I think it's time to retire Punxsutawney Phil

Or at least stop letting him predict winter's end for the entire country.  His "Six more weeks of winter," was a lie, at least here in Colorado.  Here, winter was very short.  A lot of January was quite mild, and the only winter weather we have seen in February was a nasty (and thankfully rare,) ice storm on, haha, Groundhog Day.  The last several weeks have been absolutely beautiful, if windy.  And the wind is quite typical for this time of year.

What isn't typical is all the brush fires around the state right now.  If we're this dry now, I am afraid of July and August.  We are very much still in a drought, despite the mountains getting exceptional snow falls this year.  It might rain today and Thursday.

In other news, I read an article last year that said jalapenos were difficult to overwinter.  So I didn't.  This fall, it was still producing late in the season, so I brought it inside. 

This is what it looks like now.  It has at least 4 peppers on it, plus additional blooms.  I believe it thinks that the writer of the article I read really doesn't know what they're talking about, haha.

I am going to need a larger freezer bag for peppers at this rate.  Which is good and maybe I will actually start using them again.  Last winter I put them in just about everything. 

But with my oral surgery this fall, I am really just now getting back to eating "normally," so things cooked low and slow in the crockpot and heavy on the sauce have been pretty much the usual.

We grilled Cowboy burgers the other night (diced jalapeno, onion, bacon and shredded cheese mixed in to the ground beef, with a bit of cayenne in there to up the heat!) and I did just fine, so I am good to go for pretty much anything now, I think ;) 

Next up, Honey Jalapeno Grilled Pork Chops!

The teen daughter decided that she needed to knit a toy for her favorite teacher's daughter.  We settled on a cute little monster from Rebecca Danger's repertoire, the Round Christmas Monster. We tagged-teamed it, since a few of the stitches were confusing (KFB had her eyes crossing, haha).  It was a nice Mother/daughter project and we had a good time with it.

It actually has both arms now and is just awaiting eyes. Which maybe we will put on it soon...  And I am thinking of adding ears.  The pattern calls for ears, but I don't use magic loop and the ears as written were a big, fat, pain in the arse.  Next she wants to knit Beans, the Cat for the little girl's brand new baby brother.  I see this as being a joint project as well.

Catching up

Winter is truly here now, we got over 8 inches of snow yesterday and it's cold and bright today.  My Acadia hat is getting much use this winter.  The double band keeps my ears lovely and warm.  We needed the snow, as it's been a quite dry, mild winter for the most part.  We seem to get several days of bitter cold, then blam!  Right back up into the 40s. 

Last Friday we hit 55°F and had a lovely Pokemon Go run in the park.  Now we are pretty much snowed in, since Hubby took the truck to work this morning and I just can't make myself go anywhere in the car, even though it's all wheel drive, and the main roads are probably ok again.

I am quite thankful 2016 is over, the last several months SUCKED.  Unfortunately, I am not feeling overly optimistic that the next 4 years are going to be any better. 

My goal for 2017 is to find a part time job that I enjoy, rather than something I endure.  Although, that may happen, as I have dental work out of the ying to pay for. 

After a good start with the new expac for WoW, Legion, I am now bored again.  We went from having many guildies on at a time, to maybe having two or three now, so I think a lot of people are on the same page.  We can't get enough people to raid, and LFR rewards just aren't enough to spend time doing that.  As usual, the casual gamer is pretty well ignored in favor of the hard core raider.

Even World Quests, which were once a great way to get geared up, have lost their charm, as they rarely give anything good even for my alts now and Emissary loot boxes seem to be stuck on 835 gear, and absolutely worthless.  Hoping that the next patch opens new content and the final steps for flying.  Until then, I go in briefly each day to do my daily pet battle and on Tuesday to kill the weekly World Boss.  I did get a legendary item drop on an alt this week, so that was great :)

Well...

I have spent more time on my book blog than here, obviously. We mostly skipped Fall here, Summer was officially over Nov. 17 when the temp went from nearly 80°F on the 16th to freezing and snowy the next day, haha. Until then, the weather had been unusually mild.

And with the cold comes the knitting! I am much more motivated to knit when it's cold out, haha. I finished my Blackrose socks in Blue Moon Fiber Arts' Socks That Rock, Morticia colorway. I love them in all of their purple and black glory! Now I am knitting a blanket square with the left over yarn.

