More About Decorating, Eating Well and Crochet Lessons

I've been enjoying following these Learning to Crochet lessons. Even though I crochet I've been learning things I didn't know. I'm hoping she will do a knitting one after this is done. I would also like an advanced crochet course, so after I finish this I'll go looking for that. I'm sure Ravelry has something. I've found so many fun projects on Pininterest like this tutorial on a new stitch, the star stitch. I'm still working on Christmas gifts. I feel so smug when I see people say OMG Christmas is only 12 weeks away. I've got 2 projects done and am working on 2 more.

I got some of the little pumpkins to add to my decor. I like having something real. I can't afford to buy too much this year but I got one big one to make into a jack-o-lantern for the porch. I like to layer my decorating. I start out with the basics and then start to add the details. I was thinking about how decorators say you should use bold statements, but at this time of year I think small vignettes are more intimate and cozy.

I got this photo off of Pininterest, isn't it gorgeous. It originated at sunsurler.tumble.com, but when I went to the site it was blank.

I've been reading these French women books, "French Women Don't Get Fat" by Mireille Guiliano, her cookbook "The French Women Don't Get Fat Cookbook" and "French Women For All Seasons" also by her. She gives good advise on moderation and how to do that, not totally giving up things but keeping them for special treats. She claims that the French woman eats 3 meals a day and no snacking also they eat 3 or more courses but small portions. The idea is to enjoy your treats like dessert in the context of a meal. They take a long time to eat a meal and linger over the table talking and slowly making their way through these different courses.

 In her second book she does admit that these ways are changing and you are seeing more overweight people in France. People don't want to make the time for a real meal in the middle of the day like they use to and fast food is becoming more popular with the young. The culture use to really dictate what people did but I guess things are changing.

What I got out of the books is what I'm trying to do in my life right now, to slow down, pay attention to detail and try as much as I can afford to not compromise on quality. I think we eat way too much and also waste a lot and what I would like to do is to make my meals little jewels that are beautiful and delicious like the tapas idea. However that is a tall order and I'm not sure I can do it but that is my goal, baby steps.

 I have a lot of bad habits to change and I don't know if I have the energy to do that. The whole low carb/diabetic diet just gets my down sometimes and I see the French way of eating as a way to put the pleasure back into meal planning and eating.

 I've been struggling with my food budget and making it work. One of the things the French do is buy for only a day or two and I've been trying to shop only twice a month. I'm finding that it's not really working that well for me. It really helped me to stay on budget when I stuck to it, but I would find myself at the end of 2 weeks eating what I could scrounge together and it wasn't all that appetising. That is a problem for me because I will tend to snack instead of eat a meal. So now I'm going to see if I can shop more often at least for things like fresh produce and still stay on my budget.

We can learn from other cultures, but put our own twist on it. I have another book about eating like the Italians and may take a look at that one again. I think it would benefit me if I could learn to widen the types of food I eat and try some new flavors and ethnic cuisines. My gd's love sushi but I have felt I didn't like the flavors of this cuisine, maybe I need to experiment a little more. I have to keep everything low carb, but I can still learn from others. I'm learning to use my low carb techniques on all recipes. It just a matter of substitution when it's possible.

So Bon Appitite.
Linda

Back From the Beach

We just got back from a few lovely days at the beach. It's hard to get back into everyday life. I just want to keep pretending I'm on vacation. I've not been sure if I was going to continue this blog or not. I still have my nose in a book most of the time. I've almost finished The Lord of the Rings series. I'm feeling that maybe come fall I'll be ready to get back to normal.

This is the beginning of a Christmas present. My inspiration was from Heidi. I have seen these Japenses Flower scarfs, but didn't really like them until I saw her version in grey. It is a present for my dd so can't show the finished product until after I give it to her. She picked out the yarn. Mine is a little different, but I love both of them and thank Heidi for sharing.                                                                                  

I hope you are all having a great summer. See you this fall if not before. Linda                                      

Daily Life

Sorry I just haven't had much to say lately. I'm still doing pretty much the same things. I finished Little Women, Little Men and The Narnia Chronicles. Now I'm starting The Hobbit and Jo's Boys. I really enjoyed Little Men and Jo's Boys begins 10 years later. I read that it is the last book she wrote at the end of her life. I have a book called "The World of Louisa May Alcott" by William Anderson. It's quite interesting and talks of other authors of the time. I enjoyed finally finding out the end of the Narnia stories. I want to read some of his other books, but got in the mood to try The Hobbit because they are making a movie of it right now.

