pillow progress.

Here's a little peek at what I've been working on for Madelynn. I was planning to enter it into the Blogger's Pillow Party contest over at Stitched In Color, but for some reason I thought I had until tomorrow to enter for this month. Luckily, there will be a March deadline to enter also, so hopefully I'll make that one. And then maybe when I finish this one up I'll finally get around to working on the crochet pillow I've had in my head for months.

:)

this moment.

inspired by SouleMama.

lemony-limeny.

Or does it look more like mustard and wasabi? Either way, I love these yarns together, even though I'm not working on a project using both of them together. I started the one in yellow a few weeks ago, on a trip to Portland. There's just no denying that small gauge, single-color projects are MUCH more portable than most larger ones, especially if the larger one is striped with about seven different colors, which means juggling seven balls of yarn around...

Back to the yellow. My mom came up with a great scarft/shawl pattern a few months ago, and I love it, so she generously supplied me with that skein of fingering weight yarn to "test knit" it. :)

The green project is my first pair of adult socks, and my first (somewhat) involved lace pattern. I'm knitting these babies up for myself for my birthday. Which isn't really anytime soon, but I'll need a few weeks if I actually plan to have them finished in time! I chose green (also out of my mother's stash. Happy Birthday, right?) so I don't get pinched. 

Both of these yarns are from Knit Picks, since that's where mom and I get most our yarn-- lots of colors + super affordable = sold!

pillow party.

I am super excited to say that I am currently working on an entry into the Blogger's Pillow Party. I thought this was the perfect excuse to try my hand at something new, without committing to a huge project. I can't wait to show you the finished product.

:)

a recipe for you.

A few days ago I searched high and low for a recipe for broccoli salad. The result: you don't need a recipe, as long as you have a good dressing! Just combine some of your (or your kids') favorite things, or you can keep it simple with just broccoli and crumbled bacon. Yum! On Valentine's day I used a head of broccoli (finely chopped), some shredded cheddar, a diced apple, and blue cheese crumbles and served it alongside heart-shaped sloppy joe's. The day before that I had bacon instead of blue cheese, which was equally as good! Like I said before, anything goes! You could also add raisins, green peas, sunflower seeds, almond slivers... be creative!

Here's the recipe I came up with for some super yummy dressing:

1/2c. mayonaise

1/2c. plain yogurt

2 Tbs balsamic vinegar 

3 Tbs honey

Just mix all ingredients together, dump into your bowl of salad, and enjoy! 

:)

Happy Valentine's Day.

You can click the picture to read a Wikipedian History of the special day, which is where I found this fantastic piece of artwork.

:)

valentines:: from me

 Here is a fun valentine idea. An embroidered card. I made this one for my special someone. The bottom wing looks crooked in the picture, but in person you can see that I used variegated thread, and where the line looks crooked, it is actually filled in with pink. I probably shouldn't have folded the thread over so that the pink and red are "mixed", but it really it does look better than the picture shows.

The bird is a Jenny Hart pattern from her book, Embroidered Effects.

:)

valentines:: from the kiddies.

The other day the kiddies and I did some sweet Valentine's Day projects. Our first was the classic painting of rocks, making them into "love bugs."

Mad couldn't decide if these should stay out by our flower bed or if they should reside in her bedroom.

 Our second project was making actual cards for Madelynn to mail to her friends. We used this idea, which we found here. (That all makes sense once you click on the links.)

 Madelynn, who takes recycling very seriously, used our card scraps to make her "love-bot" which now hangs next to her bed.

:)