Newest Pattern Release: Mousey Howsee

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About a month ago, I dropped a few teasers on Facebook to show off my latest design -- well, my Mousey Howsee pattern is finally ready for prime time!

Let me introduce you to this sweet little gal...

When Mousye Howsee's creater, Lithuanian children's book author Jurga Sakalauskaite, first approached me with the idea of creating an amigurumi character after her herione, I fell in love instantly!

You see, Mousey Howsee has adventure in her blood, plain and simple. This little mouse wants to try all sorts of new things -- and even when her adventues don't turn out the way she planned, she keeps pushing to make everything work out all right.

Her latest story, Mousey Howsee And The Rescuers, is the #1 downloaded eBook in Lithuania and the English translation has been a hit with my own daughter. If you'd like to learn more about that, you can check out Mousey Howsee's own web site, here.

My pattern is suitable for intermediates and would make a great holiday gift -- whether you know Mousey Howsee's story or not (but for those of you who are tech saavy, the doll bundled with an iTunes gift card would make for a sweet treat!)

The pattern is available in my Etsy shop ($5.)) or you can download through Ravelry ($4.00).

Last but not least, I've provided you with a purchase button here -- in case you prefer not to become a member of Etsy or Ravelry.

$4.00 USD

New & Improved Cupcake Pattern!

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It's been a while (AGAIN!). The holidays kept me super busy this year and I feel like my hook has been going non-stop for the past two months... just not on anything new!

But finally, finally -- I have something to share. Do you remember that cupcake pattern I made up so long ago? -- When I was first cutting my teeth on pattern design? Well, it has been born anew -- as a free pattern download for the Knit Picks IDP (independent design program).

I have been using yarn from Knit Picks here and there for years now. Much of it is high-quality natural fibers at a fraction of the price you'd expect to pay. Unfortunately, as many of you know, natural fibers aren't always the best for amigurumi projects....

Brava Sport drool-worthy color palette

But then Knit Picks introduced their latest line: Brava. Brava is a beautiful acrylic yarn that has a super soft texture. As if that wasn't enough to love, Brava comes in worsted, bulky, and -- wait for it -- SPORT!

Those of you who have used my patterns know how I love sport weight yarns and many of my blog followers will remember my dismay when Red Heart toned back their distribution of Designer Sport. Well, Red Heart... your sport weight yarn is dead to me. At only $2.99 a ball ($.50 - $.75 less than Red Heart) and with a quality that Designer Sport could not hope to match, I am a Brava girl from here on out!

So, back to the pattern -- you can find my new cupcake design on the Knit Picks site (along with hundreds of great IDP patterns), or if you love having everything together on Ravelry, I just loaded the pattern there too! Those who prefer Etsy will also still be able to get the pattern emailed directly to them for the nominal cost of $2.00 (to cover Etsy fees and processing time).

So, now that you know where to get your hands on the patterns, I have only to ask... what colors will you choose?

Clem's Little Secret

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Everyone has their dirty little secrets... some are dirtier than others.

Take Clem, for example. It started off with a long summer walk through a dusty Texas town. Clem was hungry. He stopped at a diner. The menu read ham-burger...

Isn't ham supposed to be pork?

One bite and Clem was in love. Two bites and he realized his mistake. Three bites and it was impossible to go back.

Now - when he thinks the rest of the herd isn't looking - Clem sneaks off to that diner. He is oh-so-careful in keeping his little secret... he even makes sure to bring his little bib so that he doesn't dribble on his sweater.

Oh, Clem.

The pattern (called "Clem's Little Secret") is now available for download on Ravelry ($3.00) or you can purchase from my Etsy Shop and have the pattern emailed directly to you for $5.00. As always, the pattern is loaded with step-by-step instructions and photos to help you create Clem, his little bib, and the fateful cheeseburger.

And for those of you who would rather purchase without creating a Ravelry account ($3.00 download), just click the Buy Now below!

An open note to friends of The Itsy Bitsy Spider

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In our house, we take a lot of steps forward -- only to make up for that progress immediately after with some steps backward. As a matter of fact, I think everyone does that. It's part of the journey we call life.

Lately, we've been taking a few more steps backward than forward around here... and the part of my life that has suffered for it is my crochet.

Those of you who have followed me for a while know that my daughter (my beautiful little muse) has some special needs that involve needing regular therapy, special education, and ongoing medical mornitoring. Well, over the past month, we have added one more thing to the list. Yesterday, my daughter was diagnosed with epilepsy.

Her epilepsy is not severe and we have every reason to believe that her condition will improve with treatment. She may even grow out of her seizures and eventually be able to come off her medication. But for the moment, we have lots of things to get in place... and that doesn't bode well for my quiet time with the old hook.

You have all been very patient with me over the past year while we have continued our journey of discovery with my daughter -- and I couldn't be more grateful for the wonderful community we are all part of. In my opinion, the online crafts community is one of the most genuine, thoughtful, and caring groups around. So, I know you will understand as I find myself once again begging your patience.

