The Tunisian Throw

Before I make any posts with pictures on my LionBrand Tunisian Throw, I need to tell this story:

Okay.  So Christmas 2013 I gave a completed Daisy swap blanket to a young lady in our church named Angel.  She's an overcomer with a really amazing story of addiction, prostitution, overcoming, and making it her life's ministry to help others in addiction problems.  We have a ministry in our church named Seven, confidential, but it's for people in addiction (I think it might actually be a social-work sanctioned something or other, most people in it do not attend our church from what I've seen), and those people plus family members (like my mother-in-law) can be involved.  Otherwise, stay away from those rooms on that night of the week, give them privacy.

So this past Christmas, Angel told me how much that afghan means to her.  Every time someone comes over, she tells them how it was made especially for her (and it was, I preferenced colors to match a picture of her new place, from Day 1 it was all about Angel), prayed over, and made in secret just for her.  I knew that when those dark nights come, as they will for anyone in recovery, she has something physical to hold onto, to remember She Is Not Alone.

Those words resounded inside my head over and over and over all through December.  Not Alone.  Then one day as I was praying I knew I needed to make more, and with Angel's help choose the recipient before I begin making the afghan, so I can pray over it, positivity, all that.  And then when that person's "dark moments" come along, they have something physical to hold onto and always know they are not alone.

I was thinking on this a couple Saturdays ago, then got in my car to drive out to my parents', and on Christian radio heard THREE songs in a row about not being alone, then a recorded call-in where the woman said, "Everyone has something they can do for someone else to let them know they're not alone."

Hello!  I really felt like God was asking me for my crochet!  On the one hand, that's really silly, so many people still sneer at "crochet", on the other hand, wow.  God wants my crochet!  Okay, God, you do realize it takes a lot of time .. yeah.  Nevermind.  Okay.  Sure, I really dont' mind to tell you the truth.  It's a wonderful feeling to have a real purpose in the thing that you love to do!

So I get this box in from Herrschners, I had ordered the caramel colored Deborah Norville Everyday Soft for my Tunisian throw.  The instant my hand touched that yarn, I felt the name CHAD.  I was like, But I don't even LIKE Chad.  Ugh!  

Chad is my husband's brother.  Addict,, thief, family-hurter.  So at Christmas he told Jason he's been clean for 14 months.  Awesome.  

Then ... well, can I believe him?  And I knew it didn't matter.  After 20+ years of me doing my best to avoid him at family functions, not saying more than "hi Chad", I knew God wants my crochet, and he wants this for Chad.

Fast forward.  I've already started it.  Tunisian is new for me, and I had gotten my first 6 blocks done, and decided that's all I'm going to do.  Six patterns, maybe 6 of each of them for a 36-block afghan.  Then my mother-in-law posts on Facebook a plea for prayer.  Don't think she's ever done that before, and I saw it at 11:00 pm when it was far too late to call.  I told my husband, he had no idea what was going on either.  So he called her first thing next morning.   

Chad got arrested again.  Not for wrongdoing this time, but for some unpaid fines.  He's still clean.  He sat in jail for nearly a week.  Then he called, crying, begging for someone to help him, he was in so much pain.  He had a cut on his thumb that had gotten infected and was very painful, and the pain in his lower back was just agony.  Chad has a high threshhold for pain, and he was crying.  So my husband immediately called a friend, asked for medical attention for his brother, and 5 minutes later Chad had been released and was being picked up.  My mother-in-law took him to the hospital for care.  When she took him back to his place, it was flooded. 

Chad was so dejected, it seems like  nothing is going right and nothing ever will.

And my husband tells me to hurry up on that afghan ... 

You know, sometimes God will let us hit the bottom so when we finally break, we know without a doubt that it is Him doing the fixing, the repairing, the helping.  And sometimes a person needs that something special to hold onto and know they aren't alone.  I suppose I'm the perfect one to play a part in that, if Chad realizes that I've been thinking about him and praying for him and having others pray over this handmade afghan, he will always have that proof that he is not alone.   

Even if you don't have some special hand-made, prayed-over object to hold in your hands, no matter how dark our world has become and is becoming, if you're reading this you have the Breath of God in you.  God breathed life into Adam, and we are the children of Adam.  God is always ready to answer, when you're ready to call.

Christmas 2014 - All about the crochet

So I've been scrambling, and the weekend before Christmas I was all finished with Christmas presents.

