Tuesday, November 13, 2007

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!

Monday, November 05, 2007

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.

Wednesday, September 26, 2007

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.

Friday, April 06, 2007

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:
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BACK - I liked the way the colors pooled:
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Pink & Peach - Size Small
Handpainted on Knit Picks Bare Bulky
FRONT:
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BACK - it wouldn't be fair to show Miss Rainbow's bum and not Miss P&Ps
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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.

Wednesday, March 28, 2007

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 :)

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Thursday, February 08, 2007

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:

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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
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Brown
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Burnt Orange
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Purple
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Spruce
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Chartreuse
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Fuschia (this is the LIGHT shade)
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And here they are all hanging out together:
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Wednesday, January 31, 2007

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.

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Thursday, January 25, 2007

Retro Baby Soaker

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

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Wednesday, January 24, 2007

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.

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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

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Monday, January 22, 2007

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.

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Wednesday, January 17, 2007

Rainbow Wooliness

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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!

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Tuesday, January 09, 2007

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 ...

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