The Nicest Compliment

My friend Sue came over this morning. We haven't been friends long but we are definently kindred spirits. I was showing her something in my sewing room and she commented to me, "I thought I was good at squeezing every penny out of a dollar but you are even better!" That totally made my day. :-) Thanks, Sue!

I Love it When I Cook Like my Sister

I just finished eating the most delicious but simple supper. I have this wonderful, contented feeling in my tummy. Sorry no pictures. :-)

First I sliced up one small yellow summer squash and two carrots. I started the carrots and some frozen Italian green beans in a skillet with EVVO, butter, bit of water, salt and pepper. Once those cook for a few minutes I added the squash. Covered it up and let it simmer until the veggies were tender. Earlier in the day I pulled 2 packages of chicken breast tenders from the freezer to thaw. Put them in a bowl, threw on a healthy sprinkle of sea salt, and let them sit for a bit. Rinsed well and patted dry with paper towels. Dipped in flour, egg wash mixture, and seasoned bread crumbs. Pan fried in a couple tablespoons EVVO until well browned on each side.

It tasted just like something my sister would make. She is a FABULOUS cook. Both the veggies and chicken were perfectly seasoned.

Hello again!

I must be getting old because it doesn't seem like 5+ months since my last blog post. Here's a quick list of what the Kortering family has been doing:

- Abigail turned 3 in April and we had a birthday picnic.
- Abigail potty trained! Woo-Hoo no more diapers.
- Michael and I celebrated our 11th anniversary.
- My sister Sarah found out she is expecting #3 who is due mid January 2008.
- Michael's sister Jodi got married in July.
- Michael's sister Sara got engaged.
- I took the summer off from my hobbies, except for a few cloth diapers for Sarah's baby. I'm back in full swing with my dyeing business.
- I changed my business name to Het Schaapje which means "Little Sheep" in Dutch. It s has a domain name! I'm focusing primarily on hand-dyed yarns. No more soaker knitting.
- Abigail started preschool. She goes 3 full days per week and she LOVES it!
- I started knitting my first sweater. It's for Abigail and is a seamless raglan worked from the top down. I'll post pictures when it's done.

A Random Act of Cloth Diaper Kindness

Wednesday morning I mailed 1/2 of Abigial's CD stash to one of my online friends. She posted on one of my sewing boards that she was in need of gently used cloth diapers and covers for her 1 & 3 year old. I thought this was the perfect time to thin my stash in the hopes of potty training Abigail this summer, so I kept a dozen prefolds and a few covers/soakers. This mama got 10 pocket fitted diapers with hemp stuffers, 3 wool soakers, 1 wool shortie, 1 velcro cover, and several birdseye flats. Want to know the best part ... she doesn't know they are coming! It will be a total surprise and hopefully a blessing to her.

Two More Soakers

Forgot to post these last week. :) Oops! And I just remembered I forgot to snap a picture of 2 soakers that I mailed out. Bummer! :( I like to keep a record of my "babies".) Yeah, I'm a goof-ball. LOL

Rainbow with Dark Lavendar Trim - Size Small
Body is handpainted Fisherman's wool and trim is Elle Rae from LYS
FRONT:


BACK - I liked the way the colors pooled:


Pink & Peach - Size Small
Handpainted on Knit Picks Bare Bulky
FRONT:


BACK - it wouldn't be fair to show Miss Rainbow's bum and not Miss P&Ps


Just as I was finishing up the Pink & Peach soaker, I got an email order for FOUR more soakers. Yeah and thank-goodness they are newborns and smalls.

Playing Soaker Catch-up

Wow ... I haven't posted anything in almost 8 weeks. Shame, shame, shame on me! :( I will try not to be as AWOL in the future.

Let's see what we have in the way of completed projects ... ok, after seeing all these pictures I figured out why I was post AWOL. Wow, I impressed myself with my knitting productivity. LOL :)

An Acid Dye Experiment

I bought a lovely lot of acid dyes from a mama on the Wooly Wonder Forum. Yesterday afternoon during Abigail's nap, I pulled them out, wound up a bunch of small hanks, and did some test dyeing. I recorded the dye color, amount used, quantity of water, and amount of citric acid used on big index cards like this for future reference:







Here are each of the colors in light, medium, and dark shades. On a couple of the colors I might even do a pale card. I used mini measuring spoons (nip, dash, pinch, etc) that I bought at Linens N Things along with a 1/4 tsp. My method of mixing wasn't very scientific but it was standard across the board so I will easily be able to reproduce each color in the future.

Brilliant Blue


Brown


Burnt Orange


Purple


Spruce


Chartreuse


Fuschia (this is the LIGHT shade)


And here they are all hanging out together:

Fattycake Cloth Diapers

Guess what ... I know how to do something besides knit, LOL :-D

Abigail has been limping along on prefolds since Thanksgiving because I thought she was potty-training. I guess she's not ready so I needed to beef up her fitteds collection (we only had 2 left). I made four fitteds yesterday afternoon and these are my favorites.

The pattern (Fattycakes)I got from a mama on Diaper Sewing Divas. It was $5 and it's sent to you as a PDF file so you can print it out however many times you want. It's sized from newborn to large. The first one is a normal fitted and the second one is a pocket fitted (you can't see the pocket opening because of the busy microfleece print). Outside layers on both are cotton interlock.

Retro Baby Soaker

Yarn: handpainted merino wool
Size: newborn
Style: ribbed cuffs; twisted drawstring

True Love Soaker

This is a pre-dyed colorway that I got at the local craft store (that's what Abigail calls it :-)) and it had a very BORING name so I renamed it True Love. Very appropriate don't you think? It's a custom medium (smaller leg openings) with ribbed cuffs and a twisted drawstring. You can also see my new hand-lettered hang tags. I write on the back the colorway name and size.

Another Rainbow Soaker :-)

Weeee this one only took me a day to knit. Isn't it as cute as a bugs ear?

Yarn: handpainted untreated fisherman's wool
Size: newborn
Style elements: ribbed cuffs and twisted drawstring

Vintage Baby Quilt

This is a gift for one of Michael's co-workers. I love vintage 1930's prints but they are so expensive that I rarely use them. However, I happened across these at Hancock Fabrics last week and they were 50% off. :-) I thought these 3 fabrics had a nice boyish, nautical look to them. It measures about 30 x 36 inches, has organic cotton batting and is tied with red wool yarn.

Rainbow Wooliness

Two of my remaining three soakers that I need to knit (see previous post) requested a rainbow colorway. Abigail and I dyed these last night. She supervised and I applied dye ;-)

Knitting, knitting ... I must keep knitting

These are the YPS (you pick size) colorways that I sold and knit up from my Hyena Cart store, Little Bear Wear. One more is on the needles + 3 more to go. Thankfully the remaining sizes are newborn. Those knit up fast!

Colorway Overload

These are the colorways I dyed this past Saturday and this morning. The Saturday one's I showed eariler but deleted the post because I took better pictures. I don't think I need to *talk* anymore. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves ...