…a little over two years ago, I didn’t think I’d ever be able to knit or spin or even carry my own friggin groceries ever again. My wrists were in serious trouble, and I didn’t know what to do to fix them. I did everything as ergonomically as possible, and even stopped doing lots of things.

I couldn’t grasp anything – not even spinning fiber – and it was starting to look like it would be a permanent problem, so I sold my wheel. Not because I didn’t want to spin any more, but because I was sad every time I looked at it.

Fast forward two years…

It was the push ups! Friggin push ups derailed my crafting and ability to open doors for myself and carry things. I even got myself some push up stands, but to no avail. My wrists were still wrecked. It seams if all I do is add in a few push ups, my wrists are a mess again, but if I add in a whole crap load of knitting, they’re fine. So there you go. Push ups are bad, m’kay?

Here’s the thing – money is crazy tight right now, so even though I am able to spin, I can’t afford a new wheel until my fortunes change a bit, so I’m renting a spinning wheel from Sweet Georgia Yarns. It’s a Schacht Ladybug. It’s so nice to spin again, and it looks like I haven’t forgotten how, even though it’s been more than 2 years.

Remember how I said that the second I spun on the Lendrum, I knew that was the wheel for me? I stand by that. The Ladybug is not ‘my wheel’. You know what I mean? It just doesn’t feel the same. So, I’m still looking forward to buying a new Lendrum at some point, but spinning on the Ladybug is better than not spinning at all.

Anyway, I’m working on some superwash merino from Sweet Georgia in the Darkshore colorway. So pretty!

I can’t wait to move onto this though -

So pretty!!

In other news, I have seriously wrecked my knee, and have dr’s orders to be a ‘couch potato’ which is driving me INSANE!! I just hope it’s a problem that can be fixed with physio and nothing that involves surgical measures.

I also have a temp job that I started on Thursday and runs for the next two weeks. I’m a little bit bummed that it’s not something I could do on a more permanent basis, but such is life. I’ll enjoy it while it lasts. It’s been so nice to work somewhere where there is no yelling, crying and general fear based management (random firings, people throwing things, stomping around, etc). I didn’t realize how bad my previous work environments were until spending a few days in this new one.

I’ll try to do an update on my knitting later this weekend – there has been lots of progress – and I’d do it now, but I’m heading out for some yarn shopping! Happy long weekend to my fellow Canadians!

When I was growing up, my mom did a ton of baking. She was a health nut though (still is! Hi Mom!!), so it was rare for her to make a recipe without altering ingredients and proportions. Yesterday, I was looking for a muffin recipe that involved cranberries, and I stumbled upon one for cranberry oat muffins in one of her muffin cookbooks (see mom, this is why I can’t give you your cookbooks back. I still use them.)

The recipe that was scratched in the margin hardly resembled the original recipe, except that it still had both cranberries and oats in it, and I’ve altered it a little bit further – to the point where the only original amounts of anything are the cranberries and lemon zest.

The one thing that my mom used to do was write the date that she made the recipe and if it was good or not right on the recipe page. It has a little “January ’99 – Excellent” beside it.

I made the muffins yesterday and they were fantastic!

So, here’s the new recipe –

Cranberry Oat Muffins

1 cup quick oats
1 cup all purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup salted, roasted sunflower seeds (no shells)

2 cups coarsely chopped cranberries (fresh or frozen)
4 teaspoons lemon zest

2 eggs
3 tablespoons of rice bran oil or other ‘non-flavored’ oil of your choice
1 1/2 cups buttermilk
1 tsp vanilla

In one bowl, mix the oats, flours, brown sugar, sunflower seeds, baking powder and baking soda together. Add the chopped cranberries and lemon zest to the flour mixture and set aside.

In a second bowl, beat the eggs, and add the oil, buttermilk, and vanilla to the ‘wet ingredient’ bowl.

Pour the wet ingredients over the dry ingredients and mix until combined.

Scoop into a lightly greased muffin tin, and bake for approximately 30 minutes (your cooking time may vary) in a 400F degree oven.

If you’re like me always end up buying too many sunflower seeds, you can sprinkle a few on the muffin tops before baking.

Easy alterations:

- If you’re not into sunflower seeds, you can omit them completely, just mix a sprinkle of salt in with your dry ingredients. Or substitute with another seed or nut.

- The 3 tablespoons of oil can also be reduced to 2 without any problems.

- Don’t have whole wheat flour handy? Just use 2 cups of all purpose flour instead.

Let me know if you try this recipe and how you like it!

