I could get used to this...

Classes are done.  One of my exams is over.  I am in full feel-good mood.  Yesterday I had a job interview [FINALLY] then spent the rest of the day crafting and listening to music at home.  Today I started my day off with making cookie dough.  While it was chilling in the fridge, I went for a run down by the water.  I ran the ENTIRE way.  3km of running.  I. Am. A. Champ.  That might not exactly sound amazingly stellar or anything but I was pretty darn proud of myself.  I digress.. I got home, showered, popped the cookies in the oven, and made lunch.  I then proceeded to get things in order so I could dye some easter eggs!  I didn't want to buy a kit so I did some research (after being inspired by this post) and figured out how to dye my eggs naturally!  It was quite an experience and they didn't exaaaactly turn out the way I'd hoped, but hey, that's part of the fun in trying new things!  I am now sitting on the couch thinking about what to make for dinner and deciding between studying [the right choice] or watching more Game of Thrones [the feel-good choice]...  Hope y'all are having a good Thursday!

secret project revealed!

I did it!!  I finished my first big knitting project! After making my first mini blanket I decided I was going to make a bigger blanket.  It's not huge or anything but I am very proud of it :)

I didn't have a pattern to follow, but I knew what I wanted the blanket to say. I looked at a few patterns online but didn't find anything I liked very much. Once I gave up on trying to find a pattern I tried to download a program that would allow me to make my own.  It was quite the process, but I am so glad I stuck with it and figured out how to do it!  I used a program called KnitBird.  The free trial only lets you keep the program open for half an hour before it closes and you can't save it BUT if you make your pattern quickly and take screenshots you can put them into a word file and print it out that way!

This project was a huge learning experience for me and it was definitely frustrating at times, but overall it was so fantastic!  I am a firm believer that the energy you feel when you're knitting gets transferred into the project you're making.  Because of this I only try to knit when I am in a happy or relaxed mood so that all of my positivity gets to be shared with the recipient of the final product!

I'm incredibly busy with school right now so please excuse my absence but I will do my best to share whatever it is I'm working on whenever I have the time.

week 5: string art

This is something I'd wanted to do for awhile, but I'd just never made the time to do it.  Yesterday I decided I'd go to the beach, find a perfect piece of wood and get busy.  Once I picked the word I printed it out, taped it down and used it as my stencil.  Then I stuck in all the nails and started wrapping.  It didn't take long, and I can't wait to put it in my room at school!

Reading break is going by way too quickly!  I can't believe how fast time goes when you're really having a good time!  I've slept over at my friend's house every night except one since I've been home and we've spent most of our days together too!  All the fun times have meant that school work has been put on the back burner, but tomorrow that will change..  I'll be hittin' the books hard.

Hope everyone's week has been going well!  I have a few post ideas so I'll be seeing you again real soon :)

week 3 & 4: orders

I'm a bunch of days late with this post because I've been a very busy bee!  Last week I had a midterm - well a couple of midterms really, but that's a story for another day - and I also wanted to get a couple of toque orders finished.  The one on the left was for a family friend's daughter as a birthday gift and the one on the right is going to one of my dad's best friends.

The weather here has been incredibly cold the past few days so it feels good knowing that I've tried to help keep people warm and cozy.

I'm on reading break for the week and so far it's been fairly busy.  The past few days have been spent mostly with friends and it's been great having time to just relax and hang out without school work being the primary focus.

I hope that wherever you are, you are warm and happy and healthy!

week 2: secret project

This is a post in my weekly series of "Create" posts that will be things I have made by hand or am in the process of making. Enjoy!

I have been working on this project for about three weeks.  It's just over half way done and I CANT WAIT for it to fully done.  Both so I can share it and just stare at it and admire it!  This project has taught me so many things so far and I'm quite proud of myself.  I've ripped it out twice and started from scratch and, as frustrating as that was, I'm glad I did!  I can't wait to show you when it's all done!!!

week 1: homemade granola

This is the first post in my weekly series of "Create", posts that will be things I have made by hand or am in the process of making. Enjoy!

