Onestitchshort

My Menu Planning Gameplan

onestitchshort — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 19:05:32 +0000

Okay, so I haven’t actually used this yet, but I came up with a plan for menu planning (heh) that I thought I’d share in case it helps someone else out. I have recently discovered Evernote (thanks to Mary-Heather) and have been using it for recipes and shopping lists. It was so handy over the holidays because it syncs to my phone and my iPad so I could always have the recipes I needed handy depending on which device I could find at the moment. I’ve been reading about people making menu planning binders and such, but that seemed like a lot of work to me, so this is my version of a menu planning binder.

Step One – Gather Recipes

I get most of my recipes online, so I’m clipping all of my commonly used and some newly discovered recipes into Evernote. I’ve set up a few categories for the recipes. When I use the little elephant clipper button that is loaded into my browser, I find it easier with many recipes to highlight them first. Then, I don’t get all of the commentary, I just get the ingredients and instructions. Also, If you drag and drop two Evernote notebooks together, it will put them under the same heading that you can rename (I renamed mine menu planning) making it very easy to find everything you need.

Step Two – Make Weekly Menu Grid & Add Recipes to a Weekly Notebook

I made a little menu grid that I will use every week. It lists the days of the week and the category for that day. I copy and pasted the grid with that information to another note to create the plan for every week before I filled it in for this week. Then, I filled it in with the meals for this week that fit each category. You can make a grid using your chosen dimensions pretty easily in Evernote, I pointed to that option below.

Beside each menu item, I put the points amount as I’ll be doing Weight Watchers in January (along with the rest of the world with new years resolutions to eat better) so that’s what the numbers there represent. You can see I added in a couple of leftovers days and also put the slow cooking day on the night C1 has swim lessons as I know I won’t have time to cook that evening.

As I went through each of my menu categories deciding what we’d have each night, I copied those recipes into a “Recipes for the week of 1/1/2011″ note so all my recipes for the week will be there and handy. You can do this by control clicking (or right clicking) on the note and choosing to copy it to another notebook.

Step Three – Make Grocery List

The easiest way I’ve found to do this is to copy all of the ingredient lists into the bottom of my menu note and then remove the stuff I already have and sort it. I made a little grid that is in the order of my grocery store and filled in the ingredients that remained after I deleted all of the ones I already have.

I estimate the set up of all of the recipes and the grids, etc. probably took me an hour or so. I’ll continue to add recipes as I come across them. The actual selection of recipes for this week’s menus and the making of the grocery list took about half an hour. So, there is a bit of work involved but I think this is going to make things much easier for me throughout the week to have a plan. Also, I plan on saving these plans in evernote and then using them again after some time has passed. If I can create 10 different meal plans and just cycle through them, my weekly work will be significantly diminished.

I’ll keep you posted on how this goes for me. Let me know if you try something like this and have any tips as I’m just figuring this out as I go along.

The Santa Suit

onestitchshort — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 02:38:00 +0000

After coming back from Thanksgiving and the Arkansas Fiber Extravaganza (which I’ll blog on the Ravelry blog this week), I was greeted by a note from C1′s teacher written prior to Thanksgiving which we obviously did not see. She asked me if I could make a Santa suit. I responded by asking her for who and how complex because, really, my sewing skills are just intermediate at this point. She told me it was for C1 to wear for the holiday program.

I asked C1 about this and he said that they were singing “Here Comes Santa Claus” and he’d get to be Santa while his classmates were the reindeer. That sounded entirely too cute and he was very excited about the whole process of making a suit so I had to do it.

For the jacket and pants I used the pajama pattern from Sewing for Boys as a base and went from there. We picked out a red corduroy fabric and some white fluff and off I went. I closed the front of the jacket with large hook and eye closures. He wore his cowboy boots to complete the look.

He got a little shy during the performance. When they gave him the microphone to say “ho ho ho” he froze, though he had been running around the house saying it all week. But, overall, he did a great job and he looked pretty darn cute, too.

Black Friday

onestitchshort — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 05:29:47 +0000

I didn’t keep up the blogging over the holiday but now that I’m back to a bit of a normal schedule, I’m back at it. One highlight of my holiday break was Black Friday shopping with my cousin, aunt, sister and the husband. I’m not one to get up early, so we hit WalMart at 10 pm and Kohls at midnight. We had a lot of fun plotting and planning and then buying several things. Christmas shopping is done for C1 and I got a few things for others, as well. C2 rode along in his Moby wrap. Here he is after we got home from the chaos. He looks pretty happy to be finished!

Hit the road, Jack!

onestitchshort — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 03:10:04 +0000

As I write this, my rear end is tightly wedged between two car seats, C1 on my right watching Toy Story 3 on my old phone (thank God for technology) & C2 on my left eating, non-stop. The plan was to drive halfway tonight, but I think we might push through and get to our destination tonight. If C2 would sleep for a bit, we’d be in good shape. Sadly, most of the drive has been in the dark & my current project isn’t one that can be worked in the dark so no knitting for me. I’m excited to see my family but 9 hours in the car with two kids is, um, an adventure.