I have been knitting again! Tons actually! We’ve been spending more time in the car lately and it’s been so nice to have something to do.

Last week, I cast on for the Effortless Cardigan, designed by Hannah Fettig. It’s a nice knit. Pretty straight forward and definitely a knit that allows a conversation, which is my favourite kind of knit!

I’m a little further than the picture shows, and still enjoying knitting it.

The yarn is fabulous! I’m already planning the future knits I’ll be using this yarn for. It’s the Tanis Fiber Arts Green Label Aran in the Dove colorway. Great color, great twist, and super squishy.

I’ve been working on a baby quilt for a friend of mine who is due later this month.

I found a tutorial over at the Cluck.Cluck.Sew blog (tutorial can be found here).

I can’t believe how long it has taken me to sew this quilt, especially considering how small it is. It doesn’t have the binding on it yet, but it only measures about 36″ by about 60-something inches, so it’s really not very big.

It really took me no time at all to quilt it though, with the basting and quilting getting completely done with a portion of yesterday afternoon.

I’ve been taking pictures as I went with this quilt, but I just haven’t been feeling very chatty lately. Here’s a better look at the fabrics -

I think my friend will like it. Can’t wait to get it done.

I took some proper before and after pictures of my kitchen and living room this morning. I tried to match the angle that the original photographs were taken from.

So here we go again…

Kitchen before –

Kitchen after –

Please forgive my mountain of knitting and sewing stuff that’s taken over the kitchen island. Yes, I do have a craft room now, but I’m having some knee problems, so I’ve been trying to avoid the stairs as much as possible, leaving the kitchen area as my home base.

Living room before –

Living room after -

Ahhh…much better…

We decided to finally get our main floor dolled up with some new paint, so I thought I’d share a few more before and after pictures. I need to put my wide angle lens on my camera, so these pics aren’t great, but they’ll give you an idea of the transformation…

Here’s the kitchen ‘before’ -

We removed the chair rail, painted the trim and painted the whole room in Para Paints Eggshell Sarah Richardson Collection in the ‘Retreat’ color. Here it is ‘after’ -

Here’s one beside the window -

I really wish it was in the budget to replace those dingy old venetian blinds, but alas, that’s not something we’ll be changing in the near future (or likely ever really).

Last week, my dad was over and working hard to get rid of all of our wall sconces and replace them with ceiling pot lights (aka recessed lighting). We still have to do the front entrance, but the one in the living room and the ones up the stairs are gone.

Here’s a before -

And here’s the ‘after’ -

Here’s a bit more of a peek at what the living room color looks like -

It’s Para Paints Eggshell from the Sarah Richardson Collection in Pebble. We’ve also painted our front entranceway this color, and I think our office is destined to become this color as well (it’s the last room to paint!!).

I’ll do another ‘before and after’ of these areas (as well as the front entranceway) as soon as I get some better pictures.

I’m making a baby quilt for a friend who is due this month, but it currently looks like this -

Yep, that’s it. I’ve managed to put one strip together, and I still have a huge stack of hourglass blocks waiting in the wings.

I took a break from the quilt last week in favour of painting the livingroom (looks waaaay better btw), and surprisingly, my will to knit is back.

Last Sunday, I cast on a Monkey sock -

I’m using 2 skeins of Claudia Handpainted in Buckeye on 2.0mm needles. I started out on 2.5mm needles, but it was coming out pretty big and I was getting some unflattering pooling, so I went down a needle and it looks good. I even updated my Ravelry project page for it – here.

When I received my tax return this year (not very big, but seems big to me since I’ve been on a pretty strict budget) I set it aside for some guilt-free fun money). Actually, I tried to put it towards my student loan payments, but hubby insisted that I have some fun with it (he’s great!).

Anyhoo, on Monday, I drove into Vancouver and went to Three Bags Full on Main Street. I think I spent over an hour in there, and I had really great customer service. I didn’t really have a project in mind when I arrived, although I was hoping to find the Coastal Knits book (sold out though unfortunately), and another skein of the Berroco Ultra Alpaca in Candy Floss Mix.

I needed the skein of Ultra Alpaca, because after trying to do a crocheted edge on my Tinder Cardi, I realized that just wasn’t giving me the look I wanted, and if I really wanted to have the sweater work, I’d have to bite the bullet and buy another skein. Since I bought the first batch of this yarn over a year ago, I knew the dyelot wouldn’t match, but I got lucky and the skein I bought actually was from the same dyelot! Woohoo!!