I have a list of patterns that are just waiting for my hook and camera... most notably an adorable little monkey that is sure to be loved by so many of you. I just need to find that time -- somewhere between the therapists' offices, the doctors' waiting rooms, and the daily drives to and from school. I haven't given up, but things are definitely taking a lot longer than they used to!

I know that like many of life's troubles, this too shall pass and we will soon be back onto our trek forward. In the mean time, I appreciate your understanding and your patience. So, from me and my Little Miss... thank you!

Morris & Matilda - A New Pattern!

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Hello friends! I'm trying -- little by little -- to climb back into the saddle with my pattern designs and business... and I finally have something new for you to get excited over! Meet Morris & Matilda:

The original green elephant

This sweet couple is actually the fruition of a design made many months ago for a little boy who loves elephants and the color green -- maybe not my first choice, but boys will be boys, right?

I've been loving Knit Picks' line of cotton yarn, called Dishie to make the elephant dolls. The yarn is durable and softens out with a little love to the most wonderful texture. It's perfect for kids who want to tote their new best pal everywhere!

The eyes on my new dolls are also pretty special -- they are the original, hand-painted designs of a lovely and talented lady named Clara. Clara has plenty of "grab and go" eyes available in her Etsy shop, or you can check out some of her original designs in her Facebook gallery (Matilda is sporting a pair of Clara's kawaii eyes -- they're absolutely perfect for her... don't you think?)


Of course, you're going to want the pattern links to get started. As always, you can pick up the pattern a little cheaper on Ravelry ($3.00 USD) if you're willing to go the self-service route. Or, if you would like to have the pattern hand-delivered to your email box, visit my Etsy shop. And if you prefer to avoid creating user accounts for either of the sites, here is the "Buy Now" button:



Last but not least, I'd like to thank everyone for their understanding and kind words over the past few months. We are not "out of the woods" yet with my daughter and still continue to learn about her special needs. But we are making progress. So, from the bottom of my heart -- thank you!

Canning in the Summer Time

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I grew up canning. I did. When I was a child I was lucky enough to get to spend many summers with my grandparents. My grandfather always had a huge garden. What wasn't immediately eaten or given away, was "put up" by my grandmother. She canned, froze, preserved, pickled and otherwise prepared the food for long term storage, so they would be well-stocked for the off season. I thought that almost everybody did that, and was surprised to later find out how lucky we were. There were rarely any commercially canned goods in Mimi's pantry. Instead, it looked like this:

Mimi's utility room encompassed her canning Kitchen. In addition to the laundry equipment the utility room had countertops, a moveable centre table, a double sink with one extra deep bowl, a gas triple burner, a chest freezer and a spare refrigerator. I was grown before I realized what a treasure that really was. As many of you know, we are working on a plan to build a new house out at our farm. I seriously thought about how to incorporate a canning Kitchen. However, it came to me the other day that as the log house is going to become a "guest house", and how I already have that Kitchen set up for easy canning and dehydrating, I can simply do all my canning there.

My grandparents were for the most part self-sufficient in the food department. They had cattle, chickens (for both eggs and eating), several ponds for fish, muscadines, peaches, plums, figs, bush cherries, apples, pears and strawberries in addition to the garden. They also foraged (asparagus and blackberries mostly) and both my grandfather and great-grandfather hunted. To my knowledge they never raised pigs, but instead would trade a steer for a couple of hogs in the autumn and sometimes goats also. And for many years my great-grandmother kept a milk cow, so all their dairy was homegrown. Probably their main food purchases were flour, cornmeal, salt, shrimp, crabs and rice. I look back to that with some nostalgia and sometimes think I'd like to have a similar setup (sans the mammals), but I am realistic enough to know that at this point in my life, I don't want to sign up for keeping animals. But the gardening and canning remain right up my alley.

For quite some time home canning seemed to be going out of style, but I have been encouraged the last few years to see people reviving this household art. You know what is in your food and there is just no substitute for some of the recipes. You can also put up exotic preserves and pickles that would cost an arm and a leg at gourmet food purveyors. I know many people are afraid of canning as they are worried about making people ill, but I'd like to encourage anyone to give it a try. As long as you follow guidelines set out by the National Centre for Food Preservation or the Ball Blue Book, your food will be safe, healthier and certainly tastier than anything you can purchase.


Typically during the summer I spend most of my time at the farm - gardening, canning, pickling, preserving and freezing. Due to the MDS and transplant, I haven't been able to do that the last couple of years.

At my Kitchen here in town I have a Jennair cooktop. When we remodelled I chose glass surface burners, rather than the traditional coils. (Gas was not an option at the time.) After a number of years I learned you aren't supposed to use cast iron on a glass cooking surface! After all this time I haven't had any problems with that. Not wanting to miss out on all the canning fun last year, I put up a number of different pickles and preserves here in town. And as I couldn't go move all my canning supplies and utensils, I "made do" with the things I had here.

