I would like to thank a few bloggers who have mentioned me on their blogs this week. First off a big thank you to Chel from Sweetbriardreams from the UK and her blog who takes such beautiful pictures of the English countryside and crotchets pretty granny square blankets.

Second a big thank you to Julia Porter from Indiana who does charity work and is a beautiful knitter. She has been collecting baby blankets for a charity that I participated in. Her blog is juliaisunwound look under Oh Baby.

Third a big thanks to Ali Campbell who has a blog and is a crochet designer and teacher and she has an online class from the UK. She has mentioned me a couple of times on her blog Hooked!! A Crochet Addict's Blog and you should check out blog post from Monday, March 25th, Day 84.

I would also like to wish everyone a Happy Easter and a nice weekend and thanks to any new followers.

Yesterday I went to my Crochet group meeting and one of the ladies in the group named Rachel made for me a crocheted baby hat and a baby poncho to go with the crocheted baby blanket I had made. I did not know how to make the baby hat or poncho so she said that she would make it for me so that I could have a set to sell at our church's annual Christmas Fair. When I saw how cute the set was I asked her if she would write out the pattern directions for me and she did. Then to my surprise she said that she would teach me to make the baby hat. I sat and crocheted the hat and it took me about a half hour to make. I think that it came out pretty good for the first time and she said that next week she will teach me to make the poncho and a little flower to attach to the hat. This is why I love going to my crochet meetings because we all work together and help each other out and keep each other motivated.



Thanks everyone and enjoy.

Julie

For the past two weeks I have been crocheting this granny square blanket for a friend of mine. She is collecting baby blankets for a charity that she is running for women who need handmade baby blankets. I decided to participate and this is the blanket I made for her charity.  I was happy to help out because I know it is for a good cause.

Crocheted Baby Blanket

Yesterday we decided to meet some friends in New York City for a late lunch. We went to the Meatpacking District to a restaurant called Spice Market. Their menu is inspired by the street food Jean-Georges Vongerichten enjoyed while traveling in Asia. We had Vietnamese Spring Roll, Crispy Pork Dumplings with Chili and Lime, Cod with Malaysian Chile Sauce and Thai Basil, Onion and Chili Crusted Short Ribs with Egg Noodles and Pea Shoots, and a Salmon Salad.  For dessert we shared a Strawberry Rhubarb Crumble.  I had Vietnamese coffee.

The link is: www.spicemarketnewyork.com


After lunch I went into one of my favorite stores called Anthropologie and looked around. Here are some pictures of some of the things that I found interesting in the store.


I hope you all like my pictures of NYC and I'm looking forward to the Spring.


Thanks everyone and enjoy.

Julie

Google Reader - I HAVE MOVED TO BLOGLOVIN

The latest news for people who use Google Reader is that it will be discontinued as of July 1, 2013.  I have decided to use Bloglovin.  Check out Bloglovin and follow me on it!

For those of you who are on Pinterest, I have a new PIN IT button on my blog that you can use to pin recipes or patterns, just go to Blog Archive and select the post that you want to pin and next look for the Pinterest button at the end of the post.

I have also added to my blog a Twitter button to follow me.

I hope you like these some of these changes on my blog.

A week ago I started crocheting for the first time a granny rectangle. I got the idea from Ali Campbell @CrochetAli from Twitter. Ali is a crochet teacher and designer from the UK and she posts on her blog www.macscrochet.blogspot.com everyday what her students are working on and she was teaching them to make crocheted rectangles. Well I saw a pattern on www.favecrafts.com to make a crocheted rectangle pillow, but I thought that a scarf would be cute for me to use, so I am going to use it for our annual Christmas Fair that we have at our church.

Here is a picture of the finished crocheted rectangle scarf I made!




Thanks everyone and enjoy.

Julie

I went to Brooklyn Craft Camp on Saturday March 16, 2013, and it was hosted by Brett Bara who is the host of Knit and Crochet Now TV show and author of the book Sewing in a Straight Line.  It was a fun day of crafting and meeting new people.  The morning started off with Brett Bara introducing herself and telling us what the day was going be like and then we all had coffee and donuts from a local Greenpoint bakery called Peter Pan and the coffee was from Cafe Grumpy's featured on the HBO show called Girls.

Here is a list of what I made, a crepe paper flower taught by Kayte Terry author of the book Paper Made, I made a crocheted headband taught by Cal Patch a crochet designer, the embroidery class was taught by Jessica Marquez author of the book Stitched Gifts, and the last class of the day was knitting a cowl by Kate Clifford a knitting teacher at Argyle Yarn Shop and founder of an after-school knitting program in Harlem.

We all had a gourmet lunch which consisted of Roasted pork loin sandwich with rosemary-honey mustard, spicy mayo and arugula on brioche, Spring bean soup with chili sauce, basil oil and baby greens, Quinoa salad with beets two ways, baby frisee and lemon-muscat vinaigrette, and Candied grapefruit almond shortbread with sea salt.  While we were eating lunch we had guest speaker Jay McCarroll who was winner of Project Runway Season 1 talk to us about his background and how he became interested in fashion and being creative.

Throughout the day there was DJ Darren Fried who played nice background music for us and who is also Brett's boyfriend.

When the event was over they had a cocktail hour for everyone and snacks.  They also had a Photo Booth, Quick Craft Bar and a DIY Nail Art Bar.

It was a fun day and I enjoyed crafting, learning some new crafts, and meeting new people.


Here are some pictures of my day crafting at the Brooklyn Craft Camp:

Entering into the event.

Being greeted by Brett Bara who is on the left.

Brett Bara waving hello to me.

The program and menu.

Crepe Paper Flower I made.

Embroidery Heart I made.

Crocheted Headband I started to make.

Crochet Class teacher Cal Patch who is in the middle & some ladies crocheting.

Knitted Chunky Cowl I started to make.

Some of the goodies they gave to everyone.

DJ Darren Fried.