Blue

A few days ago I posted this on instagram

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Our berry bonanza from a local blueberry farm.  These are ahh-MAZ-ing!  Blueberries are a regular feature in our kitchen throughout the year since they freeze perfectly.  Blueberry pancakes, muffins, pies, smoothies, even in salads :: blueberries and crumbled goat cheese over arugula, my fave!

I thought I should try making blueberry scones.  Actually, I’m not a big fan of scones because I don’t like the after taste of baking soda.  Then, I found this scone recipe which uses fresh blueberries, lemon juice and most importantly, no baking soda!

Blue 1From start to finish, this batch of scones took less than 30 minutes to make.

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The perfect accompaniment to a mid-morning cup of coffee.  And no, I didn’t eat all of them… at once 😉

I substituted the milk with buttermilk which made them so light and fluffy and there is just enough sweetness from the berries and a tiny bit of sugar (I used less than a 1/4 cup of sugar).  I also didn’t bother with the glaze.

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Fresh lemon juice and lemon zest enhance the flavor of the berries.  These scones got a thumbs up from Kiki so I’ll definitely be bookmarking this recipe to make again!

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I’ve also got a bit of blue action happening with my crafting.  A few rows of blue thrown in on my Hitchhiker Scarf.

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And some tiny half square triangles with a blue theme 🙂

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Progress

I showed you this picture last time…

Color Affection Begins
Now these are the remnants.

Remnants

Which can mean only one thing :: I finished my Color Affection Shawl, yaa-hoo!

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I definitely learned a few things about combining colors with this project.

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See how vibrant that yellow-gold yarn looked in the yarn cake?  In the finished shawl, the blue makes the yellow appear quite muted.  You can’t tell with these pictures because they are closeups and your eyes are drawn to the yellow.  But from a distance, meh!

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All that science behind visual color pairing aside, I actually finished something, ahh!  I can’t believe it!!

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I’ll get this blocked and put up a post with finished pics soon after this heat wave has passed.

There has been a bit of sewing progress too.  Rows, plenty of rows.

Rows

More about these projects next time.

Pack Patch Progress

It’s the weekend, folks! Enjoy!!

 

Posted by & filed under Finished Knits, Quilting, Shawl, Stashbusting. This post has 7 comments.

With Glowing Hearts

Today, we celebrate this amazing, beautiful country of ours.

Happy Birthday Canada!

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Red and white was the flavor of the day.  These cheesecake brownies didn’t turn out as pretty as I imagined they would be. However, they get full marks for yumminess!

Of course, it’s also strawberry season (and cherry and blueberry, oh my, I’m in heaven!!) so I made our favorite summer drink.

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In a cocktail shaker, crush sliced strawberries, a couple leaves of fresh mint and a half teaspoon of sugar using a muddler.  Once the strawberries are smashed well, add ice a slice of lemon and a splash of Sprite to the mixture and shake well to “marry” all of the flavors. Pour into chilled bevy glasses and top up with more Sprite.

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For the adults, we added 2 oz of vodka making a grown up version.

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I hope you are enjoying summer in your part of the world.  (Winter for my lovely southern hemisphere friends :)) I love summer evenings with breathtaking sunsets and daylight finally fading when the clock reads 10 pm.

As the evenings stretch out, our favorite thing to do lately is sit outside until the mosquitoes win and we’re forced to go inside 🙂  For such days, I’ve picked out a summer knitting project. I’m late to the Color Affection party but that changes now that my yarn is wound and I’ve cast on. Endless rows of garter stitch tranquility!

Color Affection Begins

The yarn I’m using, Tosh Merino Light in Denim, Candlewick and Thunderstorm.

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Assembly Line

Zippered pouches are the best.  I use a whole bunch whether it is to keep my knitting and sewing notions tidy, or to store my button collection, or even to keep my makeup organized. I’ve got a little one that I throw into my purse to hold items that usually get lost in the abyss. You know the “runaway” stuff that you have to fish out of the bottom of your purse, lip balm, mailbox keys, hand sanitizer, that sort of thing!

I was asked to make a set of six zippered pouches.  It was great fun pulling various fabrics for each one.  Since I had to make six, I went about putting them together assembly-line-style!

Pouch Parade 1

Each pouch uses various fabrics and the best part was adding the contrasting zipper.  Zing! Pop!!

Pouch Parade 2

I especially love the pale blue bird on this one.

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These pouches are fully lined inside so all those seams are nicely hidden.

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The zippers are all from an Etsy store, Zipit.  Super fast shipping!

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The one below was the most fun to make 🙂

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I was also requested to make three pairs of mini mats and one larger one.  I couldn’t quite make these up as quickly as I did the pouches because each one is like a mini quilt, so there’s more work involved.

Mats 1

These are all made using Bonnie & Camille fabric in the Scrumptious line.  Quite scrumptious indeed 🙂  I used Kona cotton in grey to contrast.  Can’t quite remember if it’s Ash, or Smoke, or Pewter.

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Whew! That was a lot of sewing.  I’m glad it’s done though.

