A New Neighbor With A Blue Coat...!

 This afternoon I was standing at the kitchen sink and looked out the window.  There on the railing of our back deck was a beautiful blue-coated bird.  I don't know if it is an actual bluebird but it is so pretty and has a sort of orange-y breast.  The sweet little guy stayed there long enough for me to get my phone and move to the sliding door so I could take a picture through clear glass and not through screen...!  Such a good little bird!

Here he is in all his glory!  I do not believe we have had any of this brand of birds yet.  At least I have not seen them.

It is getting close to time to put out the hummingbird feeder.  Probably time to bring it in and scrub it within an inch of its life so it is ready for this years crop of hummers.  

Another good thing to do on the deck would be to pull the last of the dead plants from last year and actually plant spinach and spring onions, maybe even lettuce.

Two-Minute Crocheted Heart

 Not too long ago I Googled “knitted heart” thinking I  would find some quick and easy heart gift to make for my people.  Instead I found this two-minute crocheted heart at the website of Hooked by Robin. I made one then another and another. This is what I ended up with:

The yarn I used was I Love  This Yarn by Hobby Lobby (though I don’t really. It is just that it is easily available when I need some yarn quickly…). I used a hook that worked with the yarn but don’t remember which size. Now that I think of it…probably a 6 mm/J hook since that is one of two hook with ergonomic handles-the only ones that don’t irritate the hand.

Crochet Tiny Hearts WRITTEN PATTERN

USA STITCH TERMS

Hook Size(s): according to your yarn

Note, the thicker the yarn and the bigger the hook size, the larger your heart will be. 

Abbreviations:

• Ch = Chain

• Sl St = Slip Stitch

• Tr = Treble Crochet 

• St = Stitch

• Sl St = Slip Stitch

Foundation: Create Magic Ring.

Ch 2, place 3 TR inside the magic ring. 

3 DC inside the magic ring. Ch 1. 

1 TR in the magic ring. Ch 1.

(You have completed half the heart) 

3 DC inside the magic ring. 

3 TR inside the magic ring. Ch 2.

Sl st into the magic ring. Ch 1. 

Cut yarn, leaving long tail. Pull tail tight.

Close magic ring. 

Weave in any loose ends!

If you spot any errors in the written pattern please do let me know.

Happy Crocheting!

Robin

—————

This little garland was fun to make and makes me smile when I remember our oldest granddaughter as a very little girl telling me I should decorate for holidays…! After all these years I am doing a little bit of decorating.

Fun Food: 6-Week Bran Muffins!

 Recently at our Handwork Chat group meeting a dear friend and fellow knitter reminded me about the 6-Week Bran Muffin recipe.  Many years ago Dear One had a colleague at school who made them and encouraged us to make them too.  You make the batter. Put it in the refrigerator, covered, overnight then the next day you take out what you want, put it in muffin tins and cook delicious muffins.  The batter stays good in the refrigerator for six weeks. If it is not all used up by then...!

This is the recipe I used:

6-Week Bran Muffins

1 box Raisin and Nut Bran Flakes with two meals-worth of cereal removed and eaten by "someone"
5 Cups all-purpose flour
3 cups granulated sugar
4 eggs
1 cup cooking oil
5 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
4 cups buttermilk

This is how I made the batter:

In a large (13-quart) stainless steel bowl (which my parents gave us for a wedding gift almost 51 years ago) I combined the sugar and eggs until creamy.  Next I poured in the buttermilk and cooking oil and stirred well.  Finally I dumped in the box of cereal, the flour, the baking soda, and the salt and stirred until everything was well combined.  After moving the batter into a smaller glass bowl and covering it with plastic wrap I put it into the refrigerator on a space I had specifically emptied for the large bowl.

The next morning things were very chaotic at our house and I totally forgot I was looking forward to making a few muffins for breakfast.  Neither one of us even got breakfast.  Around 3:00 I arrived home, saw Dear One sitting on the couch, and after a bit of a round-up chat about how the day had gone I remembered the muffin batter and leaped up from my rocking chair---well, leaped might be a bit of an exaggeration, but I did get up, and went to the refrigerator and pulled out the bowl of batter.

At that moment I remembered I had put a container of very dry whole dates soaking in water the night before so I got a knife and separated the dates from their seeds then chopped the heck out of those babies...then added them to the batter with the last of the raisins in the bottom of the cannister...perhaps one-half cup raisins.

Since I was only going to cook six muffins, I decided to do it in the air fryer.  Google told me to cook at 320 degrees in the air fryer for 11-15 minutes.  Well that was not long enough at all so I gave them another 10 minutes.  They were some good!!!

