Strong Bad Crochet

Have any of you seen Homestar Runner before? My sister and I used to watch it all the time on the computer growing up and thought it was hil-a-ri-ous! Strong Bad was mine and my sister's favorite character. 

So when she randomly suggested one day that I crochet a Strong Bad and sell it for mad money, I decided to make one for her for her birthday. Given the limited number of Strong Bad crochet patterns on the interwebz, I made this up from scratch. I'm kicking myself now for not writing down the pattern, but I thought it was worth sharing anyway. :)

Doesn't the light in the background look like the backdrop from a 90's school photo? An ode to the 90's popularity of this little guy. I totally did that on purpose ..

Yay for geeky crochet! Hope you're having a great week! 

Crochet Hook Holder

If you've looked at my Etsy shop recently, you probably noticed that I've been doing quite a bit of crocheting. Who doesn't like a cute little octopus? Or some flower coasters? No one, I say, no one. *Side note: Over the weekend I told my senior neighbor that I crochet and she kind of laughed about it. I know it's kind of dorky and something stereotypically for older people, but I love it anyway! My husband would tell you that he experiences the full scope of my crocheting endeavors because they cover (and I mean cover) our coffee table for weeks on end. I've decided recently to get a little more organized, for both of our sakes. All of my crochet hooks were housed in a recycled jar covered in a crocheted cozy, which worked for the time, but the jar was knocked over often, it was noisy (metal in glass..) and I had to transfer all the hooks into my tote to go places. p.s. Check out this tote:

I made this tote almost exactly like I saw one online for knitting. And, obviously, it's just a joke! I had someone concerned about me taking this in public because I might offend people..!

Now THIS was not in the original: I made some nifty slots to put my hooks in on the go.

Moving on. I saw this tutorial online a few days ago to make a clutch for crochet hooks and supplies, and thought it was such a great idea.

I made it the same day. Here's what mine looked like:

Not too shabby, right? It looks super cute, but here are a few issues I had and how I remedied them. The first issue was that my hooks have bamboo handles and are much larger than the ones the author used.

This means wider slots for hooks, which means less hooks in the holder. It also meant that the fabric bunched up a lot more when the hooks were in the holder, making it all ripply. Not cute. The clutch was also really floppy. I decided at this point to make it like this canvas roll up storage for some of my paint brushes. I cut off the button, and rolled the whole mess up to see where to sew the button again. I like it SO much better. It's a good throw and go option too.

If you decide to make this, you can just wait to put the button on until the end and decide if you'd like it as a clutch or roll up. Just make sure to only sew the button on through the first layer of fabric.

Here's another issue I had: You'll notice in the photo above that the inner-most hook slot is empty. That is where the scissors are intended to go. This is clutch not meant to be turned upside down. The scissors fall out. And you wouldn't want to drop scissors on your cat, your foot, or like a knife into the floor, would you? (I did two of these three .. I'm not telling which) Here's my solution.

Velcro it up! I did this after the fact so it was a big pain hand sewing everything on, but if you add the little flap just after you sew on the slots for hooks, it would be super easy! I also added a little patch to hold straight pins, since I use them a lot for temporarily holding on octopus tentacles before I sew them on.

That's it! Easy storage for crochet hooks. It took me around an hour to make from start to finish .. plus a little more for the hand sewing additions after the fact. Check out Little Birdie Secrets' full tutorial here!

Tomato Basil Summer Pasta

One of the benefits from my job is being able to take off Fridays in August. The office is slow, so I don't need to be there as much.  I love having a three day weekend, being able to have an extra day of the Saturday morning feeling (my absolute favorite time of the week), and having enough bright sunlight when I cook to take photos! Here's recipe I found online and adapted to my liking. It's fresh and light, perfect for a summer lunch or dinner.

Tomato Basil Summer Pasta
Adapted from Ina's Summer Garden Pasta
2 pints grape tomatoes, halved
1/4 cup olive oil
3 garlic cloves, minced
12 basil leaves, sliced
1/4 tsp crushed red pepper
1/4 tsp salt
Pepper to taste
8 oz whole wheat angel hair or capellini pasta
3/4 cup shredded parmesan


1. In a large bowl, place the cherry tomatoes, olive oil, garlic, basil, crushed red pepper, salt and pepper, and toss to coat. Cover the bowl and let sit at room temperature for four hours.

2. Prepare pasta. Drain and add to the tomato mixture. Add cheese and toss to coat. Garnish with basil and extra cheese.


Total time: 4 hours 15 minutes
Hands on time: 15 minutes
Serves: 3

The Garden of Broken Dreams

Dramatic, I know. But there's a reason why I haven't done any garden updates recently! I really REALLY had high hopes for my garden this year. Here's the story: The problems started when I started my own seeds indoors. Everything was great until I took the cover off my plants and this pretty little girl, who eats everything from hair to dust bunnies to string, decided the plants were a good snack:

And yes, her eyes are always that wide. .. Unless she's sleeping. Anyway, a piece of poster board to keep the kitty away and the plants were growing again. Then I moved them into my cute little greenhouse outside.