It's weird not having a sock on the go though. Must be time to look through Ravelry again, see if I can find something fun to start. I am getting quite a bit more confident in the knitting now, changing patterns to suit me (I kind of winged it on the heel length, gussets and even the toe shaping of my Blackrose socks, haha. I got about 2/3 done with the 1st sock before I decided I didn't like the heel as written and tinked back.).

Next up is to umm, finish the thumb on the 1st White Witch Mitten and then cast on for #2. Maybe have a full pair before winter's end?? Maybe?

I'm stash knitting now, since I still haven't gotten a job and I have dental bills from hell to pay and therefore no yarn budget at all. Most of what I have is bits and bobs of sock yarn. I see multiple blanket squares in my future.

I have a ton of red cotton that I bought to make a Cherry Bomb, but it's been hibernating for so long I think it probably needs to hit the frog pond, since gods only know where I stopped, haha. And frankly, who wants to knit a tank top in winter, haha.

I even walked in to the teen's room the other day and found her knitting again, so apparently she's also decided the change in weather means knits!

Finally, some rain.

Like I said in my previous post, it's been super dry and hot here.  Yesterday we got lucky and things cooled off early.  Yay, for being able to open the windows before midnight!  We also got rain off and on all night.  It's now starting to rain again, which is brilliant.  First because, you know, cooler weather.  Second, because I don't have to water.  My container garden needs watering every day.  The tomatoes get a gallon of water each, most days.  The jalapeno, not so much, but it still needs watering.

Then there is the little yard out front that while there's no grass, still needs watering for the lilies and the bushes and the two sad trees.  One was dead on top, so last week I sawed the top half off.  The other one is an evergreen, that is mostly red.  If it were my tree (we rent), I'd have cut it down by now.

Of course, as I watch it hail and absolutely pour down on my plants, I am a wee bit worried for them.  I would normally pull them inside but I opened the door and got a face full of water, so hey, you're outdoor plants, deal with the rain.... And 2 of the tomato plants are over 5 feet tall, so not easy to move.  Strangely, the two tall plants are not the same type of tomato.  The one to the left is an Early Girl, which has multiple fruit on the vine, the other two are Big Beef plants.  The jalapeno is finally about to flower!

And I do like the rain, now that the hail has stopped. Plus, it's Colorado, so I give it a few more minutes and the storm  will move on.  And then the humidity will come back, haha.  We're not supposed to be humid, we're in a high desert climate.  But today the Midwest was way less humid than we were.  What's up with that??

And on that note, I'm going to go open all the windows again, watch some ghosty shows on YouTube and knit on my newest sock, Black Roses for Morticia.

Summer

Summer is officially here. It's even damned hot here in the foothills. Unlike a lot of the west though, we've been lucky *knock wood* We've had two small wildfires started by lightening, but both were contained the same night. Which was good, because we're tinder dry right now, after having a nice wet spring.

The good news is, my tomato plants are loving it and are flowering madly, with a few baby tomatoes on one already. The jalapeno, well, it's not as happy this year. I think we went right from too cool to too hot for it. It comes inside in the afternoon, as soon as the temp hits close to 90°.

As for me, as a result of the warm weather, the knitting has slowed down. Who wants to knit wooly things in 95° F weather? (Although I did just ball up a skein of yarn for a new pair of socks, and I also just finished another blanket square) So I've been spending a lot of my time reading. I am pretty well hooked on Cozy (though I hate the term) mysteries, as can be seen on my book blog, Give Me a Book. I have had a great time with NetGalley, getting books and reviewing them.

Sadly, this genre is being hit by major cuts. The genre is glutted. I mean, you name a subject, there's a cozy mystery based around it. Like popcorn? Yep, there's a popcorn shop mystery series. Cheese? Yeah, there was one of those too. Knitting, soap and candle making, crochet, paper making, scrapbooking, tea shops, gluten free bakeries, spice shops, the list goes on. Ever looked in the mystery section at your local bookstore? You're spoilt for choice! And even I can't read everything, haha. I certainly can afford to buy everything.

And a lot of those books are "Write for Hire," meaning that the publisher comes up with the basic idea, and the writer just fleshes it out in to a full-fledged book. So when the publisher says, "no thank you, we don't want any more" there's nothing the author can do. The author in fact, usually doesn't even write the books under their own name, think Carolyn Keene and Kathryn Kenny, of Nancy Drew and Trixie Belden fame.