Over the last while, I’ve started to pay more attention to shop samples in yarn shops (actually, if you remember back to my old blog, that’s how my Multnomah shawl obsession got started), and while at Three Bags Full I spied a lovely looking sweater draped over their couch. The second I picked it up, I knew I had to knit it. It wasn’t just the sweater pattern, but the combination of the pattern and the yarn that made it irresistible. The sweater pattern is the Effortless Cardigan by Hannah Fettig and the yarn is Tanis Fiber Arts Green Label Aran in Sand.

I was allowed to try on the shop sample, and I knew at that point that there was no way that this wouldn’t be my next project.

Although I haven’t actually cast on for this project yet, I’ve started a project page for it on Rav, and I’m chomping at the bit to get swatching. Project page – here.

The yarn color I chose for this sweater is the same yarn base the shop sample was knit from, but I choose the Dove colorway instead of Sand.

I’m just about done the Tinder Cardi (for reals this time), and then I’ll be casting on for the Effortless Cardigan.

I’ve decided to make New Look 6035 – View A, a blazer style jacket, using the floral cotton sateen I talked about a few weeks ago. Originally, I had planned to make a dress with this fabric, but I decided to kick it up a little bit, and make something a little less expected from this fabric.

I’m making View A, but I’ve decided to shorten the sleeves to 3/4 length.

I’ve made it as far as tissue fitting the jacket -

I opted to make a 10 in the shoulders, 12 in the bust, waist and hips, because I want some extra room so I can have the option of wearing a blouse under it, instead of just a tank top.

I also shortened the waist by 1″, which wasn’t ideal – I think I should have shortened it by 2 inches – but if I shortened it any more than 1″ I would have had to add length back to the bottom of the jacket, and honestly, I didn’t want to bother, since there’s so much shaping at the bottom. I think it’ll be fine though.

I’ve now finished cutting the pieces out -

I think this is going to be a great little jacket that will be perfect for spring and summer.  I already have grand plans to make coordinating capris and skirts for this one.

Wishing everyone a Happy Easter!!

Let me first start out by saying that I’ve become a HUGE fan of Butterick patterns. They’re so well thought out and come together really well, and B5752 is no exception.

As I mentioned in my previous post, I made fit alterations to every single pattern piece, but it was well worth it in the end.

I used a lighter weight cotton sateen for the dress, and a black stretch cotton poplin for the lining. The bodice is lined, and so are the rouched side panels.

I really like the crossover front, but I think I’m going to put a few stitches between the front pieces, so it’s a little more modest. You may also notice in this picture that I decided to top stitch the neckline and armholes instead of under-stitching them. It was one of those ‘under-stitch as far as you can go’ instructions, and I’ve had less than stellar results in the past with that, and I think the top stitching looks just fine.

I had to improvise for the invisible zipper, and use navy blue, since that was the only one I had that was made with twill tape for zipper tape instead of that mesh garbage. You really can’t tell though, the only hint is the little zipper pull at the top.

I also added a little more fun to the dress by using more of my vintage hem tape I picked up a while ago from a second hand shop. It’s red, with slight tendencies towards coral. I was a little worried it might be visible through the dress, but it isn’t, so WIN!

I’ve quickly become a fan of hem tape. It’s so easy to put on and I love the decadence of a little lace.

I feel great in this dress! It’s comfortable, fits great, and I think the animal print is pretty hot! I can’t wait to get some warmer weather so I can actually wear it!

Here’s the link to my review of this pattern on Pattern Review.

The old wonky revived quilt is all done! I really didn’t think I’d ever get it finished, and up until last weekend, I was threatening to throw it in the garbage.

It’s all done now though, so there’s no turning back!  It’s not perfect, as you know, but it’s a perfectly viable quilt.

It only took me a couple of hours for the quilting and the binding was super quick.

For the bias binding, I opted to sew the binding onto the back first, and then instead of slip stitching the binding to the front, I zigzag stitched it using my sewing machine. I’d definitely use this technique again, but I’d be more careful to pin the binding before zigzagging, so the zigzags look a little more accurate on the back.

Redd has already claimed the quilt as his own, so I guess I won’t be sticking it in the quilt closet quite yet.

I almost forgot to mention – when I was at Fabricland last weekend, picking up the backing/binding fabric for the quilt, I also picked up a magnetic pin holder. I’ve been intending to make myself a pin cushion for, hmmm…let’s see….going on 5 years now…so I’ve accepted that that’s not likely to happen in the near future, and this little magnet pin holder works like a hot damn!