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If you haven’t subscribed to Nourishing Knits (order here) yet you may not have known that two more patterns in the serialized e-book were released on Monday. Above is one of those patterns - Tapas Totes. They are fun lace cozies sized to fit standard canning jars and/or wine bottles. There are 3 stitch patterns, 3 bag tops and 2 different gauges (laceweight and sport weight) that you can mix and match.

I specifically chose small repeat stitch patterns so you can easily adapt the pattern as you go if you don’t quite match gauge or want to cover a non-standard sized jar. I also set up the bag bottom so that each increase round adds one more pattern repeat for the body so it is as simple as can be to make the cozy larger or smaller. There is also information on how to adjust the depth of the bag and be certain it will fit your container.

It only recently dawned on me that the laceweight large version weighs very little (less than 10 grams) and in the star stitch pattern stretches considerably. This makes it a fantastic reuseable produce bag since it won’t really inflate your produce weight. Being a household of only two I usually purchase our produce in 2-4 quantities so knit as written works well - it’ll hold 4 large apples. But if you need to hold more, again, just work several more increase rounds before starting the body and then perhaps make it a tad shorter and you’ll be set! I took it shopping with me yesterday and it was wonderful. I usually just don’t bag my produce, but it made the self-checkout and bagging process much smoother to have stuff bagged and I didn’t have a plastic produce bag to dispose of.

As with the other Nourishing Knits patterns there is a recipe paired with the Tapas Totes. Our household is known for its lemon curd, which Drew makes more often than I. But I adore my tart fruits, especially citrus, so I decided to mix things up a while ago and made a grapefruit curd. It was good, but just a tad flat since it is not as strongly flavored as lemon. I thought I’d add a touch of sophistication with the addition of an herb. Mint seemed the predictable choice, but I didn’t want predictable. I played around with pairing rosemary with grapefruit and loved the combo and ended up bringing that combo to my grapefruit curd to create the Rosemary Scented Grapefruit Curd recipe that is with the jelly jar cozies. Again, the recipe is only available via the book.

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If you’ve been around the last 6 months or so you know I’ve been transitioning to making a lot of my beauty products. I expect that’ll make my list a little different from many of the others out there as my list is mostly made up of my favorite ingredients or favorite recipes.

1. Calendula infused olive oil from Rose Mountain Herbs - this is fantastic for inflamed skin, from rashes or bug bites etc. I usually apply it twice daily to a few areas that cause me itchy troubles every winter. It hasn’t cleared the problem, but it is much less troublesome than in past years. You can also make your own.

2. Basic oils - my favorites are jojoba, grapeseed and sweet almond and I like to stick to Aura Caia or Now most of the time. I can get the sweet almond and sometimes the grapeseed from Aura Cacia from our local food co-op, so I just bring in my empty bottles and refill. Both brands in bottles are found at all of our natural sort of food stores - Whole Foods, Vitamin Cottage and Sunflower. I started using these as ingredients in some of my recipes, but I’m now using them straight as my body moisturizer. I alternate randomly through the three for my body and I use just a few drops of the jojoba for my face in the morning and the grapeseed at night. Jojoba is balancing and very similar to the skin’s natural sebum so it is a good moisturizer choice even for oily or combination skin. Grapeseed is a bit more “oily” but naturally contains a lot of vitamin E and is protective, nourishing and toning, making it a great choice for overnight skin “therapy.” I have to say that routine has been serving me quite well and much better than store bought products.

3. Thayer’s Witch Hazel - this is an ingredient in my favorite face wash (along with strawberries, jojoba and grapeseed oil and in the winter some oat flour), but straight it is a great facial toner, especially this one that has some aloe in it. It can also be blended with a flower water for a bit more gentle toner. Again, this is pretty readily available at natural food stores in the area.

4. Aveeno Positively Ageless Eye Firming - this is one the face product I’m still buying. So far I haven’t found a good anti-wrinkle DIY recipe so I’m continuing to use this product. At least for now. It does contain parabens so I’d like to find a paraben-free alternative once this one is gone (these types of products are too expensive to just toss on a whim).