This led to a second no-no with glass cooktops - the size of the pot on the burner. I was subbing my shrimp boil pot for the water bath canner. This pot is considerably larger than the recommended 2" larger than the burner. To my dismay, this resulted in a cracked glass top. Fortunately I had gotten two of the plug-in units when we remodelled, but had never used the second one. I keep the cooktop set up with the grill on the right and the burners on the left. It was an easy replacement. For the rest of last year's preserves, I used my 8 quart stockpot for the canner. This necessitated using smaller jars and more batches in the BWB.



As I'm still not able to be out at the farm on a regular basis, and as I am not interested in purchasing another glass plug-in unit, I've been looking around for a better idea for canning in the Kitchen in town. I've known for years about a larger raised heating coil that Jennair makes called "big pot canning element". It plugs into a coil burner unit just like any other coil. But it is larger and taller with underside supports. This raises the bottom of the pot above the cooktop surface to allow for better airflow and the special air ring around the supports eliminates the problem of heat build-up under the oversized pots that can damage the component parts of the cooktop. The larger size makes the heating circle of the coil much more similar in size to a canner. It's my understanding that these big pot canning elements are available for most stoves that use electric coil elements. If you are canning on an electric stove, it's worth checking out.





Sometimes eBay really comes in handy! And this is where I get to the "thrifty" part of my post. I was able to purchase an older NIB big pot canning element and a gently used coil cooktop plug-in unit for less than a quarter of their current retail price. Don't you just love deals like that? Now all I have to do is unplug either the grill or the glass surface plug-in and replace it with the coil plug-in and canning element. I'm excited and am ready to start making some preserves and jam!

I'm joining:
Jenny @ off on my tanget for Alphabe-Thursday where this week's Letter is "K" - K is for "Kitchen", where all my canning takes place.
Thrifty Treasures Sunday at Southern Hospitality
Nifty Thrifty Tuesday at Coastal Charm

Thanks so much for stopping by today! Happy canning.

namasté,

True Southern Cornbread

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We Southerners have some pretty fixed ideas about cornbread and how it should be prepared. As you know, I grew up in Louisiana. Louisiana is on the Gulf coast in the Deep South and this is our family recipe for cornbread. So let's get something settled right off the bat.

It's not cornbread if it is not baked in a cast iron skillet!

This is the #1 rule. If you bake it in some other pan, you will get a facsimilie, but it is just not the same. I see recipes all the time now that call for baking it in a Pyrex dish or a non-stick baking pan and I just cringe! Cornbread should have a nicely browned, crispy crust on the bottom and sides. To achieve that crust, you need to heat your iron skillet on the stove top with some oil in it while you are mixing up your batter. When you pour your batter into the hot skillet, it starts to form the beautiful crust. With other pans you do not get this crispy brown crust.

Then there is also the business about the ratio of cornmeal to flour, and whether or not you should add any sugar. Traditional cornbread should not be more than a 1:4 ratio of flour to cornmeal. If you see a recipe that calls for equal parts or 1:2, put it aside and go look for another recipe. That's not southern cornbread. As to the sugar, there are many southerners that eschew the use of it altogether. Sugar helps with browning, so we add just a small amount of sugar to our batter. You can leave it out, if you so desire.

Cornbread goes with so many different southern foods that it is something we serve fairly often. It is our favourite accompaniment for vegetable soup, as well as peas, greens and many other veggies..

While not absolutely necessary, I like to use stone ground cornmeal and I get it from Falls Mill, an old waterwheel mill in Belvidere, TN, which makes it a local product for me. Today I'm also using organically grown free-range duck eggs from my CSA box, but normally I use chicken eggs.


Heating the skillet - you can see how the oil is getting hot.


Wet and dry ingredients

Note: If you use duck eggs, they will need to be beaten more than chicken eggs to incorporate some air.

Ready to bake


Lovely cornbread turned out of skillet


Sliced and ready to serve on one of my favourite Fiesta plates


People at this house could inhale this cornbread. Tori and I have both been known to eat only cornbread for supper sometimes. LOL. This is one of those recipes where I don't really need to get the recipe out to look at. I just make it. It's really easy and if you try it I hope you will enjoy it as much as we do.

Country Cornbread Serves 8 3 Tbsp oil, divided 2 cups yellow corn meal 6 Tbsp flour 2 tsp sugar 4 tsp baking powder 2 tsp salt 4 eggs, beaten 2 cups milk 8 pats of butter Preheat oven to 425°F. Heat cast iron skillet on stove top with 1 Tbsp oil. In a large bowl mix the dry ingredients. In a batter bowl, whisk the eggs, 2 Tbsp oil, and milk. Pour the liquid ingredients into dry ingredients and stir to just combine. Pour cornbread batter into hot iron skillet and bake about 30 minutes or till done. Cut in 8 wedges. Slice the wedges in half horizontally and place a pat of butter in each one. Serve immediately!

With this recipe I'm joining:
Michael Lee's Foodie Friday @ Designs By Gollum
Friday's Favourites by Sandi & Bill @ Whistlestop Cafe Cooking
Kim's Recipes to Run On

Thanks so much for stopping by today!

namasté,