Do you remember several months ago when I said I was going to put a store on this site? And then I said I needed to get the pattern for the HSY Everything up on here? Well, for the past several weeks, I have been toying with the idea of re-opening the dye business on a limited basis. Frankly, I miss it. I miss the smell of vinegar and hot wool. I miss the colors exploding from yarn that was boring just a few minutes ago. And then, I am branching out into other crafty areas, too, and that will generate more goodies than I can possibly wear myself.

Another thing I have been thinking about is branding, and how to go about it. If you are here on the site instead of in a reader, you may notice that the theme is different. It’s only a little different on the outside, but it’s a completely different theme on the inside. The last time I switched themes, I got fussed at because people expected the yarn header, so I kept it this time. It’s part of my brand. It is what makes this blog Cass Knits! instead of just another crafting blog. Many of you know that the yarn in the header was my actual stash at one point in time.

So, here I am, wanting to sell hand-dyed yarn, patterns and perhaps some other things, with a header that is uniquely my own. It should be pretty obvious by now what I’ve done. I uploaded my header to Vista-Print. I’m ordering business cards and and a couple of Car Magnets. The business cards should be free or very cheap and I’ll use CarDoor25 to get 25% off of my Car Door Magnets. And then when people visit and see the header, they’ll feel as at home as I hope you already do.

Frankly, I am a little nervous. But I can’t get it out of my mind, and so it must be time. So…. who needs yarn?

:kitchen: I made and took pictures of this chili some time ago. It is just so good! I make a large batch of it, and we eat it as a main meal with corn chips or tortillas, and then I freeze the left overs in 2 cup or so containers to use as a condiment for other Mexican foods. Yumm! I got the original recipe out of Colorado Cache Cookbook, and their more complicated version is a signature dish for La Bola in Denver. Shh, don’t tell anyone that mine is easier and just as tasty.

Green Chili

You’ll need:
2-3 pounds of pork stew meat, or chopped shoulder or, you know, pork
3 28 ounce cans of diced tomatoes
garlic powder or minced garlic to taste
21 ounces of canned diced green chilis
1 ounce of hot peppers if desired (I skip this so the kids can eat it, too)
1 tablespoon of sugar
1.5 tablespoons of salt

Brown your pork and cook it until it looks dry.

Pour off the grease if you need to, but if you used lean meat, you probably won’t have too. Add the tomatoes, chilis and seasonings.

Stir it together and let it simmer for at least an hour, OR as long as you can stand to wait.

Serve alone or over burritos.

P.S. Like most chilis, this one is even better the next day, so make it in advance if you can.

Here’s the skinny: Go here and order this. In case that last link only works for me, this is what you are looking for.

You find it under “aromatherapy”.

The fat: When Ang. and I were in Vegas, we tried some salt scrub stuff on our hands, and it felt. so. good! However, we had just dropped a load of dough on face stuff and so we decided not to buy it. Since then, I have popped in to B&BW a couple of times expressly to sample one of their hand scrubs. And then I walked out withut buying them because I am a stingy woman when it comes to anything except crafts. Or shoes. But we won’t go there.

Anyway, when Ang. started selling Arbonne a couple months ago, I was all set to give her an order, because that’s what friends do, right? So, I asked her if they carried “any of that sea salt stuff”. And she said yes, and I said “I’ll take that” and she gave me a discount because that’s what BFFs do, and she sent it to me. And then I let it sit on my dresser for several weeks, while she kept asking me if I’d used it. Because I am lame. And busy, very busy. Yes, too busy to wash my hands, I guess.

But I tried it this morning, and then I came and sat right down to tell you about it. Because it is good. The scent is nice, neither floral nor fruit, and it lingers just enough to remind me to feel my hands and revel in their softness. And I bet when I knit today, the yarn doesn’t catch in my raspy old lady hands. Mostly because I now have soft sweet-young-thing hands. So, go get some. Right now.

Over the weekend, after I finished with the sewing box, and made a necklace that I haven’t showed you yet, but I will on Friday, I started this:

I should say restarted, because we have tried to put it together once before. Dh and I bought it several years ago in Myrtle Beach to decorate our room. It will take me awhile to finish it, since I will only be taking it out on weekends. Good thing out tastes are relatively settled, huh? We still love it.

