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Yay! I had some time to get crafty, so I wanted to share it with you in the form of a tutorial! :D

The hectic holidays are over, so I had a little time to dust off Winifred (my trusty sewing machine) and get to work on a few projects. One of them was this super easy patchwork infinity (or circle) scarf that I’ve been wanting to make.

It just so happened that I had three scraps of fabric the perfect size for this (not that there’s any size requirements, this one is so easy, you can pretty much make it up as you go), and WHAT??!! They matched? DANG. Triple win!

This is a great project for using up a lot of tiny scraps too, if you have more time/patience on your hands. Wouldn’t it be fun with a bunch of tiny squares of fabric of equal size that were all different (or you could even go with alternating squares or rectangles or two different types for a striped effect)? Or you can definitely go neutral or vibrant with a solid color, too. See! The possibilities are endless…

Here’s what you need:

• sewing machine
• scissors or rolling cutter blade thingy and a cutting mat (i’m good at technical terms, can you tell?)
• ruler or other length/width measuring device
• thread
• hand-sewing needle
• iron and ironing board
• pins
• fabric scraps/strips/yardage depending on the look you’re going for

Once you’ve got all that it’s simple! I made my scarf kinda skinny (because the width of my scraps limited me a bit), so I made sure to make it extra long so that it could still look full when I twist it around to wear it. Once I cut them all to the same width, this is what my pieces measured:

1. 45 inches by 13 inches
2. 31 inches by 13 inches
3. 49.5 inches by 13 inches

Hope your holidays were grand and you had some time to relax! I know I was happy to take a deep breath and sleep a lot! If you make one (or many!) of these (because they’re so addicting, I want to use up all of my scraps this way now!), let me know in the comments! I’d love to see them!

Sleep tight, lovies! It’s early (read: late? you can tell by my overuse of exclamation points and parenthetical comments…), so I’m off to bed!

Hope you had a relaxing weekend!

i made this beautifully aromatic soup yesterday, in an effort to stock my freezer with yummy stuff to eat for a while and use up some of the fresh veggies we got at the farmer’s market last week.

as i type this, i’m enjoying a delicious bowl of it, and since i sort of made it up as i went, i thought i ought to share it with you!

Ingredients:

-5 lean turkey italian sausages (sweet or hot), taken out of the casings
-1 yellow onion
-2 tsp minced garlic
-bunch of kale, stemmed and washed
-carrots, about 1 cup
-4 medium-sized red potatoes, cubed
-1 can cannellini beans
-1 can diced fire-roasted tomatoes
-4 cups veggie broth (or chicken broth)
-4 cups water
-1 tbsp italian seasoning
-2 bay leaves

optional: this would make a fantastic spicy soup if you like it that way! add some crushed red pepper to the sausage while you’re browning it, as well as some to the broth while it simmers.

Directions:

Brown sausage (out of the casings) in the bottom of a dutch oven or large stock pot with onions and garlic. Do not drain, turkey sausage is very lean and the juices will give great flavor to the broth. Stir in kale and cook until wilted, about 2 minutes. Add all remaining ingredients and stir occasionally, simmering for 30 minutes.

Makes 8 servings

(For those of you counting your WW Pts+ like me, my recipe calculator confirms that this delicious soup is only 6pts+ for each serving, which ends up being almost 2 whole cups! :D)

along with soup (which was a completely unplanned pairing of things, but now that i think about it, it’s quite funny) my good friend Brittany of Pro-Soup Propaganda is hosting a giveaway for a pair of my earrings that ends next Monday! Check out her blog here to learn how to enter!

hope you enjoy the soup if you make it! and don’t forget to tell Brittany she’s awesome!

this may be old news if you’ve been following me on twitter or facebook, but I’ve crossed off another goal on my Goals for 2011 page!

i opened up my etsy shop with jewelry again! i even added a little sidebar widget to the blog here to show some of the more recent listings (i just noticed the website one right above it seems my image has disappeared. :C …i’ll have to  fix that!)

my old shop was located at pangeastore.etsy.com (which now houses my destash supply shop) so i opened up this new one at pangeahandmade.etsy.com so that it’s consistent with my website name and i’m easy to find for people that might find me at the market in Madison on Saturdays.

anyway, sorry i’m out again, working on some new pieces that need my attention, as well as trying to think of something to eat for dinner….ugh. see you again soon!

Hubbs and i went to the farmer’s market an hour early yesterday, so we could get some produce before setting up at our vendor site for Pangea Handmade, and the resulting breakfast this morning was SO good. it’s really amazing what fresh ingredients can do to your cooking. seriously.

we got a pound of asparagus, a pound of New potatoes, a quart of strawberries, and some vanilla mocha caramel corn. yum! next week it’s going to be more strawberries, cremini mushrooms, spinach, and maybe some more asparagus! i’ve never seen asparagus this thick before, it was so delicious!

so back to breakfast. i sauteed up three spears of the asparagus in some olive oil and minced garlic. once the spears were tender (about 10 minutes on low), i cracked an egg over them, added a little dash of pepper and salt, and covered it to cook a little bit longer. it was melt-in-your-mouth good!

i also tossed some of these juicy strawberries into the blender with some orange juice and frozen berries and yogurt to make a smoothie. i really don’t know why i buy produce anywhere but from the growers. it makes so much of a difference, it’s ridiculous.

for those of you that are curious, weight watchers points+ says my meal was worth only 7 points+ or about 360 calories. perfect! :D