No matter what, it means that some of our favorite mystery series have to go. Many contracts weren't renewed, with little to no notice, so we'll never see closure for some of these series. That makes me sad.

So I am doing my little part, asking my library to purchase the books I can't get, posting reviews on my book blog and Goodreads. Meanwhile, I've read some great books lately. And a few not so great as well, but those are few and far between.

Another star gone too soon

As I was sitting at the computer this morning, I noticed a headline about a body at Prince's Paisley Park residence, but didn't think much of it.  Then Isabel walked over to the other computer a few minutes later and the headline had changed.  "Prince found dead at Paisley Park, age 57" and I wanted to cry.  Another loss so soon in 2016.  It's been a tough year.  First Lemmy, then Bowie and shortly after, Alan Rickman.  Now Prince.  My childhood is dying, and it makes me so very sad.

Dearly beloved
We are gathered here today
To get through this thing called life

Electric word life 

It means forever and that's a mighty long time
But I'm here to tell you
There's something else
The after world 

A world of never ending happiness
You can always see the sun, day or night

Spring, in the Rockies

It's April, the table garden is growing so my plants will have a jump start when it's time to put them out around the end of May.  We have a relatively short growing season here, so they start early indoors.  I just have to harden them off again before I start leaving them out all day.  I went for 3 tomato plants and a jalapeno.  All full size, indeterminate tomatoes this year, so I'm not entirely sure how well they will do in containers.

I think this year I need to dig out some old sheets to cover them with, because they're going to quickly get too tall to bring indoors when the weather gets bad. The good news is, I think the pots should be heavy enough this year that even once they are at full height, the wind won't knock them over so easily as it did with the small pots last year.

And see, this weekend's weather report is exactly why they don't go outside yet, even though Mother Nature has been giving us solid 70°F temps during the day for several weeks.  Yep, Mother Nature is having one last (we hope) tryst with Jack Frost this weekend, giving us rain, snow, ice and pure yuck.  We're being told to expect 10"-16" by Sunday morning.  It will also be a heavy, wet snow, which means it'll be a pain in the rear to shovel, so if you have an older neighbor, be kind and shovel for them!

The Teen and I will be running to the library and grocery store after school today, stocking up so we don't have to go out.  We'll just settle in and enjoy a quiet weekend (and hubby and I are on weekend #2 of crappy colds, so we don't really want to do anything anyway.  Today's the first day I've actually had the energy to even think about going anywhere, haha).

And maybe, I will finish the thumb on my first mitten this weekend.  That's the plan, anyway.  That and some Hulu and lots of reading.

Sewing, for knitting needles

The front

I made my daughter a bag for all of her knitting stuff.  It doesn't fit in her locker very well, so she won't use it :(  So since I had a bit of material left and quite a bit of interfacing, I decided to make her a needle roll for her DPNs and her little circular needle.  I bought another yard of the polka dot fabric and measured out 29", then folded the material.  I lined half of the material (what would be the inside of the roll) with iron on fleece interfacing.  Then I took a piece of coordinating pink fabric and cut it to 15"x 7" and lined it as well.  I pinned that to the bottom of the inside piece, and marking lines every 1.5" or so, I sewed little pockets for needles, leaving the edges open for now and the middle unstitched, as well.

Then I cut another piece of the polka dot fabric 15" x 5.5" , lined it and lined it up on the front of the pink pocket.  I then flipped the right sides together and sewed around the entire thing with a 1/4" seam, leaving a three inch gap at the top right so I could pull everything right-side out again, poking out the corners as I went.  I then top-stitched from the top edge down to the top of the pocket to close up the hole.

The backside

Then I sewed down the middle of both pockets, finishing the taller pockets and making two larger pockets for her circs, scissors, etc.

I sewed a piece of ribbon to the right side of the back of the roll, about an inch from the top of the taller pocket, and then sewed a decorative button to hide the stitching and add some fun.   The top portion folds down over the needles, roll it up, tie up the ribbon and viola!  Home for all her DPNs.

The inside

This picture shows the colors off much better, way more true than the pictures of the outside, in case y'all were wondering.  ;)

So very sad

I didn't know them, but that doesn't mean they didn't enhance my life somehow.  When Lemmy died, I was sad, I love Motorhead, and I loved the straight talking Lemmy.

When David Bowie died, a piece of my childhood died as well.  I grew up with the 80s Bowie, suit and tie, pop music.  As I got older I discovered older Bowie, in his Ziggy Stardust years.  He was brilliant.