I’ve been wanting to make all of the cute little minis that keep popping up on instagram, so adorable.  But first, I’ve got to finish this WIP that’s been waiting on the sidelines for over a month now.  WIP Wednesday

It’s going to take a while so I’ll let you know how my progress goes!  I’ve got high hopes for summer sewing… with the kids off from school, I have a feeling I’m kidding myself 😉

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Twigs And Willows

I cannot believe I haven’t shared details of this finished sweater yet!  I guess since it’s been put away with the rest of our winter stuff, it was out-of-sight out-of-mind.

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This pattern is Twigs and Willows from Alana Dakos’ book Botanical Knits.  I really enjoyed knitting the yoke on this sweater with the cabled leaves and vine motif.  The pattern for the yoke is written as well as charted.  For this garment, I used Cascade 220 in a heathered green.

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If you’ve been following my blog a while, you know that as much as I love seamless knits, I really don’t mind seaming sweater pieces together while finishing.  Be warned that this is a seamed pattern.

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The sweater is slightly cropped with an extra long ribbed bottom edge.  I love how the pattern incorporates waist shaping into the ribbed hem.

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The bulk of this cardigan is done in plain stockinette, so, it’s a relatively quick knit (says she who took almost a year from cast on to blog post, hah!)

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Twigs and Willows (Ravelry) 
Pattern: Twigs and Willows by Alana Dakos published in Botanical Knits
Yarn: Cascade 220 Heathers in colorway Turtle
Needles: Sizes US 6, 7 / 4, 4.5 mm

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I’ve got a tweedy shawl on the needles even though it’s the wrong season to be knitting something this warm and wooly! I will never learn!!

Posted by & filed under Cardigans, Finished Knits. This post has 8 comments.

San Francisco

Ah, June’s here already.  As cliché as it sounds, where has the time gone!!  Last month was busy and this month is promising to be even more so.  Vineet and I went away for a few days to San Francisco.  It was wonderful and we loved the city.

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The sights were amazing and both of us being foodies, we thoroughly enjoyed many culinary delights.  So. Much. Eating!!!  San Francisco is all hills, most of them face-plant steep!

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Look at the street above the bridge… yeah, steep!!

The smelly but adorable residents of Pier 39 🙂

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My FitBit recorded over achiever step counts each day, woot, woot!  Until… I stubbed my toe on an uneven flagstone.  It hurt a bit but wasn’t too bad. Then, I stubbed it again.  Ouch! That hurt, big time!!  Serves me right for wearing my Chucks instead of sensible walking shoes!

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This happened on day 3 of our vacation and we had two more days to go.  I spent the next couple days popping Advil and saying, “aw, aw, aw!” the whole time.  That didn’t stop us from continuing to explore the city.  Even walking down Lombard Street!

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We wanted to bike across The Golden Gate Bridge.  However, better judgement prevailed and we opted to take the shuttle instead… good idea!

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By the time we got back home to Vancouver, my entire foot looked like it was stung by a bee and hurt like the dickens.

Off to the doctor I went and my fears were confirmed – I had broken my toe!!!  But you know how it is with toes, only time can heal the break.  No cast or crutches (which I am quite thankful for).  Plenty of ice and rest was the only remedy.  I’m still hobbling about but definitely on the road to recovery.

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Memories of San Fran will always make me chuckle and next time we go, we will bring warm jackets :: man, is it ever windy and cold there.  Also, I’ll most definitely be wearing sensible shoes 😉

Posted by & filed under Travel. This post has 4 comments.

Saffron In Kelp

I’ve got a finished sweater for show-and-tell today!  This sweater turned out pretty cute and I think that the wearer is uber cute!  Of course, I’m the biased mama 😉

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With this sweater, I knit a few rows here and there until I was on the last sleeve and I could taste finishing victory!  It took about 6 months to complete and another few weeks to find the ribbon for the front closure.  I got it all done in time for Mother’s Day when we gals dressed up to go to brunch 🙂

Saffron 1

The sweater is quite girly with the ruffled edges, which on a 6-year-old is fine.  If I were to upsize it for an older girl, I would skip the ruffled sleeve edges and opt for a simple rib instead.

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The pattern is called Saffron and is part of the Spice Girls series.  It is well written in true Elena fashion with plenty of tips and notes.  The sizes run from 12 months all the way up to 18 years.  The front closure can be customized, the pattern provides a couple of options to do that.

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This sweater pattern can be knitted as a shrug or as a longer cardigan with sleeve length altered accordingly.  All in all, Saffron is great value for your money.

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I used a stash staple :: Tosh DK and my only modification was that I knit two extra rounds on all the ruffled edges.  As always, I went up a needle size throughout.  For this garment, I knit the size 6-7.

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This sweater has turned out to be Kiki’s favorite item that I’ve knit for her so far.  She had a great time posing so, I’ll let the pictures do the talking 🙂

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Saffron (Ravelry) 
Pattern: Saffron by Elena Nodel
Yarn: Tosh DK in colorway Kelp
Needles: Sizes US 4, 6, 7 / 3.5, 4, 4.5 mm

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Saffron 10

Then she announced… “Now, I’m done!”
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Posted by & filed under Cardigans, Finished Knits, Kids. This post has 9 comments.