Holiday Knitting

onestitchshort — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 03:17:34 +0000

I only had one thing planned to knit for Christmas presents, fingerless gloves for C1′s teacher, but then I found another gift for her that I thought would be great. That means I don’t have any holiday knitting left to do but I do have a holiday break coming up, so I’ve been planning what to bring with me.

I’ve been promising the husband another hat for some time. He likes the unique fibers. His first hat was made with some Buffalo Gold 100% Bison yarn. Here’s a detail shot of that one.

This one will be made with some Bijou Basin Yak yarn that I have in the stash. He wants the next hat to be more simple, so I think I’m going to make him a Turn A Square hat.

The other project in my immediate queue is a baby project. So many babies around so I’m planning a few baby projects to send to friends. I got some Cascade Fingering at Webs on our way back from Rhinebeck, and am planning to make a Louise Cardigan from Vintage Baby Knits with it. I’ve had this book for a while and haven’t had a chance to make anything from it, though there are so many great patterns in it, so I’m really looking forward to making this one!

Oh, and I still have the back of one Pepo Pie to finish and you know a whole second one to make (albeit the smaller one), so I should have plenty of knitting to choose from!

Purple Patchwork Penny

onestitchshort — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 17:06:43 +0000

I wrote my cousin on Thursday or Friday to ask her what her soon to be 3-year-old would like for her birthday. She told me that she loves dolls, so I instantly thought of the Wee Wonderfuls book. I decided to give one of them a try, but really doubted my ability to finish it before leaving town for Thanksgiving where we will celebrate her birthday.

I was most nervous about making the face and hair look right. I used safety eyes instead of the called for pieces of wool because she is still putting things in her mouth and I thought that might be a safer bet. The great thing is that the embroidery for her face was so simple that I was able to make it look okay!

Her hair was a bit of a challenge to figure out how to tack it down so that it covered her head well and stayed in place in the face of the handling of a 3 yr old. I must have braided it 10 times. The braids are still a bit uneven, but I think it will stay in place, which was my primary goal. The part is supposed to be off center, but you can see the thread start at the bottom there, which was obviously unintentional. I don’t think she’ll notice.

I love how the purple velour boots and how the patchwork all lined up. I also love how fast I was able to make this! I started with fabric selection and cutting on Friday night and finished it this morning, with probably about 3 hours of work put in on it total. Also, the only thing I had to buy to finish this was the purple velour for the boots, everything else was from my stash! I definitely see more of these in my future!

Crafturday

onestitchshort — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 05:13:46 +0000

Here’s a little glimpse at what I worked on while all the boys were napping this afternoon. I started and nearly finished a Wee Wonderfuls doll today and finished Carolyn’s blocks. It was a really nice, relaxing and productive Saturday.

Weekend Plans

onestitchshort — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 05:16:10 +0000

* get the kid’s haircut, it’s been way too long plus I get to see him with a brightly colored mohawk.

* make a doll from the Wee Wonderfuls book. I just decided to do this today and it needs to be finished by Tuesday!

* work on Pepo Pie, should be able to finish it and block it since I’ve just got the back left.

* maybe I should add rest to this list? A little rest before the holiday madness begins would be nice!

Pepo Pie Progress

onestitchshort — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 14:57:48 +0000

How’s that for a little alliteration Last night I made it to the arm holes on C1′s Pepo Pie. I’m so glad I made his first, as C2′s should fly after this one. Not that this one has been that slow. I’ve made this much progress in a week, which I’m thinking is pretty good considering the infant and all.

I love that this is basically knit in one piece with just the shoulders to seam and pockets to seam at the end. I adore this pattern so far, and think, after two times of casting on and three swatches (oh gauge, you are a finicky one), that this is going to fit the kiddo just fine. It’s fitted so he will likely only be able to wear it this season, but we’re going to wear the heck out of it while it fits. And, I’ll be able to save this one for C2 someday, which is a bonus.

The goal is to finish this one up by this weekend and block it (it’s rolling like crazy) so I can hopefully get C2′s all done by Thanksgiving. I do have a long drive to Arkansas for the holiday which should hopefully help.

His Blanket

onestitchshort — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 20:53:00 +0000

When I was pregnant with Cameron, I made him a blanket. He has since used it at home, at school and everywhere in between. He loves it and four years later, he still uses it. So, I decided it was worth making one for C2 when I was pregnant with him. My big criteria, no pieces to sew together! At Stitches West in February, I met the designer of this blanket and saw one of the versions she did of it for her kiddo. I fell in love and immediately began purchasing yarn to make a version of my own. I knew I wanted it bright and with the help of my yarn purchasing gurus, Jess & Mary-Heather, I picked out the colors from Miss Babs and Alpenglow. When choosing how to lay them out, I realized I had the whole rainbow represented, so I did the color progression in rainbow order.

I brought the blanket with me to take a few pictures of it with Carson when Shauna did his newborn pictures. As it turns out, we did all of them with it and I love them. Two little things that I had a big part in making in one photo. I hope he will cherish this blanket and use it as much as his big brother does his.

You can see another picture from our photo shoot on Shauna’s blog. She’s amazingly talented and I’m so grateful to have her as a friend and to have her capture our family every year as the boys grow.