The weekend up North was lovely. We ate tons of food, drank tons of Wisconsin beer and took lots of naps! I made the monkey bread and spinach souffle recipes but was too groggy on both days to remember to take photos. Both turned out well but I have to make the monkey bread again because I was not pleased with some of the dough not being baked well enough and the caramel sauce overflowing or leaking from the bunt pan.

What I did remember to take a photo of, is the log cabin wedding blanket. I know another log cabin blanket, but after finishing up the other blanket I know the pattern pretty well and have enough episodes of Vampire Diaries to watch, that I think this one will fly by.

Also, I keep forgetting to show you all what my Secret Santa Lily, from Sweat Shop of Love‘s gift exchange made me. A knit yoga bag! Pretty awesome, right? The patter is call Om Nava Shivaya Yoga bag and you can find it on Ravelry.

Did you know I have an Esty store? Well, I do. It it called the homemade goodness.  I try to do most of my knitting work for folks by request but every once and awhile I will put something up in the store but I usually take it down because it doesn’t sell. So I thought I would ask you all, what do you want to see in my store? There is a Google form embedded below and if you fill out the “survey” I’ll share the results on Friday and begin to make some changes in the store.

This past weekend my sister and I hosted a baby shower for my sister-in-law in St. Paul, MN. Since we both came in from different states we decided that we wanted the menu, games and decorations to be simple and fun. My sister with help from our mom, handled the menu and made three delicious salads and finger sandwiches… I promise to post all of those recipes as soon as she emails them to me.

I handled the game, which I wanted to make completive, fun and creative and non-traditional, so I thought of “Baby Project Runway.”

Here are the rules:

Break the party up in to design teams based on the size of your party. Give each team a onesie and access to fabric, ribbon, scissors, fabric glue, safety pins and a needle and thread.

In the same style of the show Project Runway, explain to them that they have (number) of minutes to create a onesie for a style, ie Rock ‘n Roll, Hippie Chic, Jetsetter, etc with the supplies available to them (I put everything on one table).

When time runs out give everyone a stuffed animal or baby doll to wear the onesie and have a fashion show, just like they do on the show. Oh and the judge or “Heidi” is the Mom-to-be.

I think I might have missed something, so post if you have questions about the game.

I had such a great time at the shower and it was so nice seeing all the love my future niece or nephew has waiting for it. I almost forgot! For my baby gift I made the felted slippers and the Classic Baby Cardigan from Debbie Bliss’ Essential Baby.

I finally finished Ella’s log cabin baby blanket! You all have heard me talk about this blanket so much already, so I’ll spare you the detail but I wanted to show off the final photos.

For part one of my baby shower gift to my future niece or nephew, I knit a pair of slippers from Debbie Bliss’ Essential Baby. Using Malabrigo worsted on size 8 circulars, they were fast and easy to knit. Except for the one part of the pattern where she assumes you knit 12 stitches; if you look on my ravelry page, I’ve made a note of the correction. Now I just need to felt them!

This Saartje’s baby booties pattern has been in my Ravelry queue for over a year, but it seemed like every time I was planning to make them something came up. Like, the yarn wasn’t the right color for the baby or those needles were being used with a different project… you know how it goes. Anyway, it seemed like the star aligned this past week because I was able to knit them for my friend E’s work baby shower.

You can download the bootie pattern here or go to Saartje Knits on Ravelry to download.

Tips for this pattern: even though they knit up fast you have to weave in a lot of ends and add buttons so make sure you give yourself enough time and having circular and double pointed needles on hand worked really well when knitting up the straps.

Sorry for no post yesterday, but I was sick with a cold and made a deal with myself that I wouldn’t go on to the internet or start any new projects. So, I spent the whole day in bed watching episodes of Downton Abbey and Sherlock and napping, a lot of napping.

The one thing I did work on was knitting a pair of ears and one leg for my version of a pound puppy.

Last night I was really excited to make peanut butter cups. Mostly because they sounded good and I had all the ingredients. I mean when do you find a recipe online and happen to have all of the ingredients at home?!

Well, my excitement ran out when my powdered sugar wasn’t mixing well into the peanut butter mixture and the chocolate chips I melted turned out to look and feel more like play dough, than melted chocolate. So, I scrapped the peanut butter cup project, washed my dishes and made stove top popcorn. Below is how I make stove top popcorn.

Coat the bottom of the pot with vegetable oil, cover the bottom of the pan with popcorn kernels-make sure you only have one layer.  Cover the pot, turn the burner on high and wait for the popping noise. Make sure to turn off the heat when you hear only a few pops!

Pour the popcorn into a bowl.  Throw a tablespoon or two..or three in the pot watch it melt.

Pour the butter over the popcorn in a few increments making sure to stir in-between each pour. If you like add salt, when you add butter.

And I worked on the log cabin baby blanket. I only two more squares to go!

Do you know about Ravelry? If you don’t, it is a great resource for any knitter or crocheter. You can find free patterns, put them in a queue (like Netflix), and even create a digital library of your “real” pattern books.

Also, it is a great place to find help with a project. You can go to a forum and discuss what to do when you have yarn with different color dye lots or if there was a typo in the pattern. If you’re not in to the fiber arts you, may not be that down with this post. But if you have a friend or family member that is, I would suggest you tell them to check it out.

Normally I don’t make New Year’s resolutions, but this year my I am making craft resolutions.

one. finish all in progress knitting projects or undo them

two. start and finish all knitting projects that i promised friends i would make

three. sew more challenging projects

four. improve my embroidery skills

five. make ice cream, bake bread, pretzels, macaroons & croissants