Preview of New Pattern Plus a Soup Recipe!

Here's a quick sneak peak at my latest pattern that I'm working on.  The yarn is amazing.  It is Malabrigo Rios in Playa, which is a nice worsted weight soft as can be washable merino wool that is hand dyed.  Can you believe these colors?  I just love it!

Would you believe that the stitch I use for this is a very simple variation of half double crochet?  Yup!  I get so many people that ask me if my patterns are Tunisian or knit.  Come on peeps, it's me!  I'm all about easy whip up, no fuss, no muss enjoyable crochet.  It just looks hard.
Now to the recipe . . . 
In March I ate carbs, sugar, lots of bread, dairy up the wazoo, and very little fruits and veggies.  To put it mildly, I felt awful.  I had low energy, looked a little bit grey in the face and my mind felt foggy and slow.  So it just dawned on me that I really need to get my act together and eat better if I want to feel good.  First step was to detox and get all the yucky yucks out of my system.  Solution: make a fabulous veggie soup.  Even if you aren't planning on changing up your diet, you will love this, it's so good!  It's very similar to a Russian borscht soup but no cabbage and lots more flavor.  It's very tasty, very healthy, very filling and will help kick start any healthy eating plans you may have.  I liked my invention so much that I decided to share it here on the blog. Enjoy!

Detox Soup

Ingredients:

1 T olive oil

1 large onion chopped

1 large carrot chopped (or 2 small carrots)

1 large unpeeled sweet potato chopped (substitute regular potato)

1 large beet peeled and chopped

1/4 cup cider vinegar

1 32 oz box of vegetable stock (substitute water)

1 large bunch of kale chopped (substitute chard)

Salt and pepper to taste

Instructions: In large soup pot heat up oil on medium high heat.  Saute onions until they are tender. Add carrots, sweet potatoes and beets and stir for about 30 seconds until veggies are coated with oil.  Let veggies cook for another minute or so until soup pot gets back up to temperature. Add vinegar and cook until vinegar has reduced down (about a minute or so).  Add vegetable stock (or water).  Bring to a boil.  Reduce heat and let simmer covered for about 10 minutes.  Add kale and season with salt and pepper to taste.  Let simmer until potatoes are just soft, about another 5 to 10 minutes.

I feel healthier just looking at it!!!

Fair Isle in Action

My sweet little niece picked out her outfit today and it looks mighty cute to me!  Pattern available here and here

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Spring is in the air!

The camelias and daffodils are blooming, the lilac bushes are tempting the bees with their baby buds, the garden is on the verge of showing off why the long rainy dreary winter in Portland is oh so worth it.  Spring is here and the Vitamin D is kicking in! I'm in my happy place.

I love Camelias!

To celebrate, I finally finished my latest pullover pattern!  Super fun and easy pattern for spring. The pattern is very similar to the boys pullover but uses a larger gauge and worsted weight instead of sport weight yarn so it whips up faster.  The pattern is available for purchase and instant download on both Ravelry and Etsy.

Photo Credit

Photo Credit

Speaking of long overdue projects, we finally finished a brand new planting in the spot where the roofing debris sat since last August.

Before:  Yes, the old roof sat in our front yard like this for a very, very, very, long time.

After: Plants are teency, but by next year they will rock it.

 It's a relatively shady spot, so I planted mainly shade lovers like hostas, huckleberry, camelias, trilliums, and sword ferns.  I can't wait to see how it looks in a year or two.  I used this "instant garden" method that really worked! I We had decent soil underneath the trash, but it needed some amendment.  So I just put cardboard down over the old soil, covered that with about 3-5 inches of compost, planted my plants through the cardboard by stabbing holes in the cardboard with my scissors then widening the holes with my shovel  then covered everything with mulch.  Worked like a charm and so far no weeds whatsoever.  The cardboard just smothers them out.  Here's the article I read before I started.  It made everything so easy to do!

Close up of the purple flowers.  They're twice as big now!

The new plants are so tiny, but they are full of promise.  So long as I can keep them from curious kids and rambunctious puppies away, we should be seeing more flora and less bark very soon.  And I've noticed that the penchant for bright color combos like raspberry and lime green has followed my design choices into the garden too - interesting!

Happy Spring everyone.  I leave you with some parting shots of the Easter festivities at our house.