I'm making good progress on my cross stitch and plan to do the whole series of Peter Rabbit patterns that I have. I think they are so cute. I sit down and sew for an hour or two almost every day. I'm not doing any crochet or knitting right now, but my gd has shown me a crochet pattern that I may attempt for her and I plan to make another purse.

I've been trying hard to stick to budget and I'm doing well. I finally have the food budget under control, but it's not easy. It also mean little to no purchases that aren't absolutely needed.

My cooking has been very uninteresting lately, just trying to eat more salads and veggies. I've started phase 2 of Atkins and that means I can start adding some carbs, but haven't done that yet. I'm losing slow, but after a stall I started losing again. I've found that drinking water and eating the vegs. are important as well as being active. My dd and I took a 2 milk hike on Sat. and I hope that as the weather get nice I'll be able to do more of that.

Including a variety of photos from house and garden.

Hope you are enjoying life.

Linda

Granny Square Purse

I finally got my purse finished and I made a little coin purse to match. I lined it with fabric. It turned out really well. I'd like to make another one and maybe try some different shapes. I knitted the coin purse. I've been knitting again. I've done a wash cloth and am working on a second one. I'm also doing another scarf. I'm trying to use some of the yarn I have. I've been reading these knitting mysteries and that got me in the mood to knit again. The one I'm reading now is talking about felting and that is something I would like to try. It makes things warmer and more water tight. It's a good idea for a hat.

I'm sorry it's been so long since I've posted. I had all these medical, yearly apts., but they are done now and they didn't find any new problems so that's a relief. I've also been focused on trying to figure out how to make my budget work. I'm going to cancel my cable, just waiting for my current reality show to end, Top Chef. I don't think I'll get any reception without it. I'm tracking my spending at the groc. store and trying to figure out how to make it work on my budget. I've consistently gone over and I can't keep doing that.

I'm still reading Little House books. I finished the one written by Laura and am going to start the Rocky Ridge series about her life with her husband after they left their original home. I read about Rose and was sad to find out that she had a very different life from her mother and didn't have a happy marriage. By different life I mean her values seemed to be very different. All the things we love about her mom's life it sounds like she rejected.

Spring seems to finally be here and I'm going to start trying to get out and walk. One of the instructors at Curves is starting a walking group and so I hope to be a part of that. I've been struggling with my diet. I'm trying to get back on it. I gained back a couple of pounds, but I hope the walking will help.

I'm hoping soon to start doing some gardening again. My herbs and pansies seem to have survived the winter pretty well. The mints all turned brown, but they will come back I'm sure. I have bulbs coming up. I hope we have a better growing season this year.

I got a jar attachment for my Food Saver that you use on your canning jars to vacuum seal them. it works really well. I got it through Amazon for about $10. I've dehydrated green beans, spinach, mushrooms, peppers, zucchini chips and I'm going to do celery next. Come summer I'll do tomatoes.

We have sun today, I hope you all get some soon.

Linda

Dreaming of Spring

The photo is a runner my dd brought me back from San Diego. It goes beautifully with my lavender place mats. So I have a little spring in my dining room.

I'm doing well on my diet. I lost the l 1/2 that I had regained and a little more. So I hope I'll continue to lose.
I'm having fun trying new recipes. I started making creamed soups out of vegges using basically the same recipe. This week I tried Mushroom Soup that was made with both fresh and dried mushrooms. It was really good, very mushroomy. 

This morning I tried making a frittata with zucchini grated, onion and fresh tomato chopped as a garnish. It also had parm. cheese sprinkled on top before placing in the oven. It called for fresh herbs which I didn't use, to lazy to cut some, but I wish I had. I think I need a smaller fry pan to make this because they normally are made for several people and mine turned out kind of thin. I'm making Florentine Eggs next which is a slice of ham put into a muffin pan and you put in a spoonful of defrosted chopped spinach and top it with an egg and grated cheddar cheese and bake. These are SS recipes.

