Getting back in the Blogging game

I can't believe that it has been so long since my last post.  Life in North Carolina is going great and I am crafting away like crazy but I have gotten out of my habit of keeping up with my blog.  I am making a resolution to get back into my groove.

This is what I have been up to in the last few months:

•I am knitting away like crazy on a variety of projects.  I am making dishcloths for a friends using a variety of different stitch patterns.  It is such a fun way to try out a different stitch with a quick product.  Bobble patterns have quickly become a new favorite... although knitting together 5 stitches can really make my hands hurt.  Going along with the idea of the dishcloths using different patterns I have also made a few baby bibs doing the same thing.  I love making things for people that  know they can actually use.

As silly as this may seem I have also started my first ever sweater.  For a long time I have been wanting to step up my game and make a sweater.  I have actually had the yarn all picked out for some time now but just never found a pattern that I liked.  But recently I have and am cruising along.  I am knitting it from the top down and have the arm holes separated out on scrap yarn and am currently going around and around knitting the body.  So at this rate it will be completed just in time for summer :)

•Living with my nieces and nephew has really encouraged using my creativity to make fun food.  They are amused by my whimsical foods even when they don't turn out how I may have envisioned them.

For Molly's birthday Kimbie and I made Elmo cupcakes.  We used jelly beans and mushed up mini marsh mellows for the nose and eyes.

I made a carrot cake from scratch and then covered it with fondant and hand painted with food coloring for a wedding shower:

I made fancy pancakes one morning for my nieces and nephew.  I learned a lot of my first trial run and am looking forward to trying again soon with my new found knowledge.  But they seemed to love it. Molly got so excited by her Elmo pancake that I found to be rather creepy looking but she was thrilled.

For Annie's birthday we had a fairy tea party for her and her friends.  I made a funfetti cake covered with fondant and then I hand painted fairies on it.  For the cake for the kids I mixed the food coloring with clear vanilla extract to paint..but for the wedding showing I had used vodka.  For some reason the purple color was wonderful with the vodka but it turned blue when I mixed it with the vanilla.  

And today I spent a good portion of my day making fortune cookies.  The kids helped to write the little fortunes that I tucked into each cookie.  It wasn't hard but you do have to work fast and touch very hot cookies.  I know I could put on gloves but what fun would that be.  For the most part I just made them plain but in my last batch of batter I tried out mixing in some food coloring to jazz them up.

• Other crafty things occupying my time are making paper beads from all the left over birthday wrapping paper that has piled up in the last few months and working on learning how to make my own paper to recycle newspapers.

• Projects I am dreaming about are making a felted bag from roving rather than knitting and sewing a lot when I get a sewing machine up and working.