Administrative

No cool finished works to share or even new photos of WIPs. Just wanted to point out that I am trying to keep the sidebars updated.

First up added a badge for Ravelry which connects to my Ravelry account which I've been amiss in keeping updated. But if you have an account you can see some of my older work.

I've been adding books that I read or am in the process of reading or that I want to read to my Goodreads account. The sidebar just shows books I've read. However, since I have about 100 books (ok, ok, more like 6) I'm reading at any one time and of those I might finish half, it doesn't always get updated that often. And I can't go to the library until I finish some of those. Yes, I'm mostly into non-fiction. For some reason, I feel like that makes me a boring person.

Finally, I have a list going of what's happening hobby-wise, whether its knitting, sewing, gardening, reading, cooking, digital projects, or screen time entertainment (tv and video games). This gets updated more frequently and the items on it may not be worthy of a blog posting, so this is a way of me sharing what's going on without having to come up with a post about how I'm starting to watch Season 2 of Heroes. Now that I think about it, I think part of the lack of blog entries is that I'm starting lots of things but not finishing many things. So perhaps in another few weeks I'll have a plethora of entries? Or perhaps, I'll just drop it and start the next thing that catches my fancy.

The only thing I seem to do more than starting something, is making mental lists of things I want to make or do or try. Perhaps if there was a slick way for me to make a TODO Queue. For knitting it would be a sweater for H, a cap for me, a scarf, something cool with the unprocessed wool J got me. For sewing it would be bean bags, and try some clothes for me and some shorties for H, and some totebags for the library. For reading see my list. For screen time, it would be WOW with my level 29 pally or some BGS with my level 39 priest. For digital projects, it would H's baby book. For cooking, nothing on my radar. Gardening would be to get my raised beds in and pick out something to plant in the next couple of weeks before I completely miss the April/May planting window here. I also have this bizarre urge to do some garden illustration and rendering with watercolors. Why?! Sigh, so much to do, so little time...

What's Cooking

Ok, so this blog is turning out to be a general hobby blog or whatever I do for fun that's not directly family related. Which means some cooking. And my favorite spot for recipes in the past few weeks has been 101 Cookbooks. Last night we had some guests over and I made some baked donuts for dessert. Not the best choice since it requires a bit of processing after it comes out of the oven and it cooks up quick so there's less time visiting and more time in the kitchen, but leisurely conversation over the dinner table don't really take place for one of the parents anyway with a toddler in the house. But they were really good and I'll probably make them again. But hoo, boy, do I have more leftovers than I know what to do with.

I've also made the Spring Tabbouleh which was definitely a keeper. Super easy to pull together and a nice spring main dish salad. And then finally I made some Black Bean Brownies which were only ok in my book. They had some coffee in them, which I didn't care for.

Emmeline Apron

Its been awhile, and I havent' been as crafting as much as I would like (my current excuse is that I've discovered Netflix's instant watch feature and am churning through season 1 of Heroes. I dare not look deeper and see what else Netflix has!) but I do have a finished project - an apron I made for my sister's birthday. Its my first go out and buy a pattern just so I can make this specific item. In the past I've made a few things from patterns that came from sewing or crafting books. But this one required shipping and no photocopiers! It's from Montessori by Hand and is called Emmeline. Its reversible. I really enjoyed making this. A note on the fitting is that its really not for big bosomed women (or probably not flat chested individuals either). It seems to be fitting my model nicely here but if you are much above 38 chest or a C cup you could run into problems. Umm, I think there should be more to say here, but I'm having bloggers block, so I'll just repeat how much fun I had making something from a pattern that was a step above totally basic but not too challenging for a new seamstress. Oh, yea, also, it had darts :)