But I have to say, it's the death of Alan Rickman that nearly has me in tears.  I adored him as the evil Hans Gruber in Die Hard, the nasty Sheriff of Nottingham in Robin Hood and as the delightfully dead pan Alexander Dane in Galaxy Quest.  I even loved him in Dogma as Metatron and the tempted, fallen Harry in Love, Actually.  And from the moment I saw him on screen as Snape, that was it.  Snape was my favorite character in Harry Potter (and darn you WB, for cutting so much of Snape out of The Prisoner of Azkaban!).

His voice, his smile, even his glare, made me smile and shiver.  He was the one man left on my "list," he just got better looking as he got older.  The world will be a much duller place with out Alan Rickman.

Knitting makes things a little better

This is my daughter and her high school Knitting Club.  They knitted hats and donated them to cancer patients at McKee Cancer Center.  They're pretty awesome kids!

Ready to say good bye to 2015

The last 4 days have been rough.  G's dad's brother died Christmas Eve, and one of his mum's sisters died today.  It's hard for G, being so far away.  He can't just hop a plane and be there in a few hours, for funerals and then back to work the next day.  We won't go into the fact that none of us has a current passport at the moment....

The work situation is still up in the air.  G's boss has been stringing him along since last March.  And I am still unemployed.  Time to step up my job hunt.

GTFO, 2015.  May 2016 treat us all better!

Bear likes it

Same sheet of music

Still knitting Acadia. It's kind of kicking my ass. I think it's under control now. *Knock wood*  We'll see.  At least Coast Guard Alaska keeps me entertained while I am fighting, haha.  I need new episodes!  I am already on season 4 again.   I'm pretty sure I have seen all of season 1-3 at least 3 times, but they never get old.

I only had one crafty item to make as a present for Christmas. I sewed the kiddo a new bag so she can drag her knitting around. It's a messenger style bag. She picked out the material awhile ago, but it has just been sitting there while I was more interested in knitting her last pair of socks. I finally decided to get it done so she could have it for Christmas. I buckled down and got it done the last few days. Today was her last day of school before the holiday, so I was running out of time.  In fact, she called asking me to come pick her up just 20 minutes after I completed the last seam, haha.

I think it turned out pretty well, considering I cobbled together two patterns and kind of flew by the seat of my pants, haha.  At least I know myself well enough to know not to plan on making too many things for the holidays, so there wasn't too much stress ;)  Obviously, I can't post pictures until after Christmas Day.

A little bit of knitting going on

I finished Isabel's green sparkle socks and started a blanket square out of the same yarn.  But then knitting ADD hit, and I started knitting myself a new hat.  But I don't like the way it's going.  I was going to knit an Acadia Cap in the lovely red yarn my daughter gave me for Christmas last year and cable the band in black.  I hate it.  Not just because I seem to be one stitch short all of a sudden.  The black is just too dark (Plus the join looks funky.  Bleh.).  No point in taking the time to cable the band if you can't even see the details, right?   So I am tinking back to the red and going to knit the band in a cream instead.  Sheesh.

Now I am off to pick up the kiddo from her Knitting Club.  Yeah, she's knitting hats too.  Haha.

Thanksgiving

This year most of us have a lot to be thankful for.  There's a lot of scary stuff happening in the world right now and I think we need to be thankful for what we have and what we don't have,

I myself am thankful that my family is healthy and whole.  That my husband has a decent job (and I am thankful that he continues to work there, even though it's not exactly his dream job).  That I no longer work in retail and that I get to stay home on Thanksgiving and Black Friday (for the first time in 13 years!).  That my husband gets to stay home with us because his boss decided to close and still pay them all for Thursday and Friday.

I am thankful that we have food to eat (Everyday, though I will take our Thanksgiving spaghetti feast for the win!), a roof over our heads, cars to drive and places to go.

I am thankful I have yarn to knit, books to read, materials to sew and a sewing machine to sew with, along with video games to play.

I am also thankful that we didn't get 10" of snow last week like my mom and the Quad-Cities (and multiple other places), did.  ;)

Happy Thanksgiving!

Meh.

It's weird, because I usually love this time of year, but right now I just can't get into Halloween.  I have my two wreaths up from last year, and that's it.  I do love the cooler weather.

