Knitting Dragonflies

Upon moving south, I learned that the Holidays include a different variety of foods. I love corn bread stuffing, and cranberry fluff, but my favorite is sweet potato pie. I’m a long time pumpkin pie lover, I’ve always requested pumpkin pie for my birthday instead of cake. So pumpkin is near and dear to my heart. But when I first tasted a sweet potato pie, I’ll have to say it is a close second. SWEET POTATO PIE Ingredients 1 (1 pound) sweet potato 1/2 cup butter, softened 1 cup white sugar 1/2 cup milk 2 eggs 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 1 (9 inch) unbaked pie crust (of course it would be an absolute SIN to use store bought!) Directions Boil sweet potato whole in skin for 40 to 50 minutes, or until done. Run cold water over the sweet potato, and remove the skin. Break apart sweet potato in a bowl. Add butter, and mix well with mixer. Stir in sugar, milk, eggs, nutmeg, cinnamon and vanilla. Bea

From CraftIdeasInfo here is a way to recycle a old cereal box into a good looking tote or gift bag. Planet Green has an idea on how to  repurpose those wool sweaters into nice looking mittens. Also check out FeltsoGood on flickr for more images. Recycle those plastic bags into “plarn” (plastic yarn) and make a nice sturdy grocery bag. Thanks to myrecycledbags.com . She also uses cassette tape to crochet Barbie dresses and other things (evening bags!) Her list of patterns here Neauveau Fiber Arts has a tutorial on how to unravel a wool sweater and prepare for repurposing. We all have these to toss, you have to take a look at pwka on flickr , she has a nifty idea to carry your bagel to work in. Perfect! Sports bra from mens underwear, I’ve seen this before, but it is worth repeating, thanks GiannyL. Look at her video  and her website where " Do It Yourself has never been so Sexy" she has some great ideas! Be green Technorati Tags: Cereal box into tote/gift bag ,

I have been looking for stocking stuffers, and ran across this tutorial from Skip to my Lou , her blog has so much great info, and is fun to read. I followed her tutorial . I purchased a bath towel from Wal-Mart that was $2.50, by folding this in two, I was able to make one from each towel, with a little leftover to make a small face towel. I just bought one towel as a trial run, now I’m off to buy 20 towels and more elastic. Mini microfiber hair wrap I have short hair, and the regular size hair wrap is a little larger than I need, so I experimented with a smaller towel. I wouldn’t go any smaller than the size below and if you measure a standard hand towel it is approx. 16 inches x 27 inches. This would be the perfect size. I purchased two microfiber , (which absorbs water wonderfully), tea towels (size is approx. 25 inches x 12 inches) from the Dollar Tree, price 1.00 a piece, they come in several bright colors. I picked green. I roughly traced what I thought would be

Some sequels are just plain better than the original, Die Hard 2 , the 1989 Christmas Vacation , Return of the Jedi , Star Trek II the Wrath of Khan , After the Thin Man , The Bourn Supremacy , Toy Story 2 , and my last one Dawn of the Dead . Sometimes it takes some tweaking to get it just right. Knitters live by this lesson.. So fearlessly my henna saga continues. I decided to re-henna my hair with the hopes that I would be able to get that rich color I was seeking. With henna you can add several other plants, that are dried and ground, to adjust the color. Indigo , which we all are familiar with, can be added to darken it from a little all the way to black. (the indigo when combined with henna produces a deep rich black). If you desire a strawberry blonde look you may add some cassia obovata, this adds a golden color. To tone down the brilliance of the red, people add buxus dioica (also known as Katam, has been used for obtaining light brown, ash browns and brunette colors

This is from the New York City for the opening of “Traveling the Silk Road” at the American Museum of Natural History .  Here you can see the Michael’s blog post on the filming of this. He is pretty much the Czar of sericulture. Technorati Tags: michael cook , sericulture , making silk thread , the silk road

I have been coloring my hair since I was in my 20’s, graying early and not loving it. I opted for color. Twice I have grown my hair out, and only left it for about 2 weeks, to return to the bottle.   I’m outside so much my hair bleaches out very light, and tends to have a strawberry blond cast to it. My lymph nodes in my neck swelled up and my doctor suggested that it was due to my hair color. So the research into henna began. I liked the natural side to it, and if you get tattoo grade henna, the color is fabulous. (so they say) All of my research has also captured the attention of a co worker and we are going to jump into this adventure together. Like Lucille Ball a blonde that is about to go red. I can only hope we look as good, not like Bozo The best henna side I have found is: Henna for Hair It explains more than you every wanted to know about henna. So our henna is in the main and on the way… Nov 17th, Yes Henna in the mail. Nov 24th evening, we have let our he

Do what you love, love what you do… I have an Etsy shop and have tried to sell several different items in it. Maybe it was the items, my lack of enthusiasm, the economy or another variable, it never really took off.   Quite by accident, I started dyeing my hand spun fiber. One night on Plurk I posted some of my fiber and a woman went wild over it, and insisted I could sell it. I was just having some fun though, and ignored her. Then another woman contacts me and wants me to make her some hand dyed yarn. so I do and sell it to her. After that I start getting all kinds of requests!! My knitting is on the back burner right now, and my husband is extremely tolerant, with dyeing and yarn all over the kitchen. Dinner? What you want to eat?   Moral to the story, life is short, thanks to all of the knitters and dyers online that have helped me on my way! Dream as if you'll live forever.  Live as if you'll die today.  ~ James Dean   Now I’ve started a ne