It's Been A Long Time

Hello!
I know it has been an awfully long time since last I updated.  I do apologize for my absence.  The end of last year was a very busy time for me craft wise.  I had so many projects that needed to be completed on time, and it was a crunch to get them all done.  Here are but a few examples of things I was hooking like mad to complete!

Shortly after the first of the year, I had some personal issues of a catastrophic level happen.  I can't discuss the details here, but life as I knew it before has been turned upside down. So I've been struggling to right myself since then.  I went almost 3 weeks without hooking anything at all, and then when I did try to do anything, I'd end up having to rip rows and rows out because I just couldn't focus well enough.  I've been trying to ease back into my crafting, and only doing it when I feel like it, for however long, and on whatever project it is that I feel up to working on at the time.  This is why you haven't been seeing posts from me, nor seen my Etsy store open in January as I had planned.  So hopefully there will be more posts coming soon!  I'm about mid-way through a project and hopefully will be able to share it in about a week's time- but I'm not going to hold myself to that.  It might be a week, it might be a month.  Crochet is somewhat therapeutic for me right now, but I have to do it on my own terms.  I'm hoping that I'll be able to start taking orders again soon, and get back to some more regular blogging.

So Many Hats, So Few Blog Entries!

I've been horribly slack about updating the blog lately.  Things have been very busy here.  The kids are finally back to school and are settling in to their new classes and making new friends.  I love this time of year!  October is my favourite month.  I find that the natural beauty here in Vancouver certainly leaves no lack of inspiration.

So what have I been up to the last few weeks in Yarnland?  Mostly hats, hats, and more hats!  I had a few friends who wanted Groot hats made for them, so I had to try to remember how I made the first one.  I tried keeping some notes on it over the next few I made, but they are nowhere near what would pass for a publishable pattern.  I've had some more minion hats requested.  In fact, the next four items to fall off my hook will all be minion-related.  Two of them I'm designing myself, so that always take a lot longer for me than just following a pattern.  I also had a request for a Unikitty (from The Lego Movie) hat.  I couldn't find a pattern for one, so, again I just made the hat up as I went along. I'm pretty happy with the end result (though if I ever made another, I would assemble it in a different order than I did this time).  I'm looking forward to seeing this little Unikitty in her costume on Halloween!


Speaking of Halloween, it has to be my favourite holiday!  I've been quite busy making things for other people lately, but I did take a little time out to make something to decorate our house for the holiday!  The good folks over at The Crochet Crowd are having another one of their fabulous challenges.  This particular challenge involved making a yarn wreath in a Halloween theme.  They really left a lot of room for creativity in this challenge.  I chose to use a pool noodle for my wreath form, and wrap it in yarn.  In retrospect, I could have crocheted a cover for the noodle faster than wrapping the noodle! To keep in the spirit of the challenge, I decided to try something that has always kind of scared me, and tried crocheting with ruffle yarn. I can't even begin to tell you how silly I felt for avoiding this stuff for so long- it is ridiculously easy to do!  So I used it for the trim of my wreath, found some silvery fabric in my scrap box, and went to work.  It is now hanging on the wall in our hallway, since we can't close the screen door if we hang it on the front door. 

 I managed to finish up a little something for myself this morning.  I had been working on this on short car trips. I'm very, very happy with this scarf!  My Road Trip Scarf, while it did turn out very pretty, is just not my style.  I can't pull off the triangular scarf as well as a lot of people seem to.  I made this scarf with Red Heart Boutique Unforgettable in the colorway Stained Glass.  I love these colours and I would wear them in any season.  It is a very simple shell stitch that is staggered.  However, it is a pleasant stitch to look at (instead of just a plain old double crochet), but not so busy that it detracts from the colour.  I wore it out and about today and had several comments on it, which always makes me feel good.  The closer up pictures shows the stitching better, as well as the colours.  My flash didn't go off in the first picture, apparently.

Until next time,
Happy Hooking!

