Afghan Swap 2015: The Final Box

As some of you know, I have been taking part in a year round, afghan swap. In this swap, there are three packages: two smaller and the final on has the afghan. The first one was sent out in April, then August and finally December. I have throurghly enjoyed participating and hope to take part in the next years.

My final package left me spoiled:

 I received two, beautiful circle blankets!

 Many goodies: Two bags of butterscotch candies (my favorite), hot chocolate, Peanut Butter Cup Tea (yum!), Sherlock Holmes book (My CSI hero), an engraving art kit, dry erase board, X-men DVD (Not sure how she knew of my secret Marvel love or my love for Hugh Jackman...) and not pictured a set of beautiful blue coasters.

 There were four blanket patterns, a recipie for pie and one for ham.

 Four skeins of yarn. They are so soft and I have many ideas for these I just have to pick the right ones.

 A clever, reversible hat.

 Beautiful, beaded stitch markers

 And two crochet magazines! One is Crochet Accessories (which I will be making several thing in the near future) and the other is a Crochet magazine, which teaches the enterlac crochet which I have been so curious about. I am excited and forever thankful!

Thank you, Bonnie for spoiling me, all year. It has been such a blessing to get to know you and find things for you as well. Your patience with me was unimaginable. I know I have a history of unending questions and this was my first swap. Thank you, for being part of such a wonderful year.

Remember that you are beautiful and well loved

Merry Christmas 2015!

This year has been a wonderful and exciting year. In some ways I am sad to see it go but in others I enjoy looking back and seeing how far everyone has come from January 1. My sister-in-law has grown a lot in her attitude and has learned to accept some things that she cannot change. I am proud of her, even though it has taken some time and different routes to get to her. We were able to see her, this Christmas, for a couple of days.

Corban has grown a lot this year, as well. He has had a few growth spurts but he has grown in character as well. I am proud of him for sticking up for himself and others. He has made some great choices in friends and in life. Although, being a teenage boy, he still has some growing to do.

This Christmas was wonderful. Being able to spend time with family, without having to worry about when I have to be at work, customers, etc. It was nice. My only worry was "did I do enough, for Christmas" and the resounding echo from everyone has been "yes". I still have my doubts but that is me. I am a giver and even if I gave someone the clothes off of my back, I would still want to give more.

Jc enjoys his Boston blanket and everyone else seems to enjoy the things they recieved. Jc gave me a yarn pendant for Christmas! I have been wanting one for a long time but never got around to getting one. Now, I dont' have to worry about where my scissors are and whether or not I'm going to cut myself, or the pets by sitting on them. He also wants to give me a "Crochet Mystery novel". It sounds interesting, for sure.

I made out with some yarn, patterns, a Starwars Crochet Kit, stitch markers, pjs....it has been a truly blessed year. Even more than the things I have recieved, I will always treasure the relationships of those family and friends. There is nothing more valuable than time and memories.

Today, I go back to work and Jc goes to see the new Star Wars with his family before his sister goes back. It has been a great year and I look forward to the future
Remember that you are beautiful and well loved

Let's Go, Red Sox! Finally!

It is finally finished! I have been working on designing a Boston Red Sox blanket for my husband who is a huge fan of the team. I started designing it in February and just finished the complete pattern and blanket, today.

It started out as just an idea. I had only designed a couple of hats and scarves at that point and I was just playing around with ideas. I bought some graph paper and made multiple sketches of the logo's. I decided on this one, a larger version of it and started actually writing the pattern from the graph paper.

The digital download will not have the graph, mostly because I'm not super great with technology to make 146 boxes on a page. But all of the directions will be written out.

I don't know how I feel about the border. It is a puff stitch, which I thought of because it looked kind of like balls and this is a baseball team. Jerad has only put the blanket down (because I can't wait until Christmas to give people their gifts), to fix some delicious food.

What do you think of the blanket? Be honest, please.
What is your design process?

Feel free to let me know in the comments below, and check out my other posts!

Remember that you are beautiful and well loved

Sauron's First Project

Hi, my name is, Cassie and I'm a closeted Lord of the Rings geek.

Everyone needs something to completely geek out over and although I love that crocheting can be a part of that...I mean not many people understand the different yarn ply's, hook and stitch names or crochet lingo like "FROG", outside of crocheters and knitters. I have always had a love fore Tolkien's works. I have read most of his books and Lord of The Rings is my favorite series next to Fast and Furious.

