Interesting art

The painting in the guest bathroom where i am staying

Mile High Cake

From the claim jumper, and yes the four of us ate it all!

Linda and Me

Linda and me with the booties, so adorable

Stitch Markers

Turtle stitch markers from purrfectly catchy designs they also made my sock blockers. these were a gift for referring people to their booth

Friday's Purchases

Today's purchases. turtle sock blockers, a clay button for a scarf, silk roving, a baby sweater pattern and lucy neatby's spin drift capelet pattern. the pink booties were a gift from my friend's friend and they were totally unexpected, thoughtful and adorable - thank you Patrice and linda

Thankful Thursday

Friend of a friend's sister - for opening up her house to let two strangers crash on her couch and in her sewing room for five days and being so welcoming!

Cool booth neighbors - we lucked out with all the nice people around us. Everyone is so friendly.

Lexi boeger - for writing a cool book on art yarn and me finding it just in time to ask her questions on Sunday about the yarn I am going to make and to watch her demo some techniques.

In-N-Out - good food after a long day

Patience - to help me learn to drop spindle on my new Tulip wood and Mahogoney spindle

Thursday's Purchases

Today's purchases! A drop spindle, angelina and intertwined! And a free dis! All from urban fauna studio

MMMMMMM

Grilled cheese, fries and a pink lemonade

In-N-Out

Stitches West 2009

Gretchen and of at stitches

We made it!

Made it the 11.5 hour drive to Freemont Calif. I am exhausted. I will update with more pix tomorrow!

Bunny Mix

Road trip food

Olive Pit

Weed

Bagel Tree

Only the best bagels in the world!

Off to stitches

Special Brownies

Deceptively Delicious is the only cookbook that I use on a regular basis. I like to think that we eat fairly healthy, but sometimes it's hard to pack in those extra servings of fruits and veggies. There are also veggies that I don't really like to eat, or don't know that I would like if I just tried them. This book allows me to "hide" veggies into other foods that I do like. It's actually meant for kids, but I think adults benefit from it just as much.

I've been in the mood for brownies lately, so I thought I would try out the brownie recipe. Now, I did get a little help from the store, because I used a boxed brownie mix instead of making them from scratch if I followed the recipe exactly. I only added spinach puree, carrot puree and 2 eggs. In the batter, you could sort of see the dark spinach bits, but once it was baked, you cannot tell that there is anything but brownie! Also, it made a more cake-like brownie. Next time I am going to try this with the no-pudge mix from TJ's, where you only add non-fat yogurt to the mix.

Vaseline Clinical Therapy

I thought I would share this in case anyone else is having dry skin issues right now!

For the last two months or so, I have had terribly dry hands and elbows. I am going to attribute this partially to the dry weather we've been having, but I've also read that being pregnant can affect your skin's moisture, so I'm sure it's a little of both. To help the dryness, I've been applying different lotions, butters and salves to my hands all the time, but so far they've never gotten soft, there is always a dryness to them.

So, today I thought I would go get the big guns! I've been seeing commercials for the Vaseline Clinical Therapy and thought it would be good to try, since nothing so far has worked. I bought it at Target and it was on sale! I barely waited until we were out of the store to apply it, I think we were still walking to the car. After one application my hands were noticeably softer, but still had some rough spots. Then a few hours later I applied it again and my hands were even better, and my dry elbow was especially soft (it was so dry it had started cracking and hurting). On their website www.prescribethenation.com they say it takes about 5 days to heal dry skin, but so far I am impressed with the results.

Spinning Cotton

PDX Spinnerati is a spinning group that meets once a month at the downtown Portland library. At today's meeting we learned how to spin cotton using a longdraw method.

Here is Susan holding up a "poonie" and a bag of dyed supima cotton.


Duffy holding up her "poonie"


My "poonie"


Yay, I"m actually long draw spinning! I was having trouble with it, but eventually got the hang of it. It's a nice skill to know, but I don't think I will actually spin much cotton.

Friday Fill-Ins

1. Give me some yarn and I'll make something with it.

2. Whenever my kitchen is clean I feel like cooking.

3. I wish I could live in Disneyland.

4. Chocolate Chip Banana Bread was the last thing I ate that was utterly delicious.

5. To live in this world is pretty awesome, even with it's faults.

6. Other than this one, pnwbookgirl.blogspot.com is the last blog I commented on.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to going to Borders, tomorrow my plans include the Spinnerati meeting downtown and Sunday, I want to hang out with Owen and pack for my trip to Stitches West next week!

Thankful Thursday

Quick cooking meals - makes eating dinner a lot faster!

Coldplay.com's shop - I was able to buy a tour program and a baby bib, since I won't be making it to their show in July.

The 3 yr. old I baby sit - without her, none of my private documents would have gotten shredded this week!

