I realize that I haven’t been very exciting this week as far as blogposts go.  It’s been more exciting in real life, which is probably why I haven’t had a lot of time to do anything worthy of posting.  I’m going to continue that trend today - but I promise after the weekend I should have lots of fun things to share!

I woke up this morning and saw that one of our cucumber plants has it’s first flower!  So pretty!  (Upon looking at the flower a little longer in this picture though, I began to realize that it looks a little bit like a starfish…. I’m not really sure what that means - but I like starfish, so it can’t be bad, right?)  This means cucumbers will start growing soon… yum!

In other astounding garden news, the lemon basil has really taken off!  I’ll probably have to start using some of it soon (darn!).

I wasn’t kidding when I said that I couldn’t stop with the crocheting.  Here’s Mr. Cactus, from the seriously cute crochet book.  He’s about 6″ tall, so pretty big I feel like as far as amigurumi goes.   This took me about 3 or 4 days to finish.  The green and white are one piece and then the brown pot is separate.  I pretty much think that he’s the cutest thing I’ve ever seen!

A few weeks back, when I last saw my grandmother, I had mentioned to her that I was having trouble figuring out how to double crochet.  I asked her if she could show me, but we never had a spare moment to sit down during all the craziness of a large family get together.  I eventually figured it out, but yesterday in the mail from her, I got this:

This is the book that she used to teach herself how to crochet.  Copyright 1959.  The price was 29 cents.  Not only does it have basic crochet instructions, it has some patterns, such as this cute tote bag, which I think I might try!

There are also instructions for knitting, tatting and embroidery.  This little book rocks!

Even with all this awesomeness, the following pages are my favorite part.  My grandmother made little notes all over the pattern for these mittens.  It’s mostly just her counting her rows, but it is a little piece of her that I will always have, no matter what.

As requested by my sister in last Friday’s post, I have made her boyfriend a ninja for his birthday. 

I deviated from the directions a little bit, giving him an aluminum foil ninja star instead of crocheting one out of embroidery floss.  I used a little bit of rice to stuff the bottom so he would stand up better.  He also has a tiny ninja buddy - they like to hang out together!

It seems that I just can’t stop with the amigurumi lately - I can no longer just sit and watch TV, I must be crocheting.  Prepare yourselves for an onslaught of cuteness!

I thought I’d give the crochet a break for a day and share a few picture of my container garden instead.  Things seem to be growing pretty nicely - the cucumbers keep shooting up!

We should also be eating some lettuce pretty soon, within two weeks I would think.  I can’t wait to be able to come home after work and just eat from my garden.  Yum!

I’m also waiting pretty impatiently for the basil and the green onions, both of which are doing well.  I just love these foods so much that the growing process can seem soooooo slow!

]]> http://craftykeg.wordpress.com/2008/06/25/garden-update/feed/ craftykeg http://craftykeg.wordpress.com/2008/06/23/cthulu-amigurumi/ http://craftykeg.wordpress.com/2008/06/23/cthulu-amigurumi/#comments Mon, 23 Jun 2008 12:07:41 +0000 Krista http://craftykeg.wordpress.com/?p=67

I had a blast this weekend with my new amigurumi books!  I started off with Cthulu out of the Creepy Cute Crochet book, mostly because he was one of the easier projects.  I think he’s pretty cute, for a giant head eating monster, of course!

Watch out for your head…. aaaagggghhhhh!

Cthulu was a big hit with Tim - he decided to keep it!  I’m going to have to make another one for me!

My awesome little brother gave me an Amazon gift certificate for my birthday.  I couldn’t quite decide what to spend it on, but with my new-found crochet fascination, I finally decided to get some amigurumi books.  The first one I picked out seemed pretty standard.

So, on the cover it looks like a chichen, an owl, bunny, lion, turtle, and is that a hedgehog?  Anyways, seriously cute, indeed!  I’m excited to start making them.

But then… I saw this……..

I cannot wait to make a zombie army!  OMG, it is going to be so awesome that the entire world might implode!!!!  Zombies, ninjas, robots, oh my!

Both of these books should be arriving today, so I can have the weekend to buy some supplies and get started on my zombie army!  Brains….. yum…. must eat brains…….

This continues my new obsession with all things crochet. I made this headband from 1/8″ ribbon that I had left over from another project. It took a little bit more than one spool. I think I used an H hook, but I can’t quite remember now. Edit: I used an F hook!

I simply made a foundation chain that was almost long enough to go around my head, and then did one row of triple crochet into that chain. I attached a tiny strip of 1/4″ elastic to the ends to make it the right size and that’s it! A pretty simple project to use up left over ribbon, that produces a pretty headband!

I made this card for my dad for Father’s day. I made the grill and fire from Perler beads - I had most of a bucket left over after thing-a-day back in February. I’ve been intrigued lately with the idea of putting 3D type things onto greeting cards.

The legs were made separately, and in hindsight it would have been best to iron one side of all the pieces, turn them out, push them together and then iron the opposite side. But, now I know! They managed to stick together rather well though, and I attached the grill to the card with super glue, using a book for pressure for about 5 minutes. The card filled out a father’s day theme since I got him a gift for the grill as well!

I appear to be on a bit of a food kick lately! I made these cupcakes for a meeting I have today. The lab I work in was split into two groups for what amounts to an extended homework problem. Our boss gave our teams names - Team Butterfly vs. Team Cupcake. (Guess which team I’m on!) I promised my team cupcakes for today’s meeting, so here they are. Both the cake and frosting recipes came from my Better Homes and Garden New Baking Book. The cake is the Classic Chocolate Cake and the frosting is Penuche Frosting. The cupcakes baked up very nicely, with the perfectly shaped tops.

I’m a little wary of the frosting. I think it’s supposed to be pretty heavy and dense, but I had a really hard time spreading it onto the cupcakes. I think that if I made it again, I would use less powdered sugar to change the consistency of it a bit. I’ve always been very happy with everything that comes from this cookbook, so I’m sure that they will be well received by Team Cupcake!