petal poodles

After a rough week of everything going bonkers around our home I found this gorgeous bouquet of carnations  created to look like happy poodles. 
I just went all wishy washy over them and wanted to share the joy. Hope you find them as cute as I do.

Few new patterns

First time to make a dishcloth on the diagonal.
Then I saw the prettiest Infinity scarf while surfing blogs! It was a beautiful deep red! I had to try to find a pattern to make some. Its getting very bitterly cold here this week so scarves are a must! I found a few tutorials on YouTube.com.
My daughter wanted my first creation to be hers!

Busy week of fun!

This week has flown by very quickly! We celebrated our 14 year anniversary. We treated ourselves to a day of shopping for odds and ends. I picked up a few new colors in cotton Peaches and Cream. Love the striping red white and blue idea for next dishcloth! Later on in the evening we had a wonderful dinner of prime rib!

After blizzard blues

Despite the cold weather my plants are thriving in their temporary warmer winter home at the kitchen windows.
This brightens the after blizzard blues!

Blizzard 2013

It was a lovely jaunt  to work this morning in the snowfall.

Dishcloth bug has bitten

Dishcloth with matching hot pad

While I enjoyed watching a few episodes of Merlin on Netflix the past couple nights, I worked up some more dishcloth sets. Trying to use up stash yarns to prepare for my week trip to visit family in Iowa. While Iowa doesn't sound very exciting to some people, it will always be home to me. The Quad Cities area readily has big name craft stores to visit!! Getting to feel the softness and see the true colors of yarn before I purchase sounds like heaven! I have exactly 3 weeks and 4days to use up what I can in my totes so hubby will agree to my planned yarn shopping spree! Here is a peek at my progress so far.

 

You can find the pattern for the diamond shaped dishcloths here. Thank you to Apple Blossom Dreams for sharing this neat pattern. It works up so quickly andis adaptable for making pot holders as well with 2 or more strands of worst weight or cotton yarns held together.

 

 

Besides dishcloths I also made  "manly " pot holders for my brothers bachelor pad. He does cook, but making "womanly" purchases of necessary items for the home is not top of his list. He saw I was testing three strands of worst weight held together for pot holders and asked for a few of these blue ones like this.

 

 

 

I also made a cute owl coffee cup cozy, Hootie! I love it with those big bright eyes. Keeps my hot cocoa and teas warm while I get preoccupied counting stitches.

 

 



I found this owl pattern here, via Ravelry.com. there are many different patterns available in different styles too if you type owl cozy in the search button there. I love getting to see posted pictures of others creations from patterns for inspiration as well.

 



Football munchies & yarn

Successful in making crab ragoons for appetizers! Along with sausage con caso cheese dip, little smokies and pickle rolls! Decided on sloppy jobs main dish for easy clean up!

I plan to hook up more angel dishcloths during the game.

Kitchen pretties

During a not so interesting movie on Netflix I made a couple useful dishcothes. I plan to make lots more tomorrow while the men hoot and holler over the Superbowl!

Battle of the bulge

The dreaded annual physical this morning didn't go too bad! :) I was positive all the holiday yummy's had packed on a few pounds by the snug of my jeans, but only 1/2 pound was gained!! Whooooo hoooo! I constantly battle with my weight after the arrival of little miss thingy and lil guy. After a scare with a few points high cholesterol check I have really tried to make some person goals to keep things under control. Family history has a way of trickling down so I really don't want to rush it along! I will take todays results and put together another plan to beef up my health as well as the family as a whole. I'm sure it will consist of cooking changes and being even more pro heathy snacking habits. I am fortunate to have children that LOVE fruits, granola and a few important veggies (if I could just get them to like green veggies more)
Other wonderful news is we are still under a windchill advisory. Our high temp today is -6 and -23 windchill factor. Yippy winter is in full swing! Count down to beautiful springtime has started!!