5. Bare Escentuals/Minerals Make-up - I’m new to this make-up as of December, but I’m loving it. I don’t have the right color foundation at this point so I’m mixing and results aren’t consistent, but even though the color isn’t quite right I’m getting much better coverage with a more natural look and using less product. Wins all around! And while it is a bit early to tell, I think it really is treating my skin better than the drugstore mineral make-up I had been using.

6. Tassi - this was a Christmas gift from mom. I could do without pink polk-a-dots, but it is *very* handy. More so than I would have guessed. It is not the camera angle that makes the portion in the lower left wider. It really is wider. You out it around your neck, then pull it back up like a headband and that wider section will hold your long hair so it keeps *all* of your hair out of your face for washing or putting on make-up or brushing your teeth. Love it!

7. Exfoliating Gloves - I’ve been using a pair about every 4 days, dry. Before getting in the shower. That combined with the oils has my whole body baby-soft. I can’t believe the difference it has made! They are pretty inexpensive and can be found almost anywhere, from big box stores to drug stores, even a couple of the grocery stores have them in the health and beauty aisle.

8. Oscar Blandi Dry Shampoo - this I only picked up a week or two ago at Ulta in a small size to try. I’ve used it twice, but so far I’m impressed. With my hair color I’ve not found the DIY dry shampoos to work well, I always have residue left behind making me look gray-ish. My fine hair means I *have* to wash my hair daily or my hairline looks oily, but with it’s length, the rest of my head would be happier not being washed daily. This leaves behind no visable residue and the application is much easier and more controlled than the DIY version too.

9. Lotion Bars - I’m still making them, playing with somewhat different formulations, but they are all based off of that original. It is fantastic for during the day moisturizing applications. I use it mostly for my hands, but I’m finding it super effective for my dry heels at night too!

10. Sugar Scrub - this is essential when I’m spinning or working with fine yarns. I use it right before working with the fibers or yarn and often follow it up with a bit of lotion bar too, as I find the scrub helps remove dried out skin, but the beeswax in the lotion bar helps to seal down any bits of rough skin that were not dry enough for the scrub to remove.

To see what other people like for health and beauty products, head over to Carole’s!

It’s been a crazy week around these parts. Looong work days and DH getting back into the swing of the semester. I’m still running behind a bit… Hence an evening Monday linkity rather than morning :-)

Crafty:

• Ana over at i made it so has two great posts on blocking hats, which can be a bit tricky sometimes.
• International Fleeces has a Focus on Fiber column about Blue Faced Leicester, which was quite timely as I’m currently spinning some.
• I love this idea of making Valentine’s from paint swatches!
• I’m also loving these rugs made by braiding roving!
• I can’t believe this “iron-work” is made from toilet paper tubes! How clever and especially great for rental walls since they are light and require no large nails or hooks to hang.
• These books give wonderful sophistication to the altered book movement. They are origami’d to spell words!

Photography:

• Photography Studio on a Budget tips - not just for photographers, great ideas for crafters here too!
• Often shooting in “Automatic” is poo poo’d, but here are some reasons to use the automatic mode.
• Best Natural Light for your Photos - while geared toward the portrait photographer, these apply equally to art/craft photography too.

Food:

• These baked egg cups are going to be made in my kitchen soon, probably as a breakfast for supper thing rather than actual breakfast. Other flavor ideas have been floating around in my head since I first saw them.
• A spice loaf cake with cardamom AND squash? You know I’m going to have to try this sooner than later too, right?
• We’ve found ourselves with a fair bit of stale bread lately so my mind has been on bread puddings. I stumbled upon this Earl Gray Bread Pudding and am thinking we’ll have to give it a try sometime yet this winter.
• I’ve also been almost permanently cold, so this roasted eggplant and chickpea stew sounds about perfect, especially with some fresh baked crusty bread!

