simpletruths

Smoothie weather

"I like it"

 

"mmm...I like it Again!"
 

 

Strawberry Pillows

When I was a little girl I LOVED Strawberry Shortcake (both the dessert and the little girl with the rainbow sprite friends). My grandmother found out and, as grandmothers are want to do, after a few gift giving occasions, my room was outfitted with Strawberry Shortcake sheets, blanket, pillow cases, curtains, a little card table AND a record player....
Now that I think about it, it don't think I actually had a Strawberry Shortcake doll - or a rainbow sprite for that matter.

(Ms. Shortcake then and now)

Since then I've grown out of my Strawberry Shortcake obsession (the character....not the dessert). But now that I know I'm having a little girl I've been thinking about all of my little girly things (though for a long time I was vocally against all things 'girly').

Anyway - look at these adorable strawberry pillows that I found over on the purl bee.

via www.purlbee.com

These will now need to be added to the ever growing project list.  Luckily, newborns have no use for strawberry shaped pillows so I can put these on the back burner for now.  Unless I happen to stumble upon the perfect fabric.....

Joy of Joys - my new favorite time suck

via www.pickles.no

This is my new favorite knitting site (they have crochet, craft and sewing patterns too). The patterns are amazing and their yarn looks wonderful.

This is one of these times where I'm finding it difficult to focus on any ONE pattern - I can't seem to wrap my brain around the fact that it's just not a great idea to attempt 5 projects at once....then nothing gets finished and I end up sad.

Oh, but where do I begin?

Pick ONE pattern, order yarn, while waiting for yarn to arrive, finish the other 4 knit/crochet projects that are in progress....
Yup, that's a good place to start.

Breakfast

We had some buttermilk that needed to be used for something so....

 buttermilk pancakes

Then there was the bucket of pears we picked from the yard

(plus some ginger and a little brown sugar) =

yummy breakfast for everyone

MoJo

Finally!

Some new editions for the shop. So far I have a few pair of earrings

 

 

This is one of a few necklaces that are in varying stages of completion

 

These and a few more will be added to the shop this week.
  

 

I did it!

I just finished my first venture into knitting with double pointed needles and I've got to say, once I got into the swing of it, it was pretty cool.  Plus then you end up with cool decreases that look like this:

 

yup - I'm a new fan.  The only downside is that I'm still much faster at crocheting hats...but crochet patterns aren't as cute and don't have rolled edges like this:

 

yea...this little girl is going to have a warm, cute little head this winter.

 
  

Double Pointed Dilemma

I've avoided them for a while but then I saw the most adorable newborn hat pattern ever on this blog.

Most of the hat is done using a 12" circular, but for the decreases you need to use dpns (Double Pointed Needles)....but I really wanted to make this hat.

so here I am

It's going - albeit slowly and the one thought I keep having is that people used to knit entire sweaters using only dpns. 

that's just crazy talk 

A little less plastic....

...a little more cute.

 

yay for snack bags!

We've been trying to use less plastic - in an attempt to balance out the amount of plastic that seems to arrive with the birth of a child...I've had glass storage bowls and reusable snack bags on the brain for a while now. 

 

snack bags - check

These are pretty perfect because they take just a few minutes to put together - including the cutting, and there's no velcro involved. I wanted to find/make something without velcro because I was looking for something that Little Mr. could open with little to no assistance.

Perfect!

Amy over at angrychicken posted a fun (and funny) video tutorial on sewing your own snack bags. I'm going to be making smaller ones in a few days. 

 
 

breakfast of champions

I worked at Cinnabon for 2 months as extra holiday help while I was in high school. 

For YEARS afterwards I couldn't even look at a cinnamon roll without feeling like cinnamon was going to start seeping from my pores.

 

Luckily for Big Mr, I've moved past that.  Plus mine aren't the size of a toddlers head, made with whole wheat flour, filled with pecans and raisins, and topped with a ginger-infused glaze...mmmmmm

Tiny kitchen, big results

We have several fruit trees in our back yard: Apricot, plum, orange, and pear.  The oranges are pretty much there for the grabbing year round - and make phenomenal orange juice on the weekends. The pear tree is still pretty small but it's already looking like it'll be bursting with yumminess in 3-4 weeks.  

The trees most on my mind right now are the apricot and the plum. As I'm writing this I have a bucket of apricots that need to be dealt with (frozen, prepped for jam, dried for chutney....something).  To give you an idea of how big this one tree is, this is the second bucket of apricots I've gotten in the last 3 days made up of only those fruits I could reach without a ladder or stool - and I'm short (5'0").

So this weekend I tried my hand at canning - and there are few sounds that are as singularly satisfying as that 'pppsss...ting' sound of properly prepped jar and lid creating an air tight seal around something you've made.

I just did a 2 small batches - the first was plum cinnamon jam from this recipe i found over at thekitchn, and the second was 'regular' apricot.

so pretty

 

There's a partial jar of each in current rotation and a few in the pantry for later. Isaiah's favorite lunch right now is almond butter and jam so I'm sure we'll make good use of these.