Woohoo!

A new blanket for the Chocolate Dog Studio shop! This is toddler/child sized. It is pearl grey, purple and red.

 

Crocheting fun!

Here are some photos to show the creative process of some of my afghans. This is almost the beginning crocheted little squares.



Squares waiting on the outside edge of black. I love working with granny squares you get to see little bits being finished as you move along.



I crocheted the black as I went and attached them together to create the rows and columns that make up the crocheted blanket. The bright colors speak to me and I had to wait to list it in the shop. I am still not sure that it needs any home other than our own.







Here are a few of the others that I have been working on.



The black and aqua became a throw pillow for our oldest son. The blue, ecru and cranberry diagonal stripe is listed in the http://www.chocolatedogstudio.etsy.com shop.



I have been busy working on filling out the Etsy shop and creating some pretty new pieces.

Talk to you later,

Karen

From the Archives

Time sure is speeding by quickly. We took a little trip home so the kids could go to prom. A promise kept. We had promised that we would take them to prom when we moved. We are looking forward to a graduation and another little trip. It seems just yesterday that I completed these beauties, well I thought they were pretty at the time. They are all crocheted out of acrylic yarn.

Here are a few photos of vintage crochet I completed back when I was in 9th grade or so.

That is the second granny square that I had made. The first had the bright yellow as the outside border and looked awful as the squares were all different sizes. I hadn't figured out that different size hooks would make different size squares by the time I made this one, I had figured it out.



I completed this one the same year. I am sure that you can tell that the stripes use the same yarn as the granny square afghan. This was my original pattern and each corner had a red tassel.  We were travelling a lot that year and I was able to bring my projects along in the car. These were well used afghans and the stripey one was a favorite for naps as it wasn't too heavy.

Here is a bit of what I have been working on this year. I have one afghan close to being finished and it is calling to me. I am doing the finish work on the border and I can't wait to get done. I have another in the starting and it still isn't bigger than a napkin. The starting stages are fun because it can travel with me. The bigger sizes take a whole lot of movie watching.



Talk to you later,

Karen

 

My Grandma's Quilts

My Grandma or Granny (Bethel) as we grand kids called her created quilts out of necessity. She had a large family and needed blankets. She was a part of a quilting group in her small town. I believe most of her quilts date from the 1940's. Her quilts were made from the better parts of used clothing and some were quilts within a quilt in order to make use of all available materials. I believe that all of these quilts were sewn completely by hand. I know that they were quilted by hand. Having four kids myself, I am pretty sure that some of these were made in order to have something finished that she could look at everyday. Somehow that is important in the daily grind of dishes, meals, laundry and keeping a family running.

 



Should any of my family read this and want to add any information or if any information is wrong please send me an e-mail and I will fix it. She made many, many quilts and they were scattered among the 7 kids when she passed away so these are only the few that I was able to photograph.



Quilting was also a  chance for women to get out and see other women. These were often qulited as a group and offered a reason for the women to get out and socialize. It helped to build the community and fostered the friendships that women need. I am pretty sure that we need gatherings like this again. I am hearing about knitting groups and sewing groups and churches that have quilting groups. There are quilting guilds and sewing retreats and so women are reaching out again to build friendships.



Well, these are a just a few. I have others to share on another day.

Karen

 

 

 

I read http://www.moneysavingmom.com every day. In fact I get Facebook posts from her facebook page. I really admire Crystal and her ability to share her life via her blog. I have noticed that every week she makes short list of 10 things to accomplish during the week.

I am thinking it is time for me to try this. I feel so way behind on my many projects and life in general.

Spring Sale at Chocolate Dog Studio

It is time for my Spring Sale.

Check out the shop, fill your shopping basket and then type in this coupon code: Spring30 for 30% off anything in my shop!



See you later!

Karen

Life: Somewhere between The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder and The Little Red Hen

I think that sometimes we are the strangest people on the face of the earth. No, really. Our family has a myriad of food allergies and then to top it off we are trying a gluten free diet for a variety of reasons. Now my wheat bread/pasta/cookie/pizza loving teens and husband are missing bread. After weeks of denial and struggling and paying a ton of $$ for gluten free mixes I got with the program today and did a little experimenting.

We have some very discriminating (picky) people in our house. We are also cooking huge quantities of food because there are three teens and two parents sitting down to  nearly every meal every night. We are also on a limited budget and I am not Julia Childs. After messing around with GF cup for cup equivalences at a cost of $6-$12 a 4 lb bag or GF mixes from Betty Crocker and King Arthur flour at the cost of $4.50 to around $7 a box, I decided that there had to be a better way. Pricing out our budget and then forecasting what our food budget would be if we continued GF eating I knew that we would never be able to continue.

I did a little research on the internet and found that I could grind my own flour in my coffee grinder. That is why I feel a little like Laura Ingalls Wilder in the Long Winter. They ground their flour in the coffee grinder as well. Mine is electric and ground the brown and white rice pretty quickly in small batches. Then I sifted it to get rid of any un-ground bits. Then I put together my own GF flour mix using white rice flour and brown rice flour and cornstarch and mixed it well in my stand mixer and put it in a canister. Whew that step was done.

