Christmas Baking and Knitting

This weekend Deborah and I had our 2nd Annual Christmas Cookie Baking Day. This year we made Oatmeal Raisin, Chocolate Chip and Chocolate Chunk, ...mmm. They were delicious. Well, you know we had to taste test the cookies before we could give them away to our co-workers, friends and family right? We started bright and early in the morning and finished baking and packaging around 5 or 6pm. In between baking we were knitting. It was a long day, but we had fun.

Here I am in the hat I Knitted for my niece. It's not completely done. Deborah still has to help me seam it up and weave in the ends. I just pinned it in the back so I could take a picture in it. I actually adjusted this cap a bit. This cap is knitted flat so as I was knitting it, I wrapped it around my head to see how it fit. It was about 5" in length from bottom to top. The instructions said to work the 8 row pattern stitch for a total of 6 repeats until the piece measures approx. 5 1/2" . I had completed four full pattern repeats and 6 rows of the 5th repeat when I wrapped the cap around my head and it measured 5". The cap came up to almost the top of my head. I didn't want the cap to have alot of room at the top. I wanted it to fit snug and since my neice is smaller than me I made the decision (without my teacher's knowledge...sorry Deb :0)) to skip pattern repeat 5 and 6 and start the decreases. It turned out fine I think. I photoshop'ed the picture to blur out the background crap in my apt.

Weekend FO

For those of you who are not knitters, FO means finished object. I just recently learned that myself. Anyway, yes I do finally have my first ever FO as you can see from the pictures below.

This is my very first hat. I made it for my youngest niece Mia. Hopefully it will fit her. If not I can always make her another hat. Here is the hat when I switched to the double-sided needles. It took me a while to wrap my mind around how I was actually going to do this but, I was patient and figered it out in the end.

This weekend I visited my friend who lives upstate in Willow, NY and we went to a Christmas Tree Farm where you pick and cut your own chistmas tree. We were in the holiday spirt as we walked around to find the perfect christmas tree. We both picked the same christmas tree at the same time. It sure didn't take as long as I thought it would. Another thing that did not take as long as I thought it would was cutting that tree down with a hacksaw. I did however, have experience with a hacksaw...remember Debrorah? Anyway we cut the tree down and carried it to the area where they wrap it up for you, then we carried it all the way back to the car to tie it to the top of the car. Boy did we both wake up sore the next day...lol. Anyway I had a great weekend.

Here is Pat after we spotted the perfect tree.

Me with the Hacksaw...

Here is the tree once we set it up in her house. Unfortunately we did not have time to decorate it. We were pooped...plus I was busy knitting and she was busy making us dinner.

Some Christmas Knitting

My knitting teacher, Deborah had the great idea of knitting christmas gifts for my nieces and nephews this year since money is tight. She was so kind to donate some yarn from her stash for these projects as well so all I have to do is knit, knit, knit so I can complete everything before christmas. Thank you Deb your the best! I don't know how I'm going to do it all but she seems to have faith in me. We will see how it goes. As you can see from the pictures below this is my progress so far. Iam working on a ribbed scarf for one of my nephews and a hat for my niece. I have a long way to go but with Deb's help I'm sure I will get there. We are meeting up on Thursdays after work for knitting.

Pay It Forward

I read about "Pay It Forward" on Mary Beth's blog. I think this is a great idea so I signed up on her blog. So here is how it works, and I am just going to take the description from Mary Beth's blog:

“The idea of the exchange is I will send a handmade gift to the first 3 people who leave a comment on this blog post requesting to join this PIF exchange. I don’t know what that gift will be yet, and you may not receive it tomorrow or next week, but you will receive it within 365 days, that is my promise! The only thing you have to do in return is pay it forward by making the same promise on your blog.”So here you are guys. An opportunity to get something homemade from me. The first 3 people to comment to this "Pay It Forward" post saying that they are participating will get an item from me. If for some reason I don't get 3 responses (because you know, I don't know alot of people who read my blog), I will randomly pick 3 people in my life to receive something from me when they least expect it and I know in my heart they will follow through with the PIF. As I fufill each PIF, I will write a post about it once that person has received their item.

Two Spreads Completed this Weekend

I have been crazy busy with work lately and the weekends have not been relaxing either. This weekend though I had some time to myself to sit and do some scrapping. So here they are. The first spread is of my nephepw Jordan and my neice Alicia. One day I went with Shannon to pick them up from the Recreation Center they attend after school and took these pictures of them.

Here is the spread I did of the pictures I took when my sisters and I went to see Damon Wayans. I thought it would be a good idea to go see Damon Wayans, as part of the NY Comedy Festival, for a few reasons. First, I had always liked Damon Wayans, from his “In Living Color” days, two, My sisters and I have not gone out together in a while and three we all love comedy and laughing. The show was really funny. We had a great time. After the show, we went out for dinner. This spread is pretty simple but, but I really like how it turned out.