I've been looking at the crochet hooks on Etsy, that have been custom made with polymer clay handles. People geek out over Dr. Who, Star Wars and Disney and I have found plenty of custom hooks for those but they aren't me. The more I thought about it, the more I really wanted to get a custom Lord of the Rings, hook set. Eventually I would love to get some Lord of the Rings stitch markers as well, but for now, I'm just geeking out over the hooks.

So, I asked this nice lady, on Etsy who I have seen her hooks and they are all so very wonderful. I asked her if she would ever think about making some Lord of the Rings hooks. We talked more about it and I recieved my very first Lord of the Rings hook a couple of weeks ago. It is a size H, Boye crochet hook.

Of course after recieving it, I had to find a project for it, considering I'm still working on my husband's blanket for Christmas and that takes an I hook.

So, I worked up this elephant parade cowl:

This pattern is $3 USD and it is a great work up. If you enjoy or want to practice colorwork, this designer has great patterns for both knitting and crochet. Most of them are hats but I enjoy her patterns.

Remember that you are Beautiful and well loved.

Acorn squash

Last night, I made some Acorn Squash. I haven't cooked anything in a long time and it was great to get back into making something. Jerad has been doing most of the cooking and I always appreciate that it is one less thing that I need to worry myself over. I do love that when I do feel up to cooking, he lets me.

When I was a kid, my parents would bake butternut and acorn squash with some sort of meat where the seeds were. I decided to do a play on that and prayed that it turned out all right. So, here is what I had to make it:

*rectangle cassrole dish (pyrex)
*one acorn squash
*box of stuffing (yes, I cheated), I probably should have used two boxes
*bread crumbs
*about half a pound of ground pork sausage (no casing)
*Seasonings: Italian, Garlic, Pepper, Salt
*Butter

Here's what I did:
Preheat oven to 375 F
1. Wash and cut the acorn squash in half (From stem to bottom), and "gut" it. You can save the seeds if you want, I didn't because I didn't think of it until I started the pumpkins. Set the halves aside.
2. Make the stuffing as the box directs. Mine took 1 and 1/2 cups of water and 1/4 cup of margine.
3. You can put some oil or cooking spray on the cassrole dish, I didn't have any on hand. Spread the prepared stuffing in the casserole dish to make an even layer.
4. Place the squash, skin side down, in the stuffing. Take some margine and put three small (really small) pieces round the cavity of the squash.
5. Ball up some sausage, knead some breadcrumbs and seasoning to your liking; form the blob into more of a ball, plop it in the cavity of the acorn squash and pat it down. Top with some more bread crumbs and seasoning, if you like.
6. Slide the dish into the oven to bake for about 1 hour, or until the squash is tender, when poking it with a fork.

7. Take out of the oven and let cool a few minutes before dishing it out.

Enjoy!

We did :)

What are some of your favorite squash recipies?
Feel free to check out some of my other posts and leave comments below. I do love hearing from you.

Remember that you are beautiful and well loved.

Squashing Out the Excuses

 

I am so happy to be back and blogging again! A lot of things happened and I was unable to find time or internet, long enough to be able to post. Lame excuse, I know. I don't really want to get into all of my excuses I just want to dive right into posting and I have quite a few posts planned, so stay tuned! As much as I want to post them all tonight, I don't want to over load you with the adventures I have had.

As of this moment, our adventure is more of a squash "problem". The acorn squash is in the oven, for dinner. Butternut squash is in the fridge for future use in a meal and we have two pumpkins from Halloween that we are just now starting to carve (they are still good) and figure out how to cook.

 I will post a picture of the Acorn Squash once it is finished. Right now. These three pictures, in this post are all from one pumpkin and they are separate parts. I have a really full pan, a pumpkin bowl with pumpkin. Pumpkin wedges are in another pan, waiting to go in the oven and then there are the seeds.  This is all from one lovely pumpkin.

We want to roast the seeds and do different flavors. I'm thinking some cinnamon sugar but we are the adventrous types so what are some of your ideas for flavors? Have you ever made roasted pumpkin seeds before? This would be, admittedly, our first attempt.

We are going to boil down some of the pumpkin meat that we already have in the pan, tonight and probably bag it and freeze it. I have no clue what to do with it though.

I remember, as a kid, my dad would boil the pumpkin and we would eat mashed pumpkin with some butter and sometimes brown sugar. I loved it and I'm excited to enjoy it, once again. However, seeing as we have "pumpkin for days" I'm thinking of trying some recipies.

What are some of your favorite things to do with pumpkin and the seeds?  Feel free to leave comments below. I always love hearing from you!
Again, I apologize for the lack of posting. I'm going to try and do better.
Remember that you are beautiful and well loved.