Wednesday, October 29, 2014

3rd Annual Purse Palooza


I'm excited to be guest posting over at Sew Sweetness today as part of her 3rd Annual Purse Palooza series. A whole month of bag pattern reviews with giveaways every day (which are sadly coming to a close).  

Go check out my review of the Jet Pack pattern by Betz White and be sure to enter today's giveaway. Sew along with us and be sure to link up your creation(s) by November 14th for a chance to win to even more awesome prizes!!


thanks for stopping by!!!

Saturday, October 4, 2014

New knitted cowl, celebrity sighting and Purse Palooza kicks off!!




I have a new cowl I made to share with you, it was so fun to knit!  I still consider myself a beginning knitter since this is just the 4th scarf I have made.  I found a wonderful local yarn/fabric store just 45 minutes from our house in LaGrange called The Quilted Skein.  We found it about a year ago and have visited quite a few times.  Every time we go, the workers there are so friendly and helpful and the owner is so nice too!  This last visit I found the most dreamy chunky yarn to make the seed stitch cowl here  What is great is that when I found this yarn I liked, the owner helped me translate it to the pattern by how much I needed and how many stitches to add to compensate for the different weight of the yarn and different size needles.  I used Lana Grande 100% Peruvian Wool and it is divine!   I used size 13- 16" circular needles, cast on 85 stitches and used 2 skeins. You can't tell from the photo how pretty the yarn (it was an impromptu ohoto taken at work) but here is a closeup of it.  It's called Oatmeal.  I think this cowl took me about 6 days to make in the evenings (since I messed up a few times and had to fix it)
Lana Grande - Oatmeal




Last night I was able to meet Danielle Walker of Against All Grain at Costco.  Her story is remarkable, you can read it here.  Basically she was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease, changed her eating lifestyle to exclude dairy, grain and legumes and healed herself.  She is just gorgeous and sweet and her husband is as well, he was with her at the signing.  I have enjoyed making lots of recipes from her blog and first book, Against All Grain.  Just over the last year & a half I have changed my eating habits to a broad spectrum of vegetarian, vegan, paleo and lost about 20+ lbs and have kept it off, eliminating constant diarrhea (sorry too much information) I had suffered with for years (which a doctor had no idea what was the cause without putting together a food diary).  I have also noticed a remarkable difference in the condition of my nails which use to peel and all of a sudden do not.  I have not changed anything else but my eating lifestyle (and do not take vitamins) but I admit I still do occasionally indulge in full sugar sweets but on a rare occasion.  I actually enjoy the healthier alternatives found in Danielle's recipes and on Chocolate Covered Katie's website. I also try to exercise more, get at least 7-8 hours of sleep and have energy to do what I want for the most part. Working overtime at work during the months doesn't help me stay on a healthy regime but I still try.   can't wait to try recipes from this cookbook now!


Lastly, the 3rd Annual Purse Palooza kicked off this week at Sew Sweetness!  It goes all month long with reviews of 2 bags/purses a day and daily giveaways you can try winning!  I am so honored and excited that Sara asked me to participate with a review and it will be on the last day October 29.  So I hope you will come back to see what my review of The Jet Pack pattern by Betz White!   Be sure to check out the post, get on Sew Sweetness email subscription so you don't miss one post - best of all, you have until November 14 to enter a bag YOU make during this time to be eligible for some awesome prizes!  Hope you have fun with it - I know I do EVERY year and look forward to it!

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Thanks for stopping by!!