Fall is in the Air

Fall is definately my favorite season. I love everything about fall the crisp cool air, the colors of the changing leaves, apple picking, pumpkins, hot mulled apple cider. I love it all. I haven't had time recently to do much scrapbooking but this weekend was different. I made time for myself to do the things I wanted to do. I spent time alone and was able to get two spreads done and was also able to do some knitting. Unfortunately I don't have a picture of the knitting yet. Below are the pictures of the two spreads completed this weekend.

My friend and co-worker Sue decided it would be fun to go apple picking. I had never been before and always wanted to go. We tried to coordinate this with other fellow co-workers but everybody's schedules were so different that is was hard to set a time when everyone would be available. We were running out of time for the apple picking season, so we just decided to go ourselves. Fortunately, we had great weather. We had a fantastic time and I got great pictures as you can see. When I got home I even made apple crisp with the apples we picked. It came out pretty delicious if I say so myself but I think Deborah and Sue will also agree with that. :o)

Reverse Stocking Stitch Chevrons

So I am glad to report that this time I really have been sticking to it and practicing my knitting. I believe it is slowly paying off. I can tell I'm getting better with every project. On Friday, I met up with Deborah for lunch and she looked at my Knit 2, Purl 1 ribbing. Deborah has been giving me small projects as practice knitting. Overall she said it was good but I still need to work on my tension. Ok not bad, so I was ready to start my next project so I picked out a knit purl pattern from a book of patterns she gave me. The pattern is called "Reverse Stocking Stitch Chevrons". I was so excited to start. It was perfect since I was going to Philly this weekend and could work on it while there. I started early Saturday morning and here is what I have so far. This is 36 rows completed.

29 More Rows Complete

Just wanted to post a picture of my progress as of lastnight. Since I will be meeting up with Deborah Friday for lunch and she will be checking my knitting assignment to see how I have done. After work, I was able to complete 29 more rows. As I keep practicing, I am better able to tell when I've made a mistake or something doesn't look right. So if I keep practicing I will become more and more experienced and better able to catch mistakes and hopefully learn how to fix them.

Knit 2, Purl 2

Ok, so here it finally is after many failed attempts this weekend of the ribbing assignment Deborah gave me. The instructions from Deborah were to cast on 20 stitches and knit two stitches and purl two stitches and repeat for the first row. The second row started with Purl two, then knit two. As I was doing this I knew I was doing something wrong. It just didn't look right so I kept ripping it out and starting all over again. I read a Knitting Basics book which had great pictures and I finally figured out what I was doing wrong. It's kinda hard to explain, but I emailed Deborah about my problem and asked her if I had the instructions she gave me over the phone right. She changed the amount of stitches to 22 stiches. So since I had figured out my problem, I was all set lastnight to cast on the 22 stitches and finally get somewhere with this ribbing assignment. This picture is where I was lastnight before going to bed. It's 21 rows.

Assignment Complete...Whats Next?

Ok, so I have been kinda busy and haven't been able to post this picture of my finished knitting homework. I actually finished this last week. So Deborah, I am ready for a new project. Let me know what my next course of action should be. Should I buy a solid color yarn...I only have that multi color yarn remember. You mentioned that wasn't a good yarn to learn with.

Gift Scrap Page

My friend Sylvia recently sent me the second picture in this layout. It is a picture of Sylvia's daughter with her new family celebrating her daughter's first birthday. I thought is was a really nice picture and then remembered the picture that Sylvia sent to me one year ago when her daughter Flor Maria was pregnant. This picture was taken at her baby shower and she is pictured here with her younger sister Melissa. I thought these two pictures would make a great layout and would be a great gift to give to her. I worked on this lastnight after work. It didn't take too much time at all...then again it is only one page. I will buy a frame for this before I give it to her.

I love how this turned out it's pretty simple but I love that. I used my new Tootsie die-cut from Sizzix and I also used one of my new See D's stamps. I stamped a piece of white cardstock and then cut around the design and adhered it to my layout. I put a bunch of brads in the middle of the large flower. I think it looks pretty cool...I have never tried that before. Another thing I have never done is use the ribbon the way I did here. I looped a small piece of pink ribbon and added a brad to it. Then put one on the edge of each picture. I love how this layout turned out. I hope she likes it too.

Two Spreads Completed This Weekend

This weekend I managed to complete two spreads. Deb and I met up early Saturday morning for a trip to A.C. Moore. Luckily we started out early because the trains were running on different tracks causing delays. We did fine though. At A.C. Moore I didn't do too much damage. I purchashed a few sheets of patterned paper and the See D's 30 color stamp pad set which includes 15 brush markers as well. So I'm all set with every color I might need to use for my stamps.

