Crochet projects

I am an on again off again crocheter. Quite honestly I get bored and well am easily distracted when it comes to crafting. But the other day I came across this awesome looking afghan pattern. So I thought I would give it a whirl. Here is the link for the original pattern Stained Glass Afghan. Easy and fast which is perfect for me. The afghan I made is considerably smaller because I didn't have a Q hook. I used a P hook. But it made a great lap blanket, nice and warm and I only used one string instead of two like it says to use. Here is mine/

I loved the stitch so much that I decided to make some fingerless gloves with it. The plan was to make them for me but it doesn't stretch very much so it ended up fitting my 3 year old niece. At least it has inspired birthday presents. Here is what the gloves look like on two of my nieces. Got a few more to make.

I used I Love This Yarn: Metallic yarn to make them and a size P hook.
Here is the pattern I came up with:

Chain 16
Row 1- sc in each chain. Ch 1, turn. Repeat for Rows 2-5.
Row 6- Keeping all lps on hook, draw up a lp in 2nd ch from hook and in each ch across; Figure 1. There are the same number of lps on hook as were chained.

To Work Lps Off: Yo hook and through first lp, * yo hook, pull through next 2 lps, repeat from * across until 1 lp remains; Figure 2. Lp that remains on hook always counts as first st of next row.

Row 7: Keeping all lps on hook, sk first vertical bar, pull up a lp under next vertical bar and under each vertical bar across; Figure 3. Work lps off as before. Repeat row 2 for afghan stitch.

Row 8-14- repeat Row 7. 

To Finish- Slip stitch the top 2 rows together, skip two rows to leave a hole for the thumb. Slip stitch the rest of the glove and finish off.

As soon as I figure out a pattern for an adult size I will post it. For now I am working on a second blanket using the Q hook. I should have it done later this week, I also intend to make hats and scarves to go with the gloves for my nieces and a Captain America themed set for my nephew. Pics will follow. Have a great day.

Pickles and Green Chili

All of the sudden my pickling cucumbers and green chili have gone crazy. One day I had nothing, the next tons of veggies. So far I have made 4 pint jars and 4 quart jars of pickles. I still have pickling cucumbers sitting in the refrigerator waiting to be used. Probably enough for another couple quart jars. I have made 3 different dill pickle recipes, soon I will make my fourth using my grandmothers recipe (just have to find it first). One I got off pinterest, one out of a canning magazine and the other was the Ball dill pickle mix. I have also made Thai chili pickles and bread and butter pickles. I also want to make my own Ghost Pepper Pickles.  Here are some pictures of the pickle process using the Ball mix.

Pretty simple. Sterilize jars, lids bands, boil water vinegar and dill mix. Quarter cucumbers and stuff into jars. Pour hot liquid into jars leaving a 1/2" head space. Put on lids and place in a boiling water bath for 15 minutes. The worst part is letting them sit for 4-6 weeks.

I also fire roasted and froze my green chili. Super easy and a little messy. I did it on the stove top. Next time I am so doing it on the grill. Just turn the fire up to high and blacken every bit of the chili. It won't burn, but the more you blacken the skin the easier it is to peel off. After the chili is roasted toss it in a bowl with a heavy towel over it and let the chili steam for about 10 minutes. Then just gently tug the skin off and toss in a freezer bag. Or you can dry it in a dehydrator, which is my next goal. Here are a few pictures of the process.

I picked some regular cucumbers and some more green chili today. I just can't keep up with the garden.

 I know I am going to lose lots of sleep the moment the tomatoes decide to ripen. Some of my corn has silks on them so hopefully soon I will see the ears developing. My two watermelon vines are out of control. But I am super excited about them anyway. Just have to keep the vines from taking over the garden.

What to do with fresh mint and basil

In my herb garden I have apple mint, chocolate mint, sweet basil and purple basil. To say they are trying to take over the world seems fairly accurate. So I decided it was time to harvest...again. Especially since they were getting ready to blossom. I ended up with a huge bowl full of mint and a slightly smaller bowl of basil. Staring at the bowls all I could think was now what. My last harvest I dried the mint and turned the basil into pesto. Today I decided to dry the basil and in the end some of the chocolate mint. The basil I washed and removed the damaged leaves. Lined a couple of cookie sheets with foil and laid the basil out on them. After warming up the oven for a few minutes. (200 degrees for about 10 minutes) Turned off the oven and inserted the cookie sheets. It will take a couple of days for the basil to dry completely. Here is what it looks like right now. Sorry for the crappy picture.