The actual recipe I found online said to cook in the oven 20 minutes at 400 degrees F.  I may try that the next time...just to see the difference.  But maybe not tomorrow since I ate two of them myself and that is too much sweet.  In some ways I think they are more like cupcakes than muffins.  I asked Dear One what he thought.  He said, "Good!"  That is not something I hear very often!  Well,  I really don't make very good food...just good for you food.  At least sometimes.

Knitting Today: Sample Beanies

 We have some young knitters in our area.  Helping them with their knitting is a joy.  Before Christmas they started knitting beanies...each casting on a different number of stitches depending on the size of knitting needles they had. They were told to knit in the round on Knit 1, Purl 1 until they had 6 inches or a little more of knitting on their needles.

To prepare for helping them close up the crown I knit two little beanies and followed different instructions for decreasing the stitches on the tops.

These are the two beanies I knit.  You can see there is a vast difference in the size of the hats even though they both started with the same number of stitches: 80 stitches if I remember correctly.  I knit each of them to six inches then began the crown decreases.  The first pattern said to knit the decrease round then knit one round even then on to the next decrease rounds with knit rounds in between,  This turned out to be a very nice little hat.

The other hat decreases came every round with no plain rounds of knitting in between.  This made a much smaller hat.  Still, it is a nice hat and some small head will fit it some day.  It was a good learning experience for me...and thus for the young knitters when they get there.  Being young, they have many things on their plates including school, farm chores, family responsibilities, etc so their knitting is not going as quickly as mine did...

The yarn used on these hats was Patons Classic Wool Worsted.  It is one of my favorite yarns...mostly because it is available locally at Michaels, the only place for 100% wool, which is my preferred yarn.  Lately I have used a lot of Hobby Lobby Yarn Bee acrylic.  Not so nice on my hands but they do have many colors.  I have found ordering yarn online to be somewhat an exercise in disappointment as the colors do not match what the photographs show.  At least not as close a match as I was expecting.  

No. I am not going to start a local yarn store so I can get what I want...

A Different Post

 Dear One and I have been watching the Hank Smith/John Bytheway podcast nearly since they began. 

To get to the point  (I had a whole bunch of background information for those who do not know this podcast but deleted it all)...tonight we watched this year's Follow Him: Episode 6, Part 2 with Dr. Lili De Hoyos Anderson as the guest.  It was so touching and so very useful in how to live our lives that I just want to share it.  So many of us can benefit from what she has said.  I myself can really benefit from what she taught. 

 It is about an hour long and worth every moment...though some of it is hard to hear.  I will tell you sometime down the road if I have been able to carry out my desired personal changes.

This picture of Jesus and His healing hands seemed like a good one to share.

Healing Hands, by Adam Abram

May this podcast help you in your own life and if you still have children at home, also help you with raising them.

First "Planting" of 2024

 The tulips that were gifted to us have been glorious.  They bloomed and bloomed and then went by earlier this week.  Yesterday I went to Lowes and bought a small bag of garden soil.  (I have spoken rather openly about the icky orange soil that is native to our area or which has been brought in to our complex before houses were built.  Not good for glowing things really.)

This morning I went outside early and dug a small trench just outside the front door and mixed in some of the garden soil.

Next step was to carefully pull the spent tulips bulbs from the vase and plant them in the soil.

After covering them rather heavily with more soil, I wished them well then went back inside to prepare for our Knitting Class/Handwork Chat group.

With good fortune they will survive the spring and summer and grow through the fall then next spring give another beautiful display.

Knitting Today: Winter Chill Shawl

 A few weeks ago I started knitting a Pi Shawl by Elizabeth Zimmermann in fingering weight sock yarn with the idea of using up yarn that I did not seem to be knitting into socks.  It was looking so pretty but was taking FOREVER and I thought I would not get it done for this winter.  Well, I CERTAINLY was not going to be able to get it done this year at the rate I was knitting. 

 It happened that I found a Very Pink Knits podcast where she shows how to knit her Winter Chill Shawl pattern.  I thought a shawl would go faster in a worsted weight yarn.  (Of course I decided to rush over to Hobby Lobby before they closed that Saturday night to get a yarn cake of gradient yarn...sort of defeating the plan of using up what I had...). So I got started on that.  And it did seem to be going pretty fast. At least at first.

This is the beginning of that Winter Chill Shawl.  It was moving right along when I had the feeling that I needed to knit a baby blanket so the Winter Chill Shawl went into (hopefully short!) hibernation!  Baby blanket info soon!

Anyway, now I have multiple projects going...something I did not plan to do this year.  AND having had a few issues with sickness that kept the needles and yarn in the knitting bag for  a good long time, progress has not been really robust.  Feeling better now so perhaps....maybe a finished object coming up.  At least one thing might be done in the next week.  That is the plan, anyway!