This is a photo from last year, when I was smart and had the long side of the greenhouse against the house. This year .. not so smart! I had it turned perpendicular to the house to allow for a better view of the backyard from the house, and in a strong wind storm, the whole greenhouse tipped over. Onto the ground. With all of my plants inside. Unfortunately I was too distraught to take a photo, but I managed to save a little over half of them.

For deer prevention, I thought I was so clever in fending off the deer. Check out my circus tent style draping of deer netting over the garden:

Seems super smart, right? I draped it several weeks before planting so the deer would realize it was there and could even totally destroy it before I put in the plants. We'll come back to the netting. I set up my trellis that I made last summer inside the netting. This is what happened during a tornado warning - destroyed!

Two words when you make a trellis: wood glue. Along with the staples it probably could've held up. Also, I need to pay attention to wind direction .. again.  I have to admit, this post is kind of fun to put together after the fact, now that the shock of everything going wrong is gone.

Back to the netting. The netting did work, until about three weeks after I planted. Then they decided to just hop through anyway, tearing it down, and eat, eat, eat. Again, distraught moment, no photo. After the first attack, I still had enough plants left alive to re-drape and attach strings to the netting so the deer would maybe notice that it was there. A week later they tore it down again (they liked coming on Sunday nights for some reason..), this time pulling up plants that they didn't eat. Out of twenty tomato plants, most of which I planned on using for canning and I wanted to try some varieties I hadn't grown before, I had eight left. One cucumber plant from two. No squash from one. Thankfully they didn't touch my eggplant, and my three jalapeño plants had enough leaves left for all to survive.

And so, I downsized. I transplanted the tomato plants that had more than one leaf left into the front little garden. The back garden only has about a third of the area occupied now. The tomato plants that seemed almost hopeless (one leaf left) I transplanted into pots by the porch. This is what it looks like today.

Whose idea was it to make lawns out of grass that dies when it's not watered, anyway? 

Everything that's left is thriving and the deer haven't bothered the small gardens in over two weeks, other than chowing on a tomato plant through the fence. No telling what the yield will be (probably low), but I'm just happy to have tomato plants that have tomatoes on them and a garden that's finally able to grow.

Easy Artisan Bread!

Finally! FIN-AL-LY! I've found a recipe for artisan bread that I can make and not mess up.  You may have read about my bread misadventures here and since then, I've had a couple more mishaps trying to make bagels and other bread. I'm applauding my own persistance right now. The photo above is exactly how it came out of the oven. It's like it just popped in the pot all perfect just because I put in so much effort to find a recipe I couldn't mess up. If you'd like to make some yourself, click here. It comes from Simply So Good and she also suggests different add-ins too. 

The only catch to this recipe is you need a cast iron Dutch oven. I received mine as a gift, but it's from World Market (you can see it here). And at $50, it's pretty reasonably priced. I'm not sure exactly how much heat the World Market Dutch oven knob can handle (most are 400-500 degrees F), but I also received a replacement knob (here) to make sure that the Dutch oven can go in the oven at higher temperatures.

This bread is so good, I can't wait to make some other flavors with add-ins! Enjoy!

Mackinac Island

Last weekend, my sister and I took a trip up to Mackinac Island. We had a great time camping, visiting Mackinaw City, and going over to the island. Enjoy the photos below!

We camped at Mill Creek Campground, which is a really nice place to stay. I say that mostly because the sites are pretty well-secluded and the bathrooms looked like they were just renovated. The tent went up pretty easy, but we had some pretty bad thunderstorms Saturday night that made the tent leak!

Wolverine pride and strength!

This was one of our favorite parts from the trip: The Jack Pine Lumberjack Show. Two lumberjacks compete against each other to see who wins! It was so much fun to watch, and the host encourages cheering and booing to make it even more fun and interesting. I highly recommend it to anyone visiting the Mackinaw City area.

Mackinac Island .. before it got crazy busy in the afternoon.

My goofy sister on Market Street. Although, maybe she's not being goofy .. maybe she's cold because it was freezing on the island!

We took a nice stroll around the island (about eight miles total) that was a very pretty walk. We had to try not to get run over by the people that don't know how to ride bikes that rented them because they're on the island. Thankfully we got out with just two close calls. 

I hope you all had an amazing weekend too!

Daily Notecard Calendar

My sister and I both have horrible long term memories, and it seems like often photos from our childhoods end up turning into memories (does that ever happen for any of you?).  I saw this idea for a daily calendar on Pinterest and thought I'd give it a try. I bought some notecards and used my printing kit to stamp the dates on the top of each of the cards. Yes, this did take forever. So far I've done through August, so once I get there, I'll be stamping again. I keep the cards in one of my revamped oatmeal boxes on my nightstand so each night (or every few nights if I forget) I write a line about what happened that day.

I'm really excited for next year when I can see exactly what I did one year ago. Even the mediocre days will be interesting to see! I started mine on January 1st but you can start any day of the year. And all you really need is some note cards and a pen. Easy way to keep memories!