Sun Mandala to color

I meant to get something posted earlier, but the day was so gorgeous despite warnings from Google weather that it would be all stormy. So instead, I took my Kindle outside, and read while enjoying the sun. I thought about watering, but didn't, and it's raining now.

So I hope you enjoy this sun to color! Click on the images for larger versions.

Small JPG:

Large PNG:

Farmer's Market and Photo Jewelry

This European photo bead bracelet has 4 photos each of my children. It was so easy to put together and you can find more information on BellaOnline Beadwork.

The Spenard Farmer's Market-
We have a lot of local farmer's markets on Saturdays. So many that I know we haven't made it to all of them yet. Out of the local markets we have been to, my favorite is the one in Spenard.

It takes place on Saturdays in the summer here in Anchorage, under the windmill that's in the parking lot of what is arguably Alaska's most well known bar. Saturday nights the place is jumping with young adults all dressed up to party and dance. Saturday during the day it's laid out with tents and tables for various vendors. I've seen this market grow a lot in the last few years.

The reason it's my favorite is the vibe. Each market has it's own feeling. The Spenard market feels like a neighborhood party. There's a hippy feel to it in some ways too. Lots of crafters have tables and booths. You can buy starts for your garden, cheese, honey, and all sorts of things.

When we got there, the first thing we did was get TG a bottle of blueberry kombucha. I would have taken a photo of her drinking it, but by the time I was going to, it was gone. She loves kombucha.

Then we ran into John, who owns Bosco's Comic Book store in Spenard. Since it was kid's day, he was there with leftover Free Comic Day comics and a big Death Star to destroy.

While TG was destroying the Death Star, Michael and I hit up Denali Dreams Soap Company. My daughter had pointed out we were out of soap. William, TG and I all use locally made soaps all the time. My husband uses Dr. Bronner's Peppermint Liquid Soap. So we've been using his soap for the last week. Since we are still pretty tightly budgeted, we bought bags of soap ends from them. Soap ends are the end cuts that just aren't as pretty. They bag them up and sell them for less than half of the cost of their full bars per ounce of soap. They also had a newer product. Soap shreds, the fine trimmings from bars, like a colorful soap confetti. The bags of these were 1.00 a bag, and we picked up 4 bags to use for soap crafting. Since they were giving away samples, TG picked up a blueberry one for herself.

Then TG and I decided it was lunch time. There were a lot more options than last year! I decided on Hawaiian BBQ.

Yum! My husband said he wasn't hungry, I think he took a look at all that food and knew I'd never finish!

I also grabbed a musubi roll for William which is in the fridge now until he comes over later.

TG decided on tacos. Her tacos were messy and tasty. Meat, cilantro, onions and tomatoes.

There was a bowl of sidewalk chalk on the table. Nobody had done any drawing yet, but she grabbed a piece. Michael said "I know what she's going to do."

He was right.

The last thing we got before we left was quail eggs. If you haven't cooked with quail eggs before, they are incredibly beautiful and tiny.

Crochet pattern- Slip stitch textured scrubbie

I've always considered slip stitch a way to join edges or rounds or to add surface embellishment and hadn't experimented with it as a fabric. Small swatches made in acrylic yarns make good dish scrubbies when experimenting.

To make the scrubbie or tawashi above you'll need:

• Size F crochet hook
• worsted weight acrylic yarn*
• scissors
• yarn needle

*if you use cotton or hemp, you can make a nice soft face scrubbie

All slip stitches are worked into the back loop of the stitch. Double crochet (DC) are worked in both loops on the first row with dcs, and then around the post on the rest of the rows.
Repeat ** means repeat what's between the *

Ch 12
Row 1: From 2nd chain on hook, slip stitch in back loop of each chain across.
Row 2: Ch 1 to turn, slip stitch in back loop of each stitch across
Row 3: Ch 1 to turn, slip stitch in back loop of first 2 stitches, *dc in next stitch, slip stitch in back loop of next stitch, * repeat ** 3 times (4 dcs), slip stitch in back loop of last stitch
Row 4: Ch 1 to turn, slip stitch in back loop of each stitch across.
Row 5: Ch 1 to turn, slip stitch in back loop of first 2 stitches, DC around the first DC of row 3 (yarn over, insert hook under the post of the DC, yarn over, pull out from under the post, yarn over, pull through 2 loops on hook, yarn over, pull through last two loops on hook), slip stitch in back loop of next stitch, DC around post of DC, slip stitch in back loop of next stitch, DC around post of DC, slip stitch in back loop of next stitch, DC around post of DC, slip stitch in back loop of next two stitches.
Row 6: Repeat Row 4
Row 7: Repeat Row 5
Row 8: Repeat Row 4
Row 9: Repeat Row 5
Row 10: Repeat Row 4
Row 11: Repeat Row 5
Row 12: Repeat Row 4
Row 13: Repeat Row 5
Row 14: Repeat Row 4
Row 15: Repeat Row 5
Row 16: Ch 1 to turn, slip stitch in back loop of each stitch across
Row 17: Ch 1 to turn, slip stitch in back loop of each stitch across

I really like the slip stitch fabric. The DCs pop off the surface really well and the fabric is pretty sturdy even though it's worked in the back loops.It does have some stretch, but not much.

Fire printable PDF 8x10 recipe sheets

The images above are much smaller than the actual recipe pages. These recipe pages are in PDF format with fillable fields to type in the recipe name, author, ingredients and instructions and designed to print at 8x10. On the dark version, the text is white, on the white version, the text is black. The black version will use a lot of ink, but I liked how it looked so much that I had to add it.
These are designed with spicy recipes in mind using photos that I took at a bonfire a few years ago.

Download the PDF files and open them in Adobe Reader to fill them in and print them.

Heat printable recipe page WHITE
Heat printable recipe page BLACK

Filled in example- Black- this has the recipe for my husband's favorite chili!
Mike's Favorite Chili

I hope you enjoy these!