Darrah

Blog Blogity Blog Blog Blogs

So, I am still new to Blogland. I kept an online journal for years on Open Diary, which sadly is gone now.  I hadn't realized until I looked into it that it was actually the first blogging website, launched 6 months before even Livejournal was.  Back then it was just a way to get all my thoughts and feelings collected, and I type so much faster than I write.  I can't help but feel old and outdated when I don't even know what all the blog features and such are anymore.  I keep seeing blogs I'd like to follow, but I don't want my email overflowing (as if it isn't anyway) and I don't want to have to join 8 different communities to be able to see when the blogs I like have been updated.  That being said, I'm not exactly sure what Bloglovin even IS, but I see it as an option to follow blogs quite often, and so I am giving it a wingding and connecting my blog to it (and it wants me to post a link in a new blog, and so in this entrey is where I will post it).  I also have started a Facebook page (separate from my personal page) for The Button Buffalo which you can see here.  Feel free to pop by and give it a like if you want, and let me know about your pages as well so I can visit them!  There's not much on the Facebook page yet, but I just started it this week and I am still trying to figure out exactly what I want to do with it.  I think I may spend some time today on blogspot trying to get THIS blog to look like I want it to.  I want to share with people the other blogs and things I love.  I just need to figure out how to do all that!
Follow me on Bloglovin

A Late WIP Wednesday

Well, it's late Wednesday, and I was going to make a post for WIP Wednesday.  but I decided instead to keep working on my road trip scarf, which seems to be a very popular project right now, and was designed by Zelna Olivier.  I've been seeing loads of these around the internet and wanted to try one, and although I always think they are beautiful, I just wasn't sure the scarf was really "my style."  I finally decided to quit drooling over them and to just hook one up.  Besides, if I didn't like it, it would make a wonderful gift for someone, right?

I finally was able to find a couple of skeins of Red Heart Unforgettable in the Sunrise colorway.  This colorway and the Stained Glass seem particularly difficult to find.  Even when I look online, most of the time those colorways are always out of stock.  The Sunrise colorway grabbed my attention because of the bright oranges (which is my favourite colour) and the wonderful contrast of the blue.  Now that I've worked this colorway up, I find myself wishing that the blue was a little more frequent. The colours are bright, shiny, and vibrant.  It's a wonderful combination for Fall.  The bottom picture shows the colours more of how they actually are.  You'll have to excuse the poor lighting in here.  It was a grey, gloomy day here, so I didn't have good natural lighting to photograph in.  Perhaps in a few days when the weather clears up I can try again. The bottom picture I took before I added the flowers.  I almost left it totally plain, and the scarf still looked nice.  The pattern has 8 flowers and some tassels as well.  In the end I decided that it would be a shame not to adorn it in some way, even though I usually prefer my things to be more on the plain side.  I went with 5 flowers instead of 8, and decided to forgo the tassels altogether.  I'm looking forward to trying it out once things cool down just a tad!

We Are Groot!

Looky, looky!  It's Saturday (not by much) and here I am posting again!


This week was mostly filled with Groots.  All of the Baby Groots were shipped off to my friends, and I'm happy to report that they all love their Groots!  I did get a picture of them all together before I shipped them out.
The first picture here is before I "planted" them. Awh, look at the little Groots!  The second picture here is the "post planting" picture.
I gave my friends an option of what colour they would like me to paint their pot.  Some of them wanted just plain terracotta, and others went for a brighter color.  Anyway way you slice it, these little guys are super cute.  The best part was seeing how happy it made my friends to receive them!

I had thought that I was finished with Groot for awhile.  In fact, I even had time to work on some Christmas presents this week.  But then a friend said that he wants to be Groot for Halloween and his little boy is going to be Rocket Raccoon, and he was looking for costume ideas.  I told him that I might be able to design a hat for him.  And so I got to work yesterday on it (which just happened to be International Crochet Day), and finished it up last night.  I'm pretty pleased with how he turned out, and I'm proud to be able to say that the design is my own.  Since his debut, I've had a couple more friends say they'd like one of these.  So I may go ahead and write a pattern out for them.  But for tonight, I think I've earned a bubble bath and some reading time!

Happy Hooking!
Darrah

About August

I know, I know... a whole month and no blog?!  Actually, I wrote up a whole blog about some bunting I made around the middle of the month, but it didn't save for some reason, and I was too frustrated with it afterwards to redo it.  You can see pictures of the bunting on my Ravelry project page. August was a very busy month for us here at home.  We live in British Columbia, and currently our teachers are on strike, so that means the kiddos are still at home, and we've been doing school lessons here in our house.  It is fun and rewarding, but of course, is also time consuming.  I think I'm going to pick a day of the week and make that my "I really should blog day."

