Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Muffins and knitting and such

Forgot to post about how it all has gone.

About the Banana Blueberry Lemon/lime yogurt muffins.  Well they tasted nasty at first fresh from the oven, but when 1 to 2 days old, they tasted wonderful!!!  I guess there really is some truth to letting your quick breads rest overnight before eating!

And the knitting... well I have 2 cotton dishcloths in the works, I did have another but it was almost 13 inches wide and that's just way too big for a dishcloth, so I ripped it out... that was actually kinds satisfying.  Then I got more practice of casting on.  My biggest dishcloth is probably no more than 2 inches long, but it comes along quite quickly when I'm not dropping then picking up said dropped stitches.  And I think that for now, I'm going to stick to knitting dishcloths because they are quick and easy projects, plus I just don't think I can handle anything bigger right now.

Good night y'all!  I think I will skip the bookmarks until tomorrow morning, I keep dozing off.  Plus the wind is blowing hard enough that the lights keep flickering so I think I will just take my chances with the potential for power loss.

Flowers & leaves

I can't recall if I've posted about this before but really who cares?  ;)

 

I finally found these cute little daisies though I was originally looking for  tiny sunflowers, then I found these leaves and I knew I was all set.

 

All set for what???  Well, to make some simple bookmarks like the one that was made for me.  Should I remember to do so, I will take a picture of it to show off.  Usually though when it's loose, it's hanging out of baby K's mouth, lol.  Makes a nice teething object I guess.

Basically, now, all you do is make a flower, then make a chain several inches long and then make a leaf at the end, or the other way around of leaf first then flower, which ever you prefer.

Anyhow, now I'm going to try it, so I will post about how it went later.

Saturday, February 11, 2012

Ugh, I can't handle it

Too much teal, I gotta go change the color to something else less bright, maybe the nice soft green they've got.  Otherwise I like the new layout of my blog.

BTW, thanks to everyone who's following me.  It means a lot, really, especially as there are months sometimes in between my blog posts, then I blog 4 times in one day (like today).   Please forgive me any typos that I have missed, I try to catch them all, but do miss a few.  I just can't seem to spell "the" and "just" right on the first try unless I'm really concentrating on my typing, other words get messed up too though especially at night when I'm tired.

Now I'm gonna go watch that lady's tutorial again just to make sure I got the casting on part right, then I'm going to commence knitting.  I have to admit to some excitement!  ;)  Have a good night, y'all!

=) Gayle

Muffins

Well they look beautiful!!  Exactly the way that muffins w/ blueberries are supposed to look.  However, let this be a lesson to us all, LEMON YOGURT & Bananas DO NOT mesh well in the baked muffin flavor scheme.  Instead they served to make me feel slightly nauseous!  Dang, I knew I should have left that last banana for baby K to munch on for dinner, but no i had to use it up.

On the other hand, the muffins taste delicious when you think of the blueberries, sunflower & flax seed... they are a bit bland though.  I guess I really shouldn't have shorted the recipe of the sugar either, but I was being experimental, and it got me a lovely-looking muffin that I'm not sure that I can eat anymore of them.  Good thing that my boys love them though!!!  Because I doubled the recipe & got 3 dozen muffins (I make mine a bit smaller, my kids don't know any different). 

Now I want a tasty Blueberry muffin, but from my Nut Bread recipe... unaltered recipe.  Perhaps tomorrow after Church, I'll make some more muffins, after all I do have another package of fresh blueberries needing to be used up.  This time I'll follow the recipe exactly with no excessive alterations (though I do admit to putting in more blueberries & extra sliced almonds in as well as some ground flax seed, but those only add to the goodness of the recipe).

Trying something new

I went looking for a way to spread out my blog a little, I wanted to have 3 columns of print, well I got them now, but somehow along the way I managed to mess up my color scheme too.  Then my kids interrupted me a few times and I lost the one that was quite close to the way I had it before, now I guess I'll stick with the teal one for a little while.  Still gotta bake those muffins, the batter is halfway mixed up, and I'm feeling kinda frustrated right now too so I think that I'll give the internet a rest and just crochet while listening to a book on CD for the rest of the time while baby K is sleeping (oh finally sleeping).

I feel really tired too, so if this post seems garbled, that's why.  Plus my head hurts & my 3 yo son keeps showing up with miscellaneous questions & comments about why can he play outside... then there's the poppy underwear of said boy above that needs scrubbing, and 9 yo son wants to sit & read with me or make flying noises while I'm trying to listen to said CD, then 7 yo son wants to eat and play outside ONLY - no chores today okay Mom? Except, there's no way I'm cleaning ALL of their stinky bathroom by myself, you make the mess you clean it up... and your room too needs to be cleaned up, or we'll get a backhoe in here to clean it for you!

**GGGRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR** Hear the tired, frustrated, grumpy Mommy roar!!!  Back to the muffins now, they are looking pretty good.  I'm using a yummy Lemon Yogurt recipe I've had forever and just throwing in a lot of extras, then hoping it tastes as good as I want it too... plus am decreasing the sugar because I added extra yogurt so I could decrease the oil.  And on I run.......

Trying to teach myself how to knit... again

The thing is, I still remember hwo to knit & purl, but the big hang-up for me is that I jsut can't seem to recall how to cast on.  Well I've been hunting around YouTube in hopes of finding someone who's posted a vid showing the same way of casting on that I learned as a child in Shelly Watson's 4-H class (at least I think her name was Watson, do you remember Amelia?).  Anyhow, I'm fairly sure that this vid is the same way I learned all those years ago (coming up on 30 years ago), well apparently this link goes to a group of vids (videos/movies).  I'm not talking about the casting on method the lady calls the e-loop, which while it's easy,  hear that it's not very stable.  Oh no, I'm talking about the long tail method (or so I've seen/heard several people refer to it).  Here's another link, this lady explains it quite well especially as the other lady left a very important detail out, as in which hand holds the tail & which hand holds the working yarn, oh yeah super important stuff that! 

Anyhow, once I get the hang of casting on, then I'll practice knitting & purling, maybe for a cotton dishcloth.  By then I would think that I could remember what I'm doing long enough to have it emblazoned into my short-term memory & be able to do more with it than just a simple dishcloth.

In the meantime, I'll also keep on crocheting, something that I love that it doesn't take 2 needles to do.  After I find my knitting needles, well then I'll give some of these tute's (tutorials) a try, then I'll post again about my results.

For now, I'm off to make Blueberry muffins w/ yogurt and maybe that last sad-looking banana & some ground flax seed as well -- YUM!!!  Oh mustn't forget to put nuts or sunflower seeds in too... to me, baked goods are just so much better with the addition of nuts & seeds!!!

Have a great day y'all!