For my mother-in-law, I crocheted a simple shell border around some high quality towels using Sarafina cotton (size 2) yarn.   To do this, I first sewed, with the same yarn and a sharp needle, a blanket stitch around 2 towels and 2 washcloths.  Then I crocheted a single crochet row, then 5-double crochet, skip 2, slip stitch, skip 2, 5-double crochet etc around making the shell row.  That's it.  Easy peasy, and well worth it, my mother-in-law loved it!  Perfect gift.

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For my grand-niece, well, I finished that blanket and pony!  Woohoo!  Her birthday is Dec 29th, and they are coming down for Christmas on Jan 1st, so what I'll do is wrap the blanket up as a birthday present, and the pony up as her Christmas present.

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I've already begun the new baby's blanket.  And, since I made Princess K a toy, I suppose I'll make Princess ? one too.  I'm about 6 rows past what is shown in this picture.

It's the weekend before Thanksgiving.   I have so much to be thankful for - my life, my health, my family, my daughter's life .. their dogs who helped keep me from falling back into depression with their adorable fluffy selves ...

And my Christmas tree is up.  Yep.  Micaela was so excited to get Christmas up she was literally bouncing.  She got as far as the mantel, and I had to do everything else.  It's been a few years since I decorated my own tree, the girls usually do it, but this year was all me. I'm a complete amateur, and my iphone pictures are as usual pretty horrible, but it's probably one of the prettiest trees I've ever done.  Got no money left though, lol.  Had to buy all new lights, and of course ribbon, and picks to stick in and help fill  up the tree, and a few other likely unnecessary items to make Christmas pretty.

I am a huge fan of Pentatonix, and they have some Christmas songs out that are just unbelievable.  You've probably seen them, they both rather went viral on the internet.  But here they are again.

Little Drummer Boy

 Mary Did You Know

Carol Of The Bells

Fathers Day and apple pie

For Fathers' Day, my little family went over to the in-laws, and my part was desserts.  My German Chocolate cake roll was a disaster, but it just so happened this was bake sale Sunday at Church (once a month for missions), so I picked up a nice chocolate cake.

I also made an apple pie.  From scratch.  Including the crust.  Woohoo Me!

Crust recipe.  Before trying the recipe, I read the reviews.  #1 comment was freeze the butter.  This crust turned out light, flaky, tender, and oh my goodness!  My husband's comment was "I love this pie, but I'd like a pie out of just the crust and juices".  I may have made a grave mistake, making this pie.  They'll probably want me to make pie all the time, and making anything from scratch is definite kitchen time.  A couple of hours at least.

Pie recipe:   This is to die for.  Wait, don't die, really.  Just eat it!  and savor, enjoy, oh my.   Again, I read the comments below the recipe, and made a couple of changes.  For instance, I added cinnamon and nutmeg to the caramel sauce.  Below are pictures that show the sauce simmering and thickening up, and how I cut the apples, and how I did the upper crust.  Inspiration for that design came straight from Pinterest, and everyone just "oohed" and "aahed" over it, as it was very obviously homemade, no storebought stuff here, and people tend to be impressed.  As they should be, this was a labor of love!

I actually made 2 pies.  One Saturday night to take out to MY dad's, and one Sunday for the in-laws.  The one I took to my dad's, I used 6 granny smith + 2 fuji apples.  The fuji apples are softer and sweeter, and as you know the granny smiths are crisp and tart.  The one I took to the in-laws, I used 8 granny smiths.  I was surprised at how different they tasted!   

The 6 GS + 2 Fuji = sweet, you tasted the apples, tasted the flavors.

The 8GS = You really noticed the tartness.  I hereby changed the name of this one to "Apple Tart".

So the design wasn't perfectly executed.  Somehow something got a little skewed and crooked, but I think that's part of the "scratch" charm, don't you?   Also note that during the baking process, the dough pulls in a bit, so some of what was hidden  under other strips becomes visible.  Again, all part of the charm, and I was not one bit self-conscious of this pie.  I was proud.  And if it hadn't been quite so tart, I think I wouldn't have had left-overs.  (P.S.   NEXT DAY:   Not quite as tart as it was when same-day fresh.  It tastes better, a little sweeter, a little less like McDonald's apple pie --- and makes a great second breakfast!)

Next pie:   Mix granny smiths with a couple of pears instead of other apples.  Just to see how the dynamics of that combination work.