Catching My Eye:

• Again, being cold, scarves are appealing to me and I’m loving these large, kettle dyed scarves out of the Twin Cities. Mustard and Rust are appealing to me most right now, but all the colors are lovely. The Giant one intrigues me.
• This two-tone Hydrangea-inspired ring is calling my name.
• Another Minnesota artisan has captured my eye with this purse (and perhaps a few others, poke around while you’re there)!
• These linen table runners from HAPPYsthlm are appealing to me. Our large dining room table looks so much better when it is broken up a bit.
• These bold flour sac tea towelswould add a nice mid-winter punch to the kitchen.
• So would this clean-lined, yet bold and unique thermos!
• Or these fun cups and saucers!

Can you tell I’m on brown overload? The snow from Wednesday didn’t last long, so we’re back to browns and grays. *sigh* So I’m evidently dreaming for bright, bold colors and shapes.

We enjoy games around these parts and I always have (see Tuesday’s post for proof). We play all sorts of games from some of the classic Cheap Ass games to involved games like Arkham Horror. We enjoy playing classics from time to time like Backgammon and Drew is a big fan of Go. Several years ago we were told about a build-your-own card game called 1,000 Blank White Cards (1kBMC). We introduced it to our game playing friends and it was a hit.

The basic premise of 1kBWC is that you build your own deck cards, traditionally from index cards cut in half. 1/3 of the deck are already drawn cards from a “seed deck” of previous games that were voted to be carried forward by that game’s players, 1/3 of the deck is drawn before dealing the cards and a 1/3 are blank cards and drawn as the game progresses. If it is your first 1kBWC game you’ll just draw 2/3 of the deck before the cards are dealt.

If you’ve ever played Flux, that is kind of how this works. Each card must have a title and drawing on it and either a point value or an action that applies to either an individual or the table as a whole. Once the entire deck has been played the game is over and the winner is the person with the most points - that is unless someone draws a card that changes those rules!

For Christmas this year gifts were optional and if done were to be homemade. I don’t know about you, but men can be hard to gift to anyway, let alone with the restriction of it being homemade. And our preserves were going to the women. We didn’t know if all the men played games, but we knew a few did. So, I designed a little logo for 1,000 Blank White Cards that we had printed on business cards. Then I created a little rule book that is the same size of the business cards so it can be stored with them. Put together, we gave people 500 cards to start their 1kBWC decks. That should be enough for many games as the deck is usually made up of 15 cards per player.

Well, I went to all the work and we’re not likely to get to make use of it again anytime soon. It seemed a bit of a waste of time and creative energy. That was until I realized I could share it! So you can download the cards and/or the rule book and create your own 1000 Blank White Card set for yourself or gifting. The cards should print on business card paper, though I recommend you test it on plain paper and hold it up to bright light with your business card paper to double check. You can also print the cards on heavy cardstock and cut them to size with a paper cutter.

The rule book is two pages that need printed back to back. Instructions on how to cut and fold the book are included in the file. I recommend a slightly heavier bond of standard printer paper. Cardstock is a bit too stiff for nice clean folding, but too light of a paper doesn’t hold the creases as well and you can sometimes have text bleed through.

While we’ve only played the game with adults, I think this would be a great game for the whole family. Since you create it as you go it can be created to suit the individual players. In fact, we discovered if you play with two drastically different groups of people it is nice to have a seed deck for each type of group.

If I’m ever stuck for card ideas I like to draw on pop culture references - song lyrics, movie quotes, famous books or characters. Others like to draw upon other game actions they can think of. Above are a few sample cards from our seed deck.

Well, what are you waiting for? Start drawing and playing!

• Download the 1000 Blank White Card template
• Download the 1000 Blank White Card Rule Book template

I was baking popovers (they were a bust, they popped, but burnt in our oven at the recommended time, temp & rack placement) when the sky suddenly got super dark and snow hit. We got our forecasted snow accumulation in under an hour. It has since slowed, but it is still coming down.

I decided to take a few minutes to calm myself (so, so busy and stressed) and take a few shots. These are pretty much SOOC (straight out of camera). I couldn’t believe how dark the southwesterly exposed living room got!

Looking up through the towering douglas fir next door just to try a different angle/viewpoint on things.

Lovely bleached pinecone beneath the fir pictured above.

A few berries are hanging onto the hedges between our house and the neighbor’s.