The sad thing is this meh attitude is creeping into everything.  I had a huge pile of library books, and I would guess that most of them went back to the library with only a chapter or two read.  A few of them were good, and A Red-Rose Chain by Seanan McGuire was outstanding.  I'd been waiting for that one and it was so nice to read something that lived up to its promise.

I tried a few new series, some I thought were ok, and I'll give the next book a try, some of them just made me want to never read another thing by the author ever again.  Yes, Jim and Joyce Lavene, I am talking about you!

One cool thing that has happened, the kiddo has joined her Knitting Club at school and is knitting hats for the homeless and cancer patients.  We knit together a few nights a week while we watch CSI on Hulu, haha.  I'm working on her second pair of socks in the Greenwood Fiberworks Stardust in Watercolor that I bought in April.  We decided on the Vanilla Latte pattern, because it has just enough detail to make them fun to knit and it doesn't over shadow the pretty yarn.  I'm about to the point where I'll need her to try the first sock on so I can see when I need to start decreasing for the toe.

The scary thing is, after these are complete, I am out of sock yarn!! Hubby seems to think I have enough pairs of socks and that I should find something else to knit.  :(  But I love the portability of socks.  Instead, I am going to start knitting my own hat.  The kiddo bought me yarn for Christmas last year, and I think I am going to use it for an Acadia Cap.  I love the thick, warm looking band and I have some leftover sparkly red yarn that I think will make the band even more fun.  And really, it's time to push myself out of my comfort zone and try something new and the cabling on the band is a good place to start cables.

We're also going to go pick out some material this weekend so I can make Isabel a knitting bag.  She's using one of my backpacks , but since it is knit, it's not the best thing for a project bag.  She's got a ziplock baggie inside actually holding her needles and bits and bobs.  I offered to sew her a bag with some pockets that she can keep stuff in instead.

My plants are crazy, my little cherry tomato is slightly confused about the season, there must be twenty tomatoes on it now and at least that many blossoms.  It and my jalapeno have moved into the house for the winter.  We'll keep them going as long as we can.

The kiddo also lettered in Academics for last year.  And she was elected VP of her Interact Club (The Youth version of Rotary).  What started as a mandatory class project ended up something she enjoyed and has continued with.  So proud of her!

Yums!

This post is all about food ;)

Today has been a comfort food/junk food day.  For lunch I had a grilled peanut butter & jelly sandwich, which totally brings back my childhood.  And then while buying the kiddo a new water bottle tonight I found Ho Hos.  I hadn't had a Ho Ho since I was pregnant with her, 16 years ago!  So the box wound up in my little basket and came home with me.

I went out to water my tomato plant today and noticed something bright red in my jalapeno plant.  Yesterday everything was green, today I had a bright red pepper.  I now have a full sandwich baggie in the freezer and there are still nearly 20 peppers on the plant.  Yay!  And we've still been using them fresh off the plant as well.  We had amazing burgers the other day.  G mixes bacon pieces, diced jalapeno and onion in with the meat so every bite has flavor.  Soo good.

But my new favorite recipe is sooo easy.  Two boneless chicken breasts, a can of green enchilada sauce, a chicken bouillon cube and I throw in a tablespoon of taco seasoning.  Cook in a crock pot on low until the chicken pretty much falls apart.  I pull the meat out and shred it, then add some of the sauce to the meat to coat.  Then I take a can of refried black beans and divide it into 4 portions.  Grab 4 burrito sized tortillas and spread the beans along the center.  Put some of the chicken on top and roll up your burrito, place in greased baking dish.  Brush with vegetable oil.

I cook them at 350°F for about 30 minutes, uncovered.  I finish them under the broiler until they're golden brown and crispy.

I serve them with topped with the sauce and cheddar cheese.  So yummy!

We've been eating a lot of chicken.  I make chicken tacos in the crock pot, too.  In fact, this is where I got my recipe for taco seasoning.   Get the recipes here:  Slow Cooker Chicken Tacos & Taco Seasoning.

The crock pot is probably one of my favorite things.  During the summer it keeps me from having to run the oven for too long, and in the winter it's so good for soups.