So what's been hooking over here?  Oh, all sorts of this and that.  I've been working on some Christmas presents for my family.  I haven't photographed them yet.  Perhaps I'll have them ready for next week's blog.  A friend of mine asked me to make a minion hat for her little guy.  The end result was this guy over here to the left.  He was a pretty simple make, but was fun!  It was a nice change to hook up something with a loser gauge, as I've been doing a fair amount of amigurumi lately that calls for pretty tight tension. 

I had been working on designing a bag for my Mother in law to carry her Kobo (e-reader) and her tablet in the same bag.  I made this bag using King Cole Riot DK in the colour "Cool".  It's a beautiful wool/acrylic blend that I really love.  It does hook up very beautifully... but it is VERY unforgiving.  I found this out the hard way when I had the bag about half way done before I realized I had flip flopped the height and width on the bag, and it took my husband and I as a team nearly an hour to frog it.  I decided that since this was for electronic devices that I should really line the bag.  I'm not the best seamstress (especially since I don't have a sewing machine and I have to do it by hand), but it turned out pretty good!  I made the separate compartments by using a sheet of plastic canvas, putting quilt bating on either side, and then sewing the liner over that.  She really likes it and has gotten several compliments on it.

We have now gone to see Guardians of the Galaxy twice (once at the theater, and once at the Drive-in).  Our kids love it, and so do we.  My son's favourite character from the movie is Baby Groot.  He asked me to make him one, and I couldn't disapoint that little face.  So this is what his finished Baby Groot looks like.  He said that Baby Groot would be happier if he had some "skinny rainbows" on his pot, and so I found a way to make both him and Baby Groot happy.   He loves his Baby Groot!  I posted a picture of him on my Facebook, and my friends went nuts!  Nuts enough that five of them wanted a Baby Groot of their own.  And so I got to work on five more Baby Groots.  I haven't photographed their finished ones yet, but I do have a picture of all the Baby Groot heads while I was working on them.  They were a fun make, but a lot of sewing and cramped up, aching hands.  I think the cramping may be from too much hooking in general, but sometimes I have to actually push my fingers back into a normal position.

I discovered a new favourite yarn!  It's still pretty new, and hard to find in my area, but it is called Landscapes by Lion Brand.  I was only able to get one skein in the color Apple Orchard.  It's a 100% acrylic self-striping yarn with a beautiful shine and vibrant colors.  Since I only had the one skein, I decided to make a cowl scarf with it.  It turned out great and it is SUPER warm!  I usually wear a sweater nearly all of the time, but I had to take my sweater off when wearing the scarf.  I can't wait until the Joann's in Bellingham starts to carry this (I'm hoping they will, anyway) so I can get some more of it!  I also have one skein of the Boardwalk, Mountain Range, and Tropics colors.  They are also beautiful, but I might wait until I can have more of it to make something bigger than a scarf.  It is fabulously soft and silky, and it feels like a dream on your hook!

The last thing I'll share today is the little pouch I made for myself.  I wanted a little something that I could easily throw into a project bag and take with me on the go without fear of my hooks, needles, stitch markers and scissors falling out.  I have never worked with this type of clasp before, and I didn't use a pattern.  This is not my best work, and I was hesitant to even put it on my blog.  But now that I've had some experience with this sort of frame, I think with a little practice I could see some very cute little pouches or coin purses coming soon!  I love these colors with the fabric I chose for my liner!  It has a very Autumn-ish feel too it, and since out leaves are already starting to fall here, it couldn't bee more appropriate.  I really love the foxy fabric!  It's cute without being babyish.  The yarn is Bernat Mosaic (which, much to my heart's dismay, has been discontinued) in the color Medusa.  I'm considering making a cushion for my couch out of these. 

Hamburger Soup: A "Recipe"

This is my first blog about something that is not crochet, and it feels a little weird! Here we go....!