When we got back to Queens we stopped at the store to pick up the ingredients I needed to make dinner for us. I made whole wheat rigatoni with a turkey meat sauce and Zucchini. It turned out delicious. Anyway, here are the spreads I was able to complete. The first one is "Art of Observation" with the pictures I took at the Philedelphia Museum of Art. I used my new Sizzix Ellison design Tootsie die-cut. I purchased at a cool 80% off. I also purchased another Sizzix die-cut called Block Party that I used on the second spread, "Steam Pipe Explosion".

Art of Observation Journaling reads:
We had so much fun together looking at all the beautiful pieces of art. Lenny felt particularly proud of the way he gave his perspective when asked by a fellow art observer what his opinion was. He was asked, in his opinion, did he think the woman portrayed in a particular scene (not pictured) was murdered or was she simply sleeping. Lenny carefully observed that the woman did appear to be a bit pale, in which case she could be dead. On the other hand, he said, she looked so peaceful in the way she was laying that it is a possibility that she could be sleeping. Lenny was so proud of the way in which he was able to hold his own among fellow art enthusiasts. Lenny also enjoyed viewing the Arms and Armor section. Pictured here are some of what both he and I enjoyed.

Steam Pipe Explosion Journaling reads:
When the steam pipe explosion happened on July 18, 2007 during rush hour near 41st Street and Lexington Avenue, I was home. I live about 5 blocks away. I remember just having my new energy efficient air conditioner installed. I had the television on and all of a sudden the TV went off. I turned the air-conditioner off as well because I thought it was my usual electricity problems that happen every summer when people are using more energy. When I turned it off I heard this noise and something told me to look out the window. I saw crowds of people running up Lexington toward me and I was so scared because I had no idea why they were running. I called my sister and she said to go downstairs to my lobby and try to find out what was going on. What I found out from a lady who was visibly shaken was that there was an explosion at Grand Central. My first thought was obviously terrorism, but after a few more minutes I found out it was a steam pipe explosion. I live on the top floor in my building and was able to go onto the roof and get these pictures.

Practice...Practice...Practice and a Yummy Dinner

So here is a picture of the progress I have made so far on the knitting homework that Deborah assigned me to do. Not perfect by any means, but I am just trying to get comfortable going back and forth between knit and purl stitch.

Deborah wrote out instructions for me to follow. It goes something like this: Long tail cast-on of 30 stitches, knit 5 rows, purl 5 rows, knit 1, purl 1, knit 1, purl 1, knit 5 rows, purl 5 rows...and so on and so forth. Then repeat until I run out of yarn.

My goal is to try and knit at least a couple of rows each day. More if I go somewhere and I have time on my hands to practice my knitting. I know this is a slow process, I mean, I can't become an internediate or an advanced knitter overnight. It definately takes lots and lots of practice to get to that point.

Something I am much better at is cooking. I love to cook and bake and try out new recipes or come up with new concoctions by taking inspirations from various sources and adding my own spin on things. For example, If I am reading something online or watching a cooking show on tv, something might catch my eye and I'd think to myself, "mmm that sounds really good and relatively simple, I think I might try that". If I don't have access to all the ingredients I will substitute somethings and add somethings and make it my own. So, I was reading Chappysmom's blog about this absorption method of cooking pasta and I thought wow that is a great idea. Especially since my apartment is so small and I don't have a stove or a full kitchen. I only have a hot plate to cook on so this one pot method was perfect for me. So, basically this absorption method is just instead of boiling the pasta you cook it as though you would cook risotto. Here is what I did. I put olive oil in a pan threw some chopped garlic in then tossed in some whole wheat pasta and coated it with the olive oil for about two minutes then poured in some Pomi brand chopped tomatoes (I love these) and water. I also put two bay leaves, salt pepper, basil, and some sugar to balance the acidity in the tomatoes. I covered the pan and let it simmer until the pasta was a little soft but still needed some more cooking. Then I tossed in some zucchini and asparagus and let in cook some more. When it was all done I tried something new and stirred in a tablespoon or two of ricotta and parmesan cheese to make it all creamy. It turned out really delicious and I got a couple of meals out of it. You could always add meat to this too, but I really like it with just veggies. You could make this dish your own by adding whatever you like. It's really simple and you only have one pot to clean.

A Creative Filled Weekend

I accomplished alot this weekend. I completed three spreads and re-learned how to knit. I had previously learned how to knit a while ago, but never had the time to actually practice enough to hone this skill. My friend Deborah, is a knitter so I asked her to give me a knitting lesson this weekend. She graciously agreed. So, I went over to her place on Saturday for my lesson, some scrappin and some catching up. I learned how to do a long tail cast-on and how to knit and purl. She even wrote out definitions for everything she taught me and gave me homework. After my lesson Deborah snapped a picture and then proceeded to rip out all my work and sent me home with homework. Unfortunately, she left her camera in Long Island so I will have to post that photo another time perhaps.