Back to School

Tomorrow is back to school night for the kiddo.  Though she's not really a kiddo anymore, since she's 15 and about to get her driver's permit!  Normally I would skip back to school night, since she has a good idea of where all her classes are, but she's taking an AP class this year, and we need to get the info for that.  Blech.  Of course, G gets to skip it, because he has to work late tomorrow to get ready for inventory.  He's working his fanny off, trying to train someone to take his place so he can finally move on up!  *Crossing my fingers that it actually happens this time*

It feels like fall at the moment.  Last week we hit 97°F, ick.  But the last two days we've been in the mid 70s during the day, and down in the 40s at night, with some pretty wild and wooly rain storms, causing me to bring in my vegetable garden, as G. calls it.  No rain tonight, but the plants are going to start coming in at night, I think.

Really, there have only been a few nights this summer that we haven't been able to turn off the AC and open up the house to the cool air, but I am really happy when I can just leave the house open all day so I love this cool weather.   Yeah, I know, we're sure to go back up in temp in the next day or two, but I am enjoying it while I can ;)

I finished Isabel's socks, and a blanket square with the leftovers, today.  Tomorrow I will ball up the other yarn I got at the Interweave Yarn Fest (that I talked about here.).  Going to go with the Vanilla Latte pattern, since it's a little different without too much pattern getting in the way of the color (and sparkle!  We can't forget the sparkle!).

If you hear someone cursing loudly, it will be me, as my yarn invariably tangles, haha.

Pssst...  Halloween is right around the cornet!  Along with all things pumpkin!  I love this time of year! 

Summer is nearly over

The last month has flown by.  My gardening efforts this summer have paid off much more than previous years. I have a ton of jalapenos on my plant and still more flowers on their way to being peppers. My cherry tomato is doing well, we've gotten probably 10 or so, so far, with a ton of babies on the vine and a ton more flowers. Sadly, I shocked my regular tomato plant to death trying to put it outside after living inside for months. Next year I will know better. They go out for a short period each day, getting a little longer each day, until about two weeks pass and then they're set. And I think I will go for two regular tomato plants, since really we eat them more and we've not gotten enough cherries at one time to put in anything. But I still consider it a successful crop :)

Also learned, next year the jalapeno will go in the pot I have the cherry tomato in, so the cage will support it a bit.  The tomatoes flat out must go in 5 gallon buckets again, because having to water twice a day means the cherry tomato isn't holding hardly any water, since by afternoon it's wilted :(  Also, the buckets are heavier.  Right now, my tomato falls over at the slightest gust of wind.

Strawberries aren't doing much, but that's to be expected of first year plants. Hopefully we get a nice return next year.  Just have to mulch and stick in the garage and, this is key, remember to water at least once a month!

If hubby's job has been a pain in the ass.  They've been promising to transfer him to sales, but it keeps getting put off.  If it does finally come through, we should be able to save some money and once the kiddo is out of high school, think of buying our own place (and maybe actually be able to help her pay for college!). Then I will have a small garden (though I will likely still have containers, raspberries choke a garden out fast, so I'd love a big barrel planter for them) Of course, if I have a garden I will need a drip feeder for it, since we're so hot and dry in July and August.

Kiddo goes back to school in 10 days! I'm thinking I should probably start looking for a job, lol. It's been nice just hanging out, but don't tell anyone, I'm getting bored! I've gotten Isabel's second sock in Rainbow Bright nearly done. And I have read a ton of books this summer. And watched probably way too many home construction shows on Netflix, haha.  And law enforcement tv, there's a lot of them out there now too!

Happy July!

It's been crazy hot here lately. We went from a late, cool and wet spring to a scorching summer, in what seemed like a week. My little patio garden is doing well, although I did lose my tomato early on. My cherry tomato seems to be thriving. It fell over and the top 12" or so, broke. I ended up cutting it all the way off and sticking it in water, so now I have two cherry tomato plants, both loaded with tomatoes!

I got a sewing machine for my birthday, so one more crafty thing to add to my repertoire, haha. Needless to say, my husband loves me because really he thinks the whole thing is nuts. I immediately made two body pillow covers. My old case was ugly and falling apart, and the kiddo's pillow never had a cover.

Mine is just a simple red and white polka dot pattern with the ends held closed with tied ribbons.

Isabel is a huge Marvel fan, so it only seemed right to get her a comic book pattern with, "POW", "SLAM", "ZAP", etc. all over it. She doesn't like the idea of the ribbons, so we're going to get some snaps and sew them on. Or maybe velcro. I haven't quite decided yet.

Don't look too closely at the open end, the stitches may not be the straightest, but I'm sure I will get better, haha. And no more having to hem my pants with "redneck bling" (staples, hahaha).