Making scarves

A friend of ours showed us these pretty scarves she's been making.  Super easy and pretty ruffle scarves like this awesome tutorial.  I think she puts 4 or 5 loops on the hook before pulling it through, we did 7.  If you try this, you can do whatever look you like best, the more loops, the more fluffy your scarf will be.

So this is "art class" today.  This is the yarn (I ♥ Hobby Lobby) that Olivia is using:

 See how it stretches into a mesh?

 

And she just finished it!

Yarn along: primary colours

I just finished Chapter 2 (and I ♥ it already) of We The Living by Ayn Rand.  So far, Kira and her parents and sister have returned to Russia, after being away for 5 years.  Her father's textile factory was "nationalized."  I see bits and pieces of Orthodoxy, Kira's sister Lydia wants to go to church and she and her mother cross themselves.  This is the first novel she had published (1936).  I've read several of her other books (Anthem, The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged), which were published later.
I'm trying to use up the yarn I have by crocheting little critters.  To see more of what people are doing with their yarn, check out this week's "Yarn along."
We're still getting tomatoes from the backyard.  Beets and carrots, too, but as you can see, the chickens like to eat the greens!

Hannah and Olivia are wearing the aprons my parents got for them while in the Ukraine 7 years ago.  I'm so glad they go to go there and also to Russia, before my Dad's Parkinson's disease got worse!  And on Monday, Labor Day, we had a cookout...Aaron, the girl's cousin really liked the mini-vanilla cones from Trader Joe's. 

Pari and Abdullah

Last night I finished reading about Pari and Abdullah, the Afghan siblings you see playing on the front cover of this book by Khaled Hosseini.  It's called And the Mountains Echoed, and I think it's better than his other books, The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns, although they were both good, too.  In this book, the poor family separates the siblings (who were very close to each other), giving 5 year old Pari to a wealthy couple living in the big city, Kabul...  One eventually moves to Paris and the other to California, and do meet again, although many years have passed.  It's a story about loving and caring for the poor and sick.

I crocheted a little purple hat for a friend who is having a baby.  Hannah is actually now working ona  baby blanket for her, using the same purple wool. We're joining in the yarn along today!

Fr. Paul from St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox church is very nice...and his wife and little boy, Nectarios, at the Greek festival over the weekend.

Olivia brought her baklava home and put whipped cream on top!
Have you ever put the candy Mentos into diet soda?  Olivia got a special little plastic tube with a string to pull and drop them in all at once as a birthday party favor (awesome, better than trinkets):

That was fun!  Let's do it again.

Crocheting a rainbow...

I am crocheting this rainbow as a gift for someone...

(inspired by this one)

 Velvet is a happy cat...one of her favorites places in our home, laying atop the warm heater.

The chickens don't seem to mind the snow.  Nutmeg here...Cinnamon and Pepper near the tire swing.  They are steadily laying eggs for us.  I have to dump out a chunk of ice in their water each morning, we've had quite a cold winter so far, compared to the warm of last year. ♥

I hope you have a wonderful weekend.  We are preparing to celebrate the birth of Christ this weekend, as Russian Orthodox Christians!!! 

Yarn along...

Today is the first day of the Nativity fast for us, as Orthodox Christians, who follow the old calendar.  Last year, we started a countdown and opened up a package with a (used) book each day, so my girls really looked forward to the fasting period.  We try to live simpler, eating no meat, or dairy and less television (not that we watch it much anyhow) so that we can pray more and think about the time before Christ's birth!

I'm crocheting another shawl right now for my niece, well actually just adding fringe right now.  I am reading "Everyday Saints" by Archimandrite Tikhon.  ♥
I have mushrooms and onions that I'll chop up and cook with olive oil and then serve with angel hair pasta.  We have a good supply of organic gala apples, for snack.

And I plan to bake this later today, as I have a bag of fresh cranberries in the refrigerator.

yarn along ♥ making a beard & baking

yep...making a beard, out of yarn!  Saturday we greeted the turn of the season, with a day at the apple orchard.  Happy fall, everyone!  I baked 2 apple pies.  I made the crusts, 1 with unbleached white wheat flour and 1 with gluten-free flour (made of rice, tapioca, potato starch, guar gum).  And last week I posted that I was looking for some gluten-free recipes.

The first batch (on the right) I made (just using almond meal instead of flour in the recipe) was yummy, but too gooey.  The second batch (on the left) turned out nicely, I used the all-purpose flour from gluten free pantry.  We topped them with whipped cream and raspberries!

 

These are the 2 recipes I used...made savory crepes with salami and swiss, yellow tomatoes from our backyard and chives atop.

 While waiting for friends to come at the apple orchard...tree climbing.

This is about 20 pounds of melrose apples at my feet.  The price has gone up this year to $1.00/pound, in the past we paid half that price.  Then, we picked some golden delicious.

We paid a total of $49 for all these apples. 49 pounds...I counted all of them 99.

Anyhow, if your face is cold, keep warm with a yarn beard (my husband has a handsome beard that God gave him)...I'm using these crochet instructions:  http://www.jjcrochet.com/blog/crochet-beard-hat-free-pattern/ 
I sewed 4 buttons onto the corners so that I could attach it to a hat and take it off.  I know I look like a spy...my daughter said I need to wear sunglasses, too.

Crocheting...and knit graffiti?

I'm making wrist warmers...
...and shawls for gifts. Simple. Homemade. The yarn is usually $2.99 for a 100 gram skein of this 100% cotton yarn at Hobby Lobby, it was on sale last week for just $1.99. I used 2 skeins, the fringe took up a lot! Hannah helped me do the fringe Saturday afternoon. So fun to work on a project together.
I'm learning how to knit better. Just practicing my "continental style" of knitting...think that will be good...I really want to make that hat, but need to perfect my knitting first. I have double pointed needles....already knit a hat...alas, used for teddy bears...
Most of my knitted items are random sizes, rectangles...whatever. So, I'm going to start KNITTA here in Cincinnati...anyone want to join me?

P.S. Go check out their main website above & this flickr photostream....Magda led a project to cover a city bus in Mexico...mostly crocheted items! So cool.