Blush And Cream

I’ve been pretty unwell for over a week now and it hasn’t been fun.  I think I’m finally getting over it and almost feel like myself again!  With the whole icky, sicky bug thing, I was prescribed a course of antibiotics.  And with that, I had almost every side effect that was listed in the fine print.  Yes, groan 🙁

I usually crave chicken soup when I’m sick which I think is a comfort thing.  This time, with it being so warm, I wanted cool and tart.

Tart??  I remember the last time I craved tart… mini freak out!!  No, I’m not pregnant.  Freak out ended, whew!  

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I blitzed my way through mealtimes with smoothies galore and felt so much better and totally energized.

This one in particular looked so pretty in the jar, that I had to take pictures 🙂  A simple strawberry smoothie is always a winner.

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A trick I’ve learned is to freeze bananas before they turn mushy.  So, when you’re ready to make your smoothie, just slice your banana in half, the peel comes off pretty easy.  Throw it into your blender with the other ingredients and you won’t need ice!

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Strawberry Banana Smoothie

  • 1 cup strawberries
  • 1 frozen banana
  • 1/2 cup greek yogurt
  • 1/2 cup milk (I used 2%)
  • 1 tablespoon chia seeds

In a blender, combine all of the ingredients and blend until smooth and creamy.  Pour into a glass and top with sliced strawberries.

Cool and Tart… done and done ♡

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The Princess And The Pea

I’m sure all of us remembers the story of The Princess and the Pea from when we were growing up.  I have to confess that I sulk when it comes to sleeping on a lumpy mattress, hotel mattresses that are too soft can feel lumpy sometimes! Vineet always laughs and says that I’m being such a diva, I just chalk it up to old age 😉

On our recent mama-son expedition to Granville Island, I came across a lovely little fabric store called The Cloth Shop.  The store is tucked into a corner of the island and filled to the brim with bolts of bright, fun prints and colors – totally my kinda scene!  Sometimes this sort of thing can be so difficult because making a choice becomes impossible. That’s when I saw this panel, it was the princess and the pea printed onto fabric*.

Princess Pea 1

The print had colorful mattresses piled high and a bright green pea at the bottom!  Of course, there was the princess and her impressive collection of crowns 🙂 The store had a sample of a little girl’s pillowcase using this fabric, cute!  I had other plans though.

My 6-year-old, Kiki, loves to read and so we’re at the library a couple times a week.  I knew that this panel would be perfect if I used it to make her a book bag.

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I used fusible interfacing to give the bag some structure which was a good thing especially for the front pocket. However, that meant that the pocket kept flopping open.  Out came the hammer. With a few good whacks to fix a pearl snap fastener into place, the bag was good to go.

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Oh yeah, I ran out of fabric for the handles.  I remember seeing a different type of handle somewhere on Pinterest (or Flickr?) long loop – short loop – loop them together and voila!

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We haven’t filled it here, but this bag is roomy enough to carry an armload of books!

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When she took her book bag to the library for the first time, even though she’s read the book before, she insisted on checking out The Princess and the Pea.  Quite appropriate!

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My favorite fairytale that I loved reading over and over was, Goldilocks and the Three Bears.  Do you have a favorite?

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* This print is from the Quiet Time collection by Tamara Kate for Michael Miller fabrics.

Posted by & filed under Bags, Fabric, Kids, Sewing, Sewn Finishes. This post has 6 comments.

Tulips And A Hat

We’ve just had the hottest day of the year (so far) pass us by.  However, today is murky and wet… April showers bring spring flowers and all that jazz, so I’m okay!  That hot day just screamed road trip so we decided that it would be the best day to make the short drive south into Washington state and visit the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival.  Only thing is that every Pacific Northwesterner had the same idea as us, hah!  We realized this when we got off the interstate and onto the Tulip Route, too late to turn around!  Anyways… the miles and miles of tulips we saw that day made up for all of the traffic woes and then some!!

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Jaw dropping gorgeousness!

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The kids didn’t whine once when I asked them repeatedly to say cheese, I’ll take that as a bonus!

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They actually had a good time 🙂

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About the hat… I took my Wellington hat along knowing that there would be fantastic photo ops.  I didn’t account for the heatwave though 😉

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This hat uses organically grown cotton yarn dyed by my friend Heidi.  She creates magic dyeing a range of vegan yarns in gorgeous colors!  The pattern is by the talented Jane Richmond.  I bought this pattern and the yarn at Knit City and immediately knew that this would be a perfect marriage.

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Of course, I finished knitting this hat when the cold weather had long passed, isn’t that always the case?

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The stitch pattern is a lovely, textured honeycomb but there’s no need to use a cable needle… win!

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I love the crown on this hat, lots of drama happening there.

For a bit of slouch on this hat, I knit the body longer than the beanie style original.

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Wellington (Ravelry) 
Pattern: Wellington by Jane Richmond
Yarn: Vegan Yarn Alnilam Worsted in colorway Thrift Shop
Needles: Sizes US 7 / 4.5 mm

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Posted by & filed under Family, Finished Knits, Hats. This post has 8 comments.