Last night I made granola.  My mom made some delicious granola over the Christmas break and I just ran out so I decided to make some more!  It was super easy and fun to pick what I was going to put in it.

Recipe:

3 cups of oats

3 tbsp of brown sugar

1 tsp of cinnamon

¼ cup of oil

⅓ cup of honey

1 tsp of vanilla

handfuls of nuts and dried fruit

Combine the dry ingredients in a bowl and set aside.

Combine the remaining ingredients [with the exception of the nuts and fruit] in a measuring cup.

Pour the liquid mixture over the dry ingredients and combine until the oat mixture is completely covered (might be helpful to use your hands)

Spread out over a cookie sheet with sides and bake in the oven for about 15 minutes (until the oats are a golden brown)

Mix the granola, try to flip it over so it bakes evenly and let it continue to bake for another 5 to 10 minutes.

Let granola cool on the pan, mixing occasionally.

Pour granola into a mixing bowl and add the nuts and dried fruit.

Store in airtight containers and enjoy for days and days to come!

a year of creation

Hello there!

I have recently come up with a “new years resolution” for the blog.  Each week I will share something that I have created.  It can either be a work in progress or something recently completed. It will range from a meal to a knitted or crocheted thing to a picture I drew.  It’s going to be slightly random but I think it will be a fun way to document a year of little projects.  I am aware that I'm a few weeks behind so instead of 52 projects there will only be 50 official ones...  but technically I made donuts and a coffee cozee so really I'm right on schedule! 

I hope that the weekend treated you well and gave you an opportunity to take some time to relax, create things and connect with the people you love!

Homemade Donuts

we made donuts! 

we decided that this weekend was going to be tasty.  roomie made muffins,  we made apple chips together and we made donuts!

The muffins burnt a bit on the bottoms (stupid oven, we still can’t get it to cook our food properly and we’ve been living here for 4 months), the apple chips didn’t really turn out super great either  but they were pretty good.  The donuts, however, were DELISH!  We kind of cheated tho…we didn’t make our own dough… we used safeway white dinner rolls instead!  They may not be as authentic but they still tasted great!  

We dipped them in oil, fried them up, drained the oil and coated them in a cinnamon/sugar mixture.  They were great on the first day, nice and soft and slightly warm but by the next day they were a little harder..

Needless to say, these will be made again!  I’d like to try and make a different glaze and decorate them a bit to make them even more fun!

Hope you have a great week and get to make and eat lots of yummy things!

Coffee Cozee

The other day, roomie and I made tea before heading out to school.  Having just purchased our reusable Starbucks cups we were quite excited to put them to use.  We boiled the water, put the tea bags in and poured the tea into our new cups.  We finished getting ready, grabbed our cups and HOLY SMOKES were they ever hot!  Too hot, in fact, to even hold them without some sort of buffer.  We grabbed our mitts and headed out the door.  Thinking about a way I could make the cups more comfortable and useful, I came up with the idea to make a cozee!  Any excuse to pull out my knitting needles or crochet hook.  So that night I got busy making something that would protect my hands and keep my drink insulated!  Win, win, win!

So here's the (very rough) pattern:
Yarn: size 4 or 5
Needles: honestly not sure... my nana gave them to me and they have no markings on them but I would recommend using whatever size needle your yarn calls for.

Cast on 28 stitches
Knit one row, purl the next.  Repeat twice.
Begin working in the colours using the fair isle method and continuing with the knit one purl one rule.
Continue until all the letters are complete.
Finish off with 4 rows of knit one purl one of the solid colour you started with and bind off.  Voila!

This project was a real learning experience for me.  I'm not exactly thrilled with how it turned out, but hey, it's functional.  If I were to do it again (and I most likely will) I would probably do a number of things differently...  For example, when working the colours into the letters, rather than doing each stitch twice (once as a knit and once as a purl) I would only do each stitch once.   This would probably result in a smaller cozee unless I added more of the plain colour at both the beginning and the end.

So if you make this, let me know what worked for you, what didn't and what you would do differently!

Hope you're having a great weekend!