Besides dieting and exercising I've been decluttering. I started thinking I should scale down my possessions with the economy the way it is you never know I might have to move into something smaller some day.  I'm still cleaning out freezer and the closet in my den and now a bookcase in the den. I have a bunch of old mags. that I think I'm going to start putting into the recycle bin until they are all gone. I never look at them. If I keep any they will be the special ones to me. I love my old Country mags. I think I'll find a place for the ones I want to keep and tell myself that I can only keep what fits in that spot.

I haven't been working on my crocheted purse, just haven't been in the mood, but I'm almost finished with it .I've been printing up and saving up new crochet ideas which I would like to try. I just finished reading a series of mysteries with a crochet theme they got me even more excited about crochet. Now I'm reading another mystery series with a knitting theme. This morning I saw photos on a blog from the Tokyo quilt show. Oh my they were amazing. that is another one of those crafts I would love to do but every time I try I find it difficult. I can do a simple patchwork, but the ones in the photos were mostly appliqued. Also I find it hard to find time to do more than one craft at a time. I really shouldn't be spending money on yarns for a while so I'll have do finish up those UFO (unfinished projects). I have plenty of them. I would like to go get a Blackbird pattern book for cross stitch, they also have quilt patterns. I love there stuff, very primitive.

I don't think I've mentioned my new favorite tea by Stash  Decaf Creme Caramel and Decaf Vanilla Chai. Yummy. They've been on sale at my groc. st.

Well have a good week all and and a Happy Valentine's Day.

Linda

Posy Pin

I finally put together that charming crocheted pin from Attic 24. I put this one of my dd's birthday gift. I want to make some more of these. They are pretty easy to put together, but take a little time to put all together.

We have snow. The first of the season. It's not sticking on the streets yet, but we have about an inch now. It's been on and off all day.

I put out a pile of Christmas books to read. I read all the new ones I got. I've also started a new crochet project. I wanted to use up some of the yarn I've had for a while. I've been wanting to make this lap robe I saw that is one big granny square. You just keep adding on until you get to the size you want. I had some chunky blue variegated yarn that I bought a while ago. It's cheaper yarn so I want to use it up and I thought this would be a good project for it. I'm using the biggest crochet needle that I had.

I'm doing my shopping tomorrow for food, if I can get to the store. I always make a couple of sides. This year it's easy and simple, stir fry green beans with chopped ham and a green salad. I'm bringing some really good ice cream that we like in an appropriate flavor. I have to see what they have. I know that have pumpkin. My dd is cooking up a storm. We almost always go over to her house. A few times I had it here, but it seems to work better at her house.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving.

Linda

Robins Egg Blue Scarf

I saw this pattern at Little Jenny Wren. I've been wanting to try this yarn that has some cashmere in it, so soft. So I tried my best to figure out her pattern, but mine turned out a little different. It was real easy to do. I'm working on some fingerless gloves to go with it. It's going to be a Christmas present. I'm starting to think Christmas already.

Linda

Crocheted Bag

This is my latest project completed. It was easy to do and another Attic24 project. The link is here . I had a nice Mother's Day and I had to take the ferry. I used my new bag to hold some extra clothes and it worked perfectly. I was a little afraid the handles would stretch, but they didn't. I followed her pattern exactly except I made my handles longer, because I wanted a shoulder bag. I might make it a little narrower. I'm kind of a loose crocheter and I think she may have used a smaller hook. I used a 4. The flowers were fun to make. I'd like to make some pins out of them.

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I've used up most of my yarn and the colors I have left aren't my favorites, so I'm going to start collecting the colors I want for my lap robe. I'm going to do the flower garden pattern with pink and red flowers and the blue and green background. I'm not going to make it too big, because it gets expensive. I'm sticking with my Cascade Superwash because it's one of the more reasonable good yarns. I wanted to do an alpaca or cashmere, but too pricey.

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I love crocheting. I was going to take a break from it, but I enjoy it too much to stop. It's sort of addictive.