I love soups!  It doesn't matter what time of year it is, I'm always game for soup.  One of the great things about soup making is that it caters to my cooking style of "I don't really measure anything, I just throw it all in and see how it comes out."  A fellow crocheter (and an amazing designer to boot), Zelna Olivier of Zooty Owl 's Crafty Blog (who also has a crochet-a-long going on right now on her blog that you should give a try.  I'll post of pics of my squares soon!) mentioned making soup a day or two ago, and I can't quit thinking about Hamburger Soup!  She said she had never heard of it before, and that doesn't surprise me.  Until last year, I hadn't heard of it either.  My friend, Carla,  mentioned she was making it for dinner, and my curiosity was peaked!  So I started scouring the internet for recipes.  I tried a couple recipes at first, and then went off on my own and made my own version, tailoring it to my personal preferences.  That's another great thing about making your own soup- you can adjust things to make it better for your tastes easily.  I'm a person who loves onion, carrots, and green beans, so when I make soup, I usually have more of those than vegetables which I like but not as much as those others (like celery, tomatoes and potatoes).  I rarely write things down like this when I make them (but perhaps I ought to), but today I tried to pay attention to what I was putting in so that I could share my "recipe" with those who had asked for it.  Despite being made with hamburger, it's a fairly healthy soup with a lot of veggies.  Also, I don't cook using salt and pepper.  Foods have enough salt that occur naturally for my personal taste, and I'm just not huge on pepper.  However, if you are a person who likes their salt and pepper, you'll want to add those according to taste when you make this.

My preferred method for soup cooking is my Crockpot. There is nothing like your whole house smelling of a yummy, slow cooking soup all day.  I used my 4 quart Crockpot and it is full to about 1 inch below the rim- I'll keep an eye on it as it cooks and may possibly add some more broth to it later.  However, this soup can also be made on your stove top in a soup pot if you need it to be done sooner than 4-6 hours.  Simply combine the ingredients, bring it to a slow boil for about 5-10 minutes, and then let it simmer until the veggies are your desired texture. Also, there are a few vegetables that I used today that were canned.  Fresh will work just as well (if not better), but I didn't have any fresh green beans today, and I rarely have fresh tomatoes.  So I used what I had laying around, as I seem to be fighting a kidney infection, and I didn't feel up to leaving the house.  In contrast if you'd rather use all canned veggies, I'm sure that would work too, you just probably won't need to cook it as long.  This usually makes enough for us to have for dinner, and then we freeze the rest, giving us enough for another 2-3 meals.  It freezes really well, and tastes so good when reheated.  My soup smells yumtastic right now, I wish it was done cooking already!  Let me know if you try it!  Enjoy!

  Hamburger Soup
*Approx 2 lbs Ground beef- browned, drained, and RINSED (I run hot water over mine while it's in a colander)
* 1 1/2 - 2 White onion, chopped
* 1-2 cloves garlic, minced
* 2 cans green beans, drained
* 20 oz. petite diced tomatoes (I used ones that had garlic and onion in them)
* 24 oz garlic and herb flavored spaghetti sauce (most recipes call for just tomato sauce, which is okay too. However, I have found that using the spaghetti sauce gives it SO much more flavor!  Another good substittion is low sodium V8 juice)
* About 6-8 small new, yellow fleshed potatoes- sliced and then halved
* 14 baby carrots (the ones I had today though were MONSTER baby carrots!  I'm not sure I'd even consider them babies myself.  You may want to add more)
* two stalks of celery, chopped
* 1 900ml box of no salt added beef broth
* 2-3 TBSP of Heinz 57 sauce
*2/3 - 1 Cup dry red wine (depending on your preference, I've made it both ways and I like it with about 2/3, but if you aren't using the 57 sauce, I'd go 1 Cup)
*1/2 - 1 TBSP Worcestershire sauce
* parsley (I usually chop up fresh stuff and put in, but I was out, so I just used dried flakes)

Combine all these together in your Crockpot and cook on low for 6-8 hours, or on high for 4-5.  I usually serve this with a crusty butter roll, and it makes a great meal (particularly in the Winter)!  The recipe for the crusty butter roll , you ask?  Here it is: 1. Drive to Safeway. 2. Buy crusty butter rolls from the bakery.  3. Eat and enjoy!