Girl Scouts - their tastey cookies will soon be consumed by me, once I get around to picking them up.

Baby kicks - for reminding me that I'm pregnant!

Cute Face

A minute after I read Tami's blog post "Cute Face" about her dog under her desk and replying with "My cats sit on top of my desk and usually between me and the keyboard" Ernie hopped up and did just that!

Alas, the dagoba chocolate bars are just an inch out of this photo Tami, but there is some Starbucks Chocolate on the right side!

Enchilada Casserole

For dinner tonight I made an enchilada casserole. I used a tofu/bean filling and instead of rolling up individual enchiladas I just made it layered like a lasagna! I have been making this filling since I was in college, it's a great protein!

Ingredients:

1 can enchilada sauce

1.5 cups shredded cheddar cheese

15-20 small corn tortillas

Filling:

1 block of firm tofu, drained

1 can of white or black beans, drained

1 packet of taco seasoning

In a skillet mash up the tofu, add beans and seasoning. Cook on med-high for about 5 minutes until the mixture is combined and the moisture from the tofu has evaporated a little.

In a 9x13 baking dish, pour 1/4 of the enchilada sauce in the bottom of the pan and spread it around. Put down a layer of corn tortillas over the sauce. Pour filling onto the tortillas and add a layer of cheese. Put down another layer of corn tortillas. Pour the rest of the enchilada sauce over the whole dish and top with some cheddar cheese.

Cook at 350 for 20 minutes, put the broiler on for the last minute or so to bubble up the cheese.

For garnish, use sour cream, green onions and cilantro

More carded batts

I found that I had a bit more carding that I could do while I still had the use of the drum carder. I took a Romney roving that I bought from Stitch Jones and carded it with the white flash and a carded batt of some angora that I bought at OFFF and the white Alpaca/Merino/Silk. There is about 7oz of fiber here!

Wordle

Nursury

We set up the crib last night that we got from Angela. And by we I mean Owen put it together and I read the instructions to him. We did a mock up of what the crib will look like when we get the bedding in it. So adorable. We still have to paint the room and aquire some other furniture, but we still have some time hopefully!

Art Yarn

Sneak Peek at the art yarn I'm going to be making! The batts are a blend of Pearl's 2nd cuts with a Merino roving that I bought from Knitted Wit at OFFF and a white Alpaca/Merino/Silk blend, plus a white flash and a blue flash. I'm going to make it a thick and thin yarn, then I'm going to ply it with the pink and white pompoms and the pink and aurora borealis sequins. Should be fun!!

Chocolate Swag

Last Thursday was a chocolate sampling night at Whole Foods market, we went to the one in downtown Portland. There was a $5.00 donation for the passport and then you could go to the different places around the store that were sampling chocolate items! There was even a 5 minute back and neck massage (that was worth the $5.00 right there) courtesy of Pearl Medspa - in addition they gave out gift cups with lotions and a gift coupon towards a lazer treatment. Pacifica Candles gave everyone a Mexican Cocoa candle. A local chocolatier was handing out bars of chocolate, but there is no label so I don't know who it was!! Also throughout the store there were stations of chocolate bar samples, my fave was the Newman's brand dark chocolate orange chocolate. A local band was playing jazz music in the produce section and handing out free cds to promote the jazz festival in Portland.

Some of the tastings included:
Chocolate mousse in chocolate cups with fresh berries on top
Chocolate chocolate brownie
Chocolate beer floats (I had mine sans beer)
Chocolate dipped bananas and clementines

The most serendipitous moment of the evening was running into Camille at the massage station. We ended up walking around to the different tastings and hanging out! That was fun :)

Finished Shawl

This is the first project that I've made using my own handspun yarn!!

400 yds of Abstract Fiber Alpaca/Merino/Silk in Blue Rainbow plied with a white A/M/S and a spool of silver glitter thread.

Clothes Shopping

We went out shopping for maternity clothes today. The selection out there is dismal for plus-sized girls. On the verge of depressing actually. I did find 2 pairs of pants, 2 tops and a nice blouse, but they are nowhere near as cute as the clothes smaller girls can buy :(

Baby got some clothes today too!

Found this 0-3 mo. onesie at walmart, it was only $3.00, and too cute not to get!

This 12-18 mo outfit we found at the Gymboree next to the Motherhood store. Of course the window display had all these turtle outfits - how could I resist?? I figured it would be a cute summer outfit next year :)

Hello Kitty meets MAC

The MAC counter at my local mall finally got in the Hello Kitty line! I pre-ordered a few items so I went today to pick them up. Wow, was there a ton of Hello Kitty swag all around. I wanted so badly to just grab a balloon and run!


I ended up with a lip gloss, an eye shadow palette and a mini HK bag for my purse. It was all too cute actually, and I wanted to take it all home with me.