Let me say, if you have never worked a Fred Schmid puzzle, they are wonderful. Hard, but wonderful. The pieces are small but very sturdy, thicker than the other brands. They just feel good in the hand, and if you are a knitter, you know that is a high complement indeed, especially when applied to something other than yarn, LOL.

I just wanted to post a quick reminder that time is running out to enter the giveaway for Tweed. The deadline is Thursday at midnight, so if you’ve been meaning to enter, but kept putting it off, you might want to do that now.

That’s it for right now. For some reason, my husband actually expects me to educate his children if I am not shelling peas and beans or organizing major parts of the house. The nerve of that man, right?

Speaking of vegetables, all those nice lesson plans I write for the next 12 weeks a couple of weeks ago, have fallen to the wayside. Well, not completely, but we are not quite current with them. It’s ok, because we already had in 120 school days for this calendar year before I write them, and that also means the quota for the school year that started last summer is met. We’re still pressing on because I have a more ambitious agenda for us this year. And in truth, the children are not as behind as I am, because they have done school on days I wasn’t able to check them out due to working the produce. Which is a really good thing, considering my mother is planning to come here tomorrow with THREE BUSHELS of something to freeze.

Better get stitching, huh? I mean schooling. Schooling, that’s right.

You know, I used to doubt that Google was out to take over the world, but I’m beginning to wonder. I have long turned to Wikipedia and About.com when I needed encyclopedic information but Google is getting into the online encyclopedia act, too.

They are doing it differently, though. Whereas wikis are editable by the community, each knol author decides how much “help” they want from others. There is another difference, too. You can find lots of info on knitting at wikipedia, but there is no knitting knol. Yet. You can, however, get a grand theft auto 4 walkthrough if you are the sort of person who plays video games instead of knitting.

//*cough* now I know what Dan was doing while Trevor was making everyone chuckle over the fact that I was knitting during a conference//

Actually, all kidding aside, I think it’s a great thing. Between wiki, knol and about, there is no need to remain ignorant on any subject. Not only is there someone somewhere who knows the answer to your question, but they’ve most likely put it right at the end of you searching fingertips. It’s a marvelous age….if you can form the question, you can find the answer in seconds. I’ve learned so much in he past few years just surfing the internet reading whatever piqued my curiosity. The other day, I was able to find and apply a coding fix for an issue I was having on one of my blogs, and I just felt so smart! Not that I found it on any of those sites, but, umm, I don’t often get to feel like a screaming genius, so I wanted to mention it.

P.S. I’m wearing something I knit at this year’s conference. What’s Dan got to show for all that video game playing?

P.P.S. Is anyone current listening to Cast-On? Did Brenda ever get that knitting wiki off the ground?

Today, I attacked the box of sewing stuff. I released these items, some to quilt fabric, some to freecycle:

I finished these items, all of which were given to me mostly finished:

I repaired these things:

And here is what is left from the sewing box:

Here is what it looked like yesterday:

First, off the stuff I made. We talked about

But I forgot to mention this, even though I put it on the FO page:

Sometimes a girl just gets distracted.

And then I did this:

But don’t clap too much, because it looked like this when I started.

But I finished it. That’s the important thing, see.

Second, I started this wallaby for Stuntman:

and this gratitude hat:

I had to start it because 2 balls of yarn rolled off by themselves to procreate in the corner while I was sorting, and I must knit them into submission because I absolutely refuse to budge from the almost accurate count of 260 that I have posted.

Thirdly, I packed up a couple years worth of gratitude knitting for this year’s Santa Train. This is what about half of that pile looks like:

Finally, I have sorted all my craft crap today . Seriously. As soon as I hit publish on this post, I will be updating the stash page with the rest of it. It is staggering. Truly. And yes, I have free cycled some of it, because I could and should.

So, hey! What have you been up to?

Take a picture of your current project, whatever that happens to be. Or maybe one you recently finished. Or the materials for the one you are about to start. Let’s say materials for a project in whatever state it happens to be in at the time you snap it. On Friday, post the picture and tell us about your project. What you did, or what you are going to do. How much you are enjoying it, or hating it. You know–show and tell.

Just copy & paste the code below the graphic and get crafty with me!

<a href="http://www.cassknits.com/category/online-craft-club/"><img src="http://i236.photobucket.com/albums/ff136/cassknits/online-craft-club-sidebar-sized.jpg" alt="" /></a>

Be sure to come back and leave a comment so we know where to find you!

[tags]Online Craft Club[/tags]