even think about buying that JELLIED stuff to make this salad.  Won’t work!  Trust me – in an act of newlywed desperation I tried this thinking “how different could it be, really?”   Bleck!

Just as a side note – if you take the leftover salad dressing and marinate a bunch of chicken breasts in it and then grill them off, they are FABULOUS alongside this salad or even chunked up and toss in!

ENJOY!

Our Sunday

What to do first?

I tried to make today a general day of lazing about.  The weather is finally starting to turn, and I’m anxious to get my garden started.  I will be tearing up my existing “landscaping” and reusing the edging to create a long raised garden.  Usually when I plant veggies, I drop the dough on established plants.  This year I decided to start completely from scratch, plant seeds and use this as a learning opportunity for the Chaos Twins.

Kids that love veggies more than sweets, YAY!

Each kidlet is getting their own Jiffy windowsill seed starter.  SpacePirate came with me to The Home Depot and we picked out seeds.  As you can see, Disney has a line of seeds out and, naturally, he migrated directly to those.   He looked them over carefully and picked out all the veggies they love to eat:  bell peppers, peas, green beans, broccoli and carrots (the scallions are my addition because I couldn’t find them in the other brands). 
 
I picked out a 72pot Jiffy seed starter.  I chose to get my favorite herbs (cilantro, basil, rosemary) that’ll get planted in among my patio landscaping and in pots near the doors.  I also picked up roma tomatoes, jalapenos, spinach, zucchini and yellow squash.  I still have plenty of seeds left over for a fall harvest of everything or to sow directly in the soil.  This will depend on the final finished size of the garden because I’m not fully planned out on that yet.    I know I need room to stake the tomatoes and that I’ll need a slightly sandier area for the spinach.  I have an old decorative trellis-thingy that the previous homeowners  left behind that’ll be getting a fresh coat of paint and will be used for the peas and beans to climb.  That’s about as far as I’ve gotten in my planning.


Anyway, the little peatmoss Jiffy thingymajiggs now have taken up residence in my laundry room.  I’d like them to be in one of my warmer brighter windows, but logistics and toddlers have ruled that out.  I think they’ll work out okay here because it does get a fair amount of light and they’ll have the warmth from the dryer running to help them along.  Oh, what am I talking about – I have no idea what I’m doing!  I’ve never used these crazy seed starter doo-hickeys before.  Am I even doing it right?

I'm hoping this window will be sunny enough

The Chaos Twins each planted their own

In other news:  I’m knitting.  Slowly. 

Knit, knit, knit

Does anyone have pointers for seed starting?  I've never done this before and I'm totally winging it!

Spud & Chloë at the Farm {NOW AVAILABLE!}

Hey my knitterly friends, I just wanted to let you know that Susan B. Anderson's new book Spud & Chloë at the Farm is now available.

Click here to see all of the projects in the book  {RAVELRY LINK} 

I've posted these before, but here are the two patterns I tested for the book.

Spud the Sheep and the Mother Hen with Chicks:

Click here to see more about Spud.
Click here to see more about the Mother Hen and Chicks.

If you have a chance, pick up a copy of the book.  It's really cute.  You will find my name in there too!  :-)

I am going to order my copy right now, in fact.

My FIRST CraftCrtique.com article

WOOT!

Hey everyone, please hop over to CraftCritique.com to see my FIRST ARTICLE.  I wrote about a new pair of Fiskars folding scissors I had just gotten.  Leave them some comment love, and me too.  Tell me what you thought of my article!

Oh, and while you are there, be sure to enter the contest for National Craft Month.  A Xyron Crafting Station is up for grabs.

Target $1 Section + Quilting = WIN!

While I was checking out the $1 section of Target for Easter trinkets, I came across these beauties:

PINK!

They are meant for gardening, but I have found a better use for those wonderful nitrile coated palms.  QUILTING!  The gloves provide just enough "grippy" to help me move my free-motion quilting around.  They really help relieve some of the stress on my hands trying to keep a flat, tight grip while working.

Here are a couple of shots taken while working.  My new machine and I are still trying to get to know each other, so this was just a little sample quilt sandwich.  The Chaos Twins took these shots. 

SpacePirate took this shot for me.  Not bad for 3, right?

LittleMiss' shot. 

Go out and get some for yourself before they disappear.  They even come in other colors (green, blue and yellow, I think).  And quilting gloves that only cost $1 - "WINNING!"  (sorry, had to do it!)

Painted Memories

I was doing laundry today and decided to share a picture with you.  You see, I have this ratty old shirt and equally ratty pair of sweat pants that I have worn EVERY SINGLE TIME I have painted since I got married.  
This shirt is butt-ugly even without the paint.  My MIL gave it to me, I think just to see if I would actually wear it because mustard is the one color I just cannot wear – and she knows it! It makes me look like pea-soup barf.  So what better use for it than to paint in!
I love painting and decorating* the house. Alot.  I’m not a messy painter, but somehow I always get some of the color on my clothes.  It’s just the way I am. And when I am decorating or staging a room, the paint usually comes out (although I do use my trusty Krylon spray paint on the small stuff).  So there’s lots of paint on this poor shirt.
I keep wearing the shirt now, even though its become threadbare and holey in places, because I love putting it on and seeing the memories.  The midnight blue I illegally painted in our first apartment.  The yellow/blues I painted to cover the McDonald’s Red/Yellow combo in the kitchen of our first home.  The smiley face we painted on my big baby bump #1. The black we painted the walls in our theater room in Iowa.  Some of those painted memories make me misty eyed – mainly the apartment (while I hated it, it was in the best place to live) and the colors we painted the Chaos Twin’s rooms before they were born.
Here’s an annotated version with a few of the most visible memories:

Pretty crazy, right?  who keeps a shirt this long just to paint in!?