So, I had to cast-on again all by myself at home. I did it though and it looks a little better than the one I did at Deborah’s place. I have a problem with tension, but as I keep practicing I’m getting better…not so tight anymore. As she says…”Practice make perfect.” So, I will keep on practicing. I will also post a photo later of my homework assignment progress.

Anyway, back to my three spreads completed this weekend. First, is the “Harbor Cruise” spread. This was actually a work event for me. I work in the Office of Student Affairs at NYU School of Medicine and this was one of the many events we organized during Orientation Week for the incoming first year medical students. Sue, Maya, Mariel and myself were just there to make sure everything ran smoothly and none of the students got out of hand. We enjoyed ourselves though as you can see from the pictures in this spread. We had a lot of fun.









For this spread, I used paper from an old world paper pack and Bazzill cardstock. The letters are Cuttlebug die-cut Olivia and the flowers are CTMH and the brads are Making Memories. I really like how this spread turned out. It took me a while to get to this point. When I first laid out these pictures, I had no idea how to place them, but it all came together in the end and I like the results. I guess creativity just takes a while sometimes.


The cutie pie in the “Cutie Pie” spread below, is my youngest niece Mia. Isn’t she adorable? She just looked so cute, just as happy as she could be with her fried chicken drumstick in hand ready to chow down. I just had to whip out my camera and take a picture. She was good this time and actually smiled nicely and I got a couple of great shots.







Only three pictures, so this is a simple spread for me. I’m used to working with more photos than this. So, I printed the close up picture bigger than the other two and put it on the first page of the spread. I used Deborah’s Sizzix die-cut (I’m not sure of the name) and cut out the letters in both black and white and layered the white over the black for a shadow effect. (hmm…I seem to be doing this a lot lately) Anyway, the date and her age are Heidi Swapp Apple pie rub-on letters.


On Sunday, I was able to complete my third spread, “A Broadway Show”. A few co-workers and I went to go see the Color Purple a Musical on Broadway. The show was really great and the set design was beautiful. I really enjoyed the show. Living in NY my whole life you would think I have seen many Broadway shows but I haven’t, so I was happy to have the opportunity to go and see this show at a discount ticket rate. I guess there are some perks to working in Student Affairs…we happen to sell these discount tickets.

Anyway, I also didn’t have many pictures to work with here. I scanned the playbill and the article in the playbill about Fantasia who unfortunately decided to take vacation during the time we went to see this show. The show was still good without her but I really wished I could have seen her play the part of Celie. So, I really like how this spread turned out. I used the same patterned paper from my old world paper pack, that I used on the Harbor Cruise spread but in purple and three different shades of purple cardstock. I used my CTMH flourish stamps and CTMH flowers that I purchased from Deborah’s sister Mary Beth, who is a CTMH consultant.








I also used my ribbon hole punch I got back from Deborah this weekend and weaved thin purple ribbon through the paper on the second page. So, I’m glad I got a lot done this weekend. I would love to hear you comments so tell me what you think. Have a great week!

Late Summer in Central Park

So, this weekend I decided to walk to Central Park for three reasons. First, it was a gorgeous day, second I thought I could get some nice pictures that I could use in a spread, and lastly I could work some excercise in by walking to and around the park. After, I walked around for 3 hours snapping pictures here and there and and enjoying the beautiful weather, I decided to walk over to bloomingdales to try out this frozen yogurt I've been reading about online. Apparently, there is this cafe called 40 Carrots and they serve the most amazingly delicious frozen yogurt. At least from what I've been reading on this blog. So, since I was in the area, and needed a cool treat, I decided to try it. I got the plain vanilla frozen yogurt with fresh strawberries. It was delicious and hit the spot. Anyway, getting back to my spread you see below, titled, "Late Summer in Central Park". I kinda made a booboo on this spread and tried to fix it. Hopefully you don't think it looks as bad as I do. I am my worst critic you know. See if you can tell what the booboo was and let me know how bad you think it looks...lol

I used alot of inking on this spread. I really like how inking the edge of paper looks. I makes it have a more defined, stand out look and in this spread gives that destressed antique feel which this patterned paper had to begin with. For the Sun, I cut out the circle and then drew with a pencil the rays and then cut it out by hand.

Other than my booboo, I do like how this spread turned out. I should like it though... I spent a lot of time on this one. I don't know... for some reason, some spreads take hours and then sometimes you just breeze through a couple spreads in one day. Not this time though...this was the only spread completed this weekend. I hoped to at least do one more that I already have pictures printed for. Oh well, maybe I will have time this week to bust one out really quick, who knows.