The return of woodworking projects and a finished cross-stitch block

This week we have the return of woodworking and a finished cross-stitch block.

Cross-Stitch

Stacey finished the Wizard of Oz block of the 2015 Story Time Sampler pattern from The Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery!

The frame around the Black Beauty block has been started.

Knitting

The Twinkle Twinkle Little Vampire socks out of Blue Moon Fiber Arts Socks that Rock Lightweight are still coming along nicely.  You can see the stitch marker where I left off last week.

Woodworking

Lee was able to put together the bookshelf someone had commissioned this past weekend. The only thing left to do is stain the bookshelf to the color the customer wants. 

Lee has wanted a mallet to use in the shop for a while. His current rubber mallet leaves black marks on things it hits. This mallet is based on the Paul Sellers video found here. It has a drop in handle that gets wedged in when you swing it to stay tight. It also pops out when you tap it to come apart and make it easier to fit in a toolbox or bag. 

  

Jumping on the pressure cooker bandwagon

This week, we borrowed a pressure cooker from Lee's parents, and put it to the test.  We cooked some dry black, red, and kidney beans for our beans and rice recipe, which was definitely less time intensive and was easier to clean up.  We also tested our sticky chicken recipe in the pressure cooker instead of the crock-pot, which came out a bit less tender but still good.  We'll likely continue to use the crock-pot for this dish.  We made some rice, as we've been considering getting a second, larger, rice cooker.  The rice was a little bit more wet than the rice in our rice cooker, but that would probably be resolved with an adjustment to the proportions of water to rice.  We then cooked some ground turkey from frozen with some taco seasoning, which worked, but the meat doesn't have the texture that Stacey prefers, so we'll go back to our normal way of cooking that as well.

Share some of your favorite pressure cooker foods and recipes with us in the comments below.

Knitting:

Stacey has continued working on her Twinkle Twinkle Little Vampire socks out of Blue Moon Fiber Arts Socks that Rock Lightweight.  The foot is coming along nicely, and it has reached the point in which it actually looks like a sock!  Stacey is still loving the striping pattern from this yarn, and has managed to not go out and purchase all of Blue Moon Fiber Arts self-striping yarn.  (Sorry Blue Moon Fiber Arts!)

Cross-stitch:

Stacey has gotten back to the Wizard of Oz block of the 2015 Story Time Sampler pattern from The Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery.  Toto has been added to the block, as has a good amount of the basket and the yellow brick road.  

Ironing paper, a self-striping sock, and a finished shirt

Happy Thursday!  We hope you've all made it through last weeks crazy weather unscathed.  We've been lucky enough to just have a really cold spell, so we've been rocking our hand knit socks, hats, and scarves earlier in this past week.

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Knitting:

Stacey has continued working on her Twinkle Twinkle Little Vampire socks out of Blue Moon Fiber Arts Socks that Rock Lightweight.  She has managed to only do the three necessary heel turns on the first sock, so hopefully this pair won't be a repeat of the last pair of socks.  The yarn is incredibly sproingy, which is not a real word, but a perfect description.  Stacey is loving the different striping patterns that are coming out in each section of the sock, and is showing a fair amount of restraint in the purchase of many more skeins of Socks that Rock yarn. 

Sewing:

Stacey decided to reconstruct a tee shirt using one of Lee's old and too short tees and her recently acquired Kwik Sew K3766 pattern.  The instructions for the pattern are very well written and easy to follow, but of course, were not followed as written.  As the fabric was coming from an existing shirt, the neckband and sleeves were reused as-is.  Stacey's measurements fall right between the Medium and Large sizes, so she opted to make the Large as she prefers to have a bit of extra room in tee shirts and the fabric has a bit of stretch to it.

This shirt actually came out really well, to our surprise (based on previous clothing sewing attempts, not the pattern!).  This will definitely be used (following all instructions) again, as soon as some more tee shirt fabric is obtained.  If you have any recommendations for comfortable tee shirt fabrics or favorite places to purchase fabric, let us know in the comments.

Just for fun, in case anyone who reads this is just starting out and wants to know that they're not alone, I'm sharing a couple of memorable thoughts from this project.

First, I actually read all of the instructions before I started.  Then I read through them as I went to make sure I didn't miss any steps.  There's a section at the beginning to iron the pattern paper to remove the creases so that you can cut out your size correctly.  My thoughts: Wait, am I really supposed to iron this pattern paper?  *Reread instructions.* What setting do you iron paper with?  Wait, is this paper or some kind of very thin fabric?  *Reread instructions again.*  Ok, lowest setting.  And we're ironing.  (a few minutes pass)  Gah, this is taking forever.  Second iron setting.  (a few more minutes pass)  Hmm, I guess that worked.

My second and third thoughts: Noooooo, I ran out of thread! and Really, I ran out of thread again?

Happy 2018

We hope everyone had an awesome holiday season!  We did a bit of traveling, so had limited time and resources to devote to crafting, but here's what we were able to accomplish since the last blog post.

Sewing:

Lee's winter coat developed a nice big tear under an arm, so Stacey patched that up.  

Knitting:

Stacey started another set of socks using the Sweet Tomato Heel and the Asymmetric Wedge Toe, as her Hermione's Everyday Socks and Knit One Vanilla Socks fit really well.  This yarn for this pair is Blue Moon Fiber Arts Socks that Rock lightweight in the Twinkle Twinkle Little Vampire colorway.  She did decrease down to 72 stitches to make the socks a little bit snugger around the foot.

Soapy Goodness:

While on vacation, Stacey was lured into some shops by some adorable soaps, bath bombs, and other skincare products.  With an awesome bath tub in our hotel room, she decided to try the Detoxify your Mind bath bomb from Nectar Bath Treats, which was quite nice and very moisturizing, so on another expedition out, a Brightside Bubble Bar and Dragon's Egg Bath Bomb were purchased from Lush.  With the fancy jets in the hotel bath, the bubbles from the bubble bar were awesome.  Upon our return home, a bath bomb making session was in order.  We made a batch of bath bombs in an ice cube tray and used a Grapefruit Bellini fragrance oil for them.  We also made some Grapefruit Bellini scented sugar scrub for an extra decadent bathing experience.