The chocolate mint I washed and patted dry. wrapped sting around the ends and hung the bunch up to dry. We'll see how that works out. Here is what it currently looks like.

I wanted to try something new with the fresh leaves, but time was not exactly on my side today. I did a quick google search and really the only interesting thing I came up with was a cucumber,lime, mint water. I'm sure it tastes good, but there are some things that I cannot just wrap my head around. But it did give me an idea. I really love the MetroMint Water. So why not make my own.

Here is my process and some pictures to go along with.

1, Remove mint leaves from stem. (Discard any damaged leaves) And wash leaves.

 2. Fill a blender with about 16 oz. of cold water and roughly 1 c. of leaves and blend for about 30 seconds,

Apple MintChocolate Mint

3. Strain the water into a container. I used a damp paper towel as a filter and a quart jar as my container.

4. Top of the container, if needed, with cold water. Refrigerate for a couple of hours so that it's nice and cold and also allows the mint oils to really flavor the water. 

 I ended up with 2 jars of apple mint water and 1 jars of chocolate mint water. Yes it does look like pickle juice. It is very tasty and refreshing. All the leftovers got tossed into the compost pile so nothing was wasted.

Ones of these days when I have more time I really want to try and make mint chocolate chip ice cream using fresh mint leaves.

Fresh Pesto

I have sweet basil and purple basil growing in my herb garden. They were doing very well so I decided to harvest them and make pesto. First I had to find out the best way to prune basil. I have an awesome tutorial here. And now I have to prune them again because they are starting to flower. So after following the tutorial I found a great pesto recipe and went to work.Here is the recipe that I followed.

 So after I made my pesto I decided to make one of my favorite sandwiches. Sadly the image is minus the tomatoes because I took it the night before my allergy shot and I couldn't have tomatoes.

1/2 c pesto

4 oz fat free cream cheese

smoked sliced turkey

sliced provolone cheese

mutligrain chibata bread

lettuce 

tomatoes

Mix pesto and cream cheese together. Spread onto the bread. Top with turkey and provolone. Stick in a 250 degree oven until the cheese starts to melts. Add lettuce and tomatoes. Enjoy!

My Veggie Garden

I am super thrilled with my veggie garden this year. It looks like it is going to be very productive. In fact I just made my first harvest. Several tomatoes and some green chili. I did try something new this year and mostly it is working. I put several of my plants in 5 gallon buckets. The only plants that seem to be struggling are the tomatoes. They just seem to need more water than the tomato plants that are in the ground. But the chili plants, the bell pepper plants, cucumbers, peas and green beans all seem to be thriving in the buckets. And hey that means less crawling around in the dirt for me. So my veggie garden consists of sugar snap peas, green beans, cucumbers and pickling cucumbers (a new one for me. I really hope I get to try my hand at making pickles). Green bell peppers, green chili, early girl and big boy tomatoes, black cherry tomatoes, corn (also a new veggie for me), yellow watermelon (my sweet red watermelon died) and potatoes (aslo new). In the previous post about the flower garden one of the tiers is all herbs. apple mint, chocolate mint, basil (sweet and purple), thyme, rosemary, sage (regular and purple), garlic chives, tarragon, oregano and cilantro.
Anyway here are some pictures of how my garden is doing and my first harvest, cause why not.

My Flower Garden

This spring/summer has been all about "upgrading" the front yard. It has been grueling and costly, but I love the end result. So it was well worth all the effort. First we moved the front of the fence 10 ft closer to the house to create more parking. Because we moved the fence we had to dig up 5 roses bushes and a crap ton of tulips, irises and daffodils. Most found new homes and some just got transplanted. We built many different planters. All out of cinder blocks. After the planters were built we put down some edging and cedar mulch. For a little added privacy we put that plastic privacy strips in the fence. I can't tell you how much dirt we had to remove from the yard to get it level. There is a mound of dirt about 8 ft long, 5 ft wide and probably 4 ft high in the backyard. Anyway we finally got the yard leveled out and new sod laid. The last project will be to pour some concrete for a small patio. And now for some pictures of the process. I will try very hard to ,make sure they are all in order.

 Well there you have it. Hopefully the patio will be poured soon.