Yarn Along/ WIP 10/30/13

Good Morning Everyone! 

 

First off I want to wish you all a Happy Halloween tomorrow!! I hope you all stay safe and have fun.  Hopefully most of you will have better weather than what they are predicting in my area.  It's a 100% chance of rain tomorrow.  It's pretty foggy this morning and while I am not looking forward to driving to work in it, it does look a little spooky since Halloween is tomorrow.

 

I'm still reading Salem's Lot and finding it to be a book that I need to really concentrate on as I'm reading because it jumps around a lot.  It's not a relaxing book that I can just pick up and stop and know I'll remember it all without trying.

 

 

It's been a busy week since I last posted.  I usually have a lot of crafting time on the weekends but it was a busy weekend. A couple friends and I went to one of the local casinos and had dinner, watched football/hockey and just had a good time.  I don't really gamble but the people watching was fun!  Then Sunday we went and saw a special showing of A Nightmare on Elm Street.  Since my crafting time was cut down I decided I really needed to focus on the Kitchenaid cover for my grandma.  I thought I was doing so well but I just measured it and it's about 6 inches and it needs to be just over 14 so I'm not as far as I thought.  The first picture shows the entire thing so you can see it's a pretty decent size.  The second picture is a close up of the sequins and stripes.  These colors will be perfect in my grandma's kitchen.

 

 

 

 

The last thing I worked on and that was mainly killing some time one morning.  I decided I'm going to sell crocheted flowers in my shop as barrettes.  The pink one was made using a chain 2 at the beginning and the purple was made using the magic ring.  I think it makes for a much cleaner center.

 

 

One more shot of the purple one just because it's my favorite!  I'm joining up with Ginny and Tami today!

 

WIP and Yarn Along 10/23/13

It feels as though Wednesday has taken forever to arrive.  Yesterday may well have gone backwards with how long it took to end.  To top it all off...it snowed yesterday.  Snow on October 22 is almost unheard of.  I remember once or twice having snow on Halloween but we still have a week to go until the holiday.  Very strange.  Don't get me wrong.  I LOVE snow.  However, I do not love the cold that accompanies it.  Hopefully it will be short lived as we are supposed to reach the 50s again by the weekend. 

 

As I sit here having a pity party for myself because of how long it is taking the weekend to come, how cold it is, I'm also eating chocolate.  Surefire way to feel better.  Love the cookies I made.  I posted the recipe on Monday here.   As a part of my party I realized I have hardly worked on any of my WIP this past week. 

 

There was a little progress on the Kitchen aid cover.  Which I will be sure to show off once it's finished.  I'm hoping it will be like a big hat over it.  I'm worried about whether it will be big enough though.  No progress on the daisy blanket or the corner to corner throw.  I guess I'll be pulling out some hibernation projects or long lost projects to show.  One of them is a scarf that I started but had misplaced.  So hopefully that one will finish soon so I can have a FO post.  It's a pretty cream color with sequins.  That seems to be a trend lately!     

 

 

 

 

The other is a thick blanket that looks a little tie dyeish because of the yarn.

 

 

So I guess that begs the question of what have I been doing for the past week.  Well I'm currently working on some headbands because I finally want to get my etsy shop open.  I've been talking about it for well forever but decided to go in a different direction than just crocheted items because as you can see I don't crochet that fast. I'm also making hair ties for women.  I love these ties.  They say they do not crease your hair although I cannot testify to that because I pull my hair up wet so it's going to crease no matter what.  But they are so much more comfortable and they've helped with the headaches I've gotten.  And they are glitter too!

 

 

Here are all of the things I've been working on.  Quite the mix there!

 

 

 

Edited to add that I just started reading Salem's Lot by Stephen King.

Joining up with Tami and Ginny

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Hi Everyone!

I hope you all had a great weekend! I had a fantastic but busy weekend.  Saturday was Sweetest Day and I got a bouquet of beautiful roses.  You can see them in my Instagram feed if you like.  Feel free to follow me @bellabydaisy. Next up is Halloween! Time is flying by!  I'm currently working on some Thanksgiving and Christmas related items for my Etsy shop that I cannot wait to show everyone.  I'll post the shop and blog links when they're viewable.

And now onto the chocolate chip recipe.  This is not my recipe.  My mom found it on one of the discussion boards she reads and the poster got it from the cookbook "Death by Chocolate Chip Cookies" by Marcel Desaulniers.  So I just want to make it clear this isn't my recipe.  The credit belongs to the author Marcel Desaulniers.  But the cookies turned out really well so I wanted to share.  I wish I would have taken more and better pictures but it wasn't until I "test tasted" after the first batch came out of the oven that I decided to blog about it. 

Ingredients:

4 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 lb (2 sticks) unsalted butter at room temperature
2 cups tightly packed dark brown or light brown sugar
2 large eggs
2 Tbsp dark rum
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
24 ounces chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

Sift flour, baking soda and salt together, set aside.

Beat butter & brown sugar together until soft, approx. 4 minutes.

Scrape bowl and add eggs, dark rum & vanilla.  Beat for 1 minute until combined.

Add flour mixture gradually and mix to combine well.  (Overmixing the dough will cause the cookies to get tough)

Add chocolate chips and blend in well.

Measure the dough out in heaping 2 Tbsp. portions

Bake at 325 for 20 minutes, rotating the cookie sheets half-way through baking. 

 

 

The cookies turned out really well! And for those of you who said Rum! when you read the recipe....I said the same thing and you don't really notice the rum in it but maybe that is what makes them taste so great!

WIP and Yarn Along 10/16/13

Hi Everyone!

 

First off....Happy Hump Day!  I love this commercial even though its ridiculous.  It makes me laugh every time.

 

 

I'm still working on the same blanket as last week so I figured I would show you some of the other WIPs I have going on as well.  The first looks like a really big hat for Hagrid out of Harry Potter but my grandma asked me to knit her a cover for her kitchenaid.  I'm not sure how well it will really work but I would do just about anything for her so we're giving it a whirl.

 

One of my favorite parts....It has sequins in the yarn.  Here's a close up for you.

 

 

My next blanket is a boys blanket and I absolutely love this pattern!  It's the corner to corner throw by Red Heart.  I currently want to make every blanket with this pattern. 

 

 

And finally here is the daisy/granny throw.  The border will be all daisies while the inside is granny squares.  I'm almost halfway done.  There will be 7 rows and I just started the 4th row.

 

 

I have some other WIP that are currently in hibernation.  Maybe next week I'll pull those out to mix it up a bit unless I happen to make significant progress on these ones.

 

As for reading it's still the same James Patterson book.  To be honest I haven't picked it up all week. I'm hoping that with the cool weather that we're having I'll feel more like curling up and reading. 

 

Have a great day everyone!

WIP and Yarn Along 10/9/13

Hi Everyone!

First off I wanted to apologize for my absence.  I created a second post but I know many of my readers come from Ginny's and Tami's blogs so to make sure you all see this...I'm sorry I've been gone for so long!

I am back and I have many projects going on and I'll slowly catch you up on them over the next couple weeks but today I am working on one.   I am trying to use up some of the yarn that I have had sitting for a really long time.  The white yarn in the picture below was for a Christmas present that I was going to make last year and ran out of time.  So I decided to use it to make a daisy/granny square blanket.  I've made all the daisies and granny squares and now comes the joining part!

I'm currently reading Second Honeymoon by James Patterson.  He has had so many books come out recently that I have a backlog of books to read.

Daisies

Stacks of granny squares

 

The start of the joining