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Linda

Granny Squares Scarf

This is my gd. I finished the scarf I was making for her. She wanted it long, so I just kept adding squares until we thought it was long enough and then I put the border, a simple one on it. I've use up a lot of my yarns now, so I have to decided If I want to buy more of the same for the next project or switch to something else. I'm thinking I would like to switch things up a bit, but it all depends on what I decide to do for my next project. There are several things I want to do. I think with my left over yarn I'm going to try doing the ripple design and see how hard it is. Here is a link to the pattern. Here is also a link to the bag I would like to make also.

It was a beautiful day here today. A good day to get outside. I went to the nursery and they were mobbed. Have a good weekend.

Linda

Flower Garden Patterned Granny's

I finished it. I shared the link for the pattern here. It was just as easy as the standard pattern. I did this pretty quick. I had to stop crocheting for a while because of tendinitis, but I seem to be ok now. I'm going to start a scarf for my gd next. She loves these. I'll be doing the regular granny. I love the feel of this wool yarn. I really want to do a lap blanket, that will probably be my next project after the scarf. I want to do the flower garden pattern or maybe try a hexagon pattern. There is also the ripple pattern that would be fun. I'm getting a little tired of these colors and may try some baby bliss yarn, it's very soft and comes is a lot of colors.

Linda

It's Done

Attic 24's Summer Garden.

I love it and I want to do another one. This time I'm going to do her Summer Garden Granny's. The link is instructions. I like the way they look like little flowers. I plan to do another small project, probably a pillow. I have a cylinder shaped pillow that I thought would work well.

This was pretty easy to do. Sewing them together was the tricky part, because of the different colors you could see stitches that went into the corners, so I had to be very careful with those corners that I had to bring together.

Linda

Sewing Project and Granny's

I hoped to have a pillow to show you today, but it hasn't happened so far. So I'm showing you the fabric I'm going to use. I also wanted to show you how I'm doing with the granny squares. My dd had the brilliant idea to make a runner for my table instead of a whole blanket. I liked the idea because I want to try the flower garden pattern and the hexagon pattern, so doing a smaller project I can try out different patterns before I dive into a large project. I decided to not use that second batch of yarn I got, it was just to heavy and I found another store that carries this yarn so I was able to get two more colors, an eggplant and a darker lime green.

I don't want to rush the pillows, but I think I know what I want to do for the first one, so hopefully I'll get that done soon.

I've been busy cooking see In The Kitchen where I talk about my new habit I'm working on.

Linda

Grannying

I'm enjoying making my granny's except that I'm a little frustrated with my yarn. I bought some lovely bright colors, but not enough so I went out to look for more and could not find the same yarn. I bought something that was suppose to be similar and I'm not really happy with the weight or the colors. I thought I would get use to them, but I'm not so now I think I'm going to have to redo all the ones that have the second batch of yarn in them. I'm also going to have to find more yarn. I may have to compromise on the colors I want. Maybe I'm being too picky, but I don't want to end up with something I don't like.

I'm trying to do one granny a day. I'm doing four rows with the idea that I will add one more but I'm not sure yet if I want to do that last row all one color. I see this as a long term project like my shawl. I may finish the shawl by next winter.

I tried blocking my practice squares by pining them on to a towel covered piece of foam and spraying them with water. It really does make them lay much better. I put a scalloped edging on it. That was a little tricky but I thought it turned out pretty well. It was the half triple crochet that was tricky.

I think once I get the yarn figured out I will be able to just enjoy grannying, it's fun.

Linda

Granny Squares

I've been wanting to learn to do granny square since I saw some beautiful ones on line. Here is one site that has some beauties.

I tried some different instructions on line but what helped me the most was this

You Tube tutorial and I've been practicing today. You need to know how to do basic crochet but there are instructions for that on line too. My tention needs to improve, but I'm getting the hang of it. I need to get some of those beautiful colored yarns that I see being used. I think that is really why I suddenly like granny squares. They are so colorful and cheerful.

Crochet is one of those things like knitting that I have to kind of learn over again ever time because I don't do it that often, but granny squares are actually quite easy.

This site is doing A Granny A Day Challenge and is doing crochet instructions.

Linda