Then I was ready to make King Arthur Flours awesome GF pumpkin muffins. http://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/gluten-free-pumpkin-muffins-recipe

I have to admit that they do taste better if you do include the sugar and salt, which I left out of the first batch. They are light and fluffy and the closest muffin to gluten muffins that I have eaten since we have been on the GF diet. I added 1/2 tsp of Xanthan gum and just followed the recipe slightly. I think the secret of light and fluffy Gluten Free muffins is to whip air into them with a mixer. I did everything but grow the rice which made me feel like the Little Red Hen!

While I was on this round of cooking, I also mixed up some GF brownies in a jar and Cream Soup anytime  mix. Here is my variation of the the cream soup mix which I use in place of canned of soup.

 

4 cups of powdered milk (dry)

1 1/2 cups of cornstarch

4 tsp of dried onion flakes or onion powder

2 tsp dried thyme

2 tsp of basil

1 tsp of pepper.

Mix it all up and store it in a cool dry place.

I then add 1/2 cup of chicken broth to reconstitute it and cook it just a bit. After it boils it will thicken up and be just like the soup out of a can. Be sure to stir constantly because it will burn. Then you can use this as a soup base or white sauce/gravy base. Just add as much liquid as you want to get it to the right consistency. You can also add any vegetable you want to get cream of ____________- soup, or you can use as a base for chowder.

Our kids like to cook and mixes make it fast and easy for us to eat healthier without spending a bundle.

Talk to you later,

Karen

Recycling - upcycling: un-paper paper towels

Recently in our house we had a demise. Yes, something died. One of our most favorite sets of flannel sheets died. There were huge holes in the top sheet right under where your chin should be. I promptly bundled it up and put it out in the van....and then just as promptly brought it in in a bag for another upcycling/recycling project that I did. Which I will show at another time, maybe. Here is the sheet.



This project I will share with you today. When I was in the middle of the other ALL day and the next day project. I was posing questions to the kids in my house. What should I do with the flannel sheets? I had several answers; more pillow cases, fabric yarn then made into a crocheted rag rug, pajama bottoms for the kids. If the sheets had not been so worn this might have been a good idea, except then we would feel like singing "The Hills are Alive..." and dancing like the Von Traps in The Sound of Music.  What I decided to do came to me in a moment of need. We were out of paper towels. I don't know about your house but at our house we have several people (that shall remain nameless) that enjoy cooking. They use 5-6 paper towels when cooking, sometimes as many as ten because they wad them up and then throw them away. The purpose of paper towels in their mind iis to keep their hands from touching any yucky liquid. Which makes me unhappy because I am buying paper towels all the time. I have seen cute un-paper towels that snap together and you roll them onto a paper towel roll and can even put them back on the paper towel holder! That sounds wonderful but I know that I will never roll them back onto that roll or even keep the paper towel roll to roll them onto and I certainly won't be snapping them back together.  If I can just get them into a basket on a counter or in a drawer in the kitchen I will be happy, and as long as it keeps my family from using my nice bleached dishtowels on the floor, I will be a happy Mom.

So here is the tutorial on salvaging a flannel sheet into un-paper towels. Upcycling at its best, recycling with cleaning in mind. Here you go!

1. First cut or rip your fabric into slightly larger than paper towel sized squares.

2. Take two pieces the same size place them wrong sides together and sew around the edge. Round the corners so you don't have to poke out corners when you are done. It should look something like this:

Be sure to leave an opening for turning the un-paper towel inside out. To make it easy on me and a beginning sewing activity. I had a child do the sewing around the edges for me. It is a great beginning sewing project because it doesn't matter if the edges are a bit off or the towels are a different sizes. (I should say that it worked for me as I really do not care and this is utilitarian sewing.) It might matter to you. I rounded the corners and doubled the fabric so I wouldn't have to do tiny hems or tie knots.

3. Trim the corners so that it isn't bunchy when you turn it right side out. You can see the trimmed corner in the picture above.

4. Turn it right side out. Run your hand around the seam on the inside to poke out those rounded corners.

5. Tuck the opening edges to the inside and top stitch close to the edge all the way around, back stitch a little when you come back to the beginning and clip the threads short. There you go....you are finished! One un-paper towel.





Now if you want to speed up your sewing process.

1. Cut all the squares out at one time.

2. Lay them all out right sides together.

3. Sew around the edges of all of them one right after another.

4. Trim and turn them right side out all at the same time.

5. Top stitch them all at one sitting.

That should speed up the process. I mean, who wants to spend all afternoon cutting and sewing un-paper towels!

Talk to you later!

Karen

A few extra notes: flannel is naturally sticky (hence the flannel graph) so I didn't pin, If you use different fabrics you will want to pin them together. I purposely created this so I wouldn't have to deal with picky hems or serging. My serger and I are not friends at this point in time. You could serge both pieces of fabric together and be finished that much faster. However, I had someone that needed to practice sewing curves and this project was perfect as it wasn't a piece of clothing or a gift for someone.