This pattern isn’t necessarily Valentine’s related, I just liked it!
Find the pattern here.
Valentine’s Cozy Roundup – Day 5
Valentine’s Cozy Roundup – Day 4
I saw some ideas on Pinterest for cozies with popcorn stitch hearts. The links to the patterns weren’t good, so I made up a pattern!
Stitches Used:
- Chain (ch)
- Single crochet (sc)
- Slip stitch (sl st)
- Half double crochet (hdc)
- Popcorn stitch (pop) – There are a couple of different ways to do this. My favorite is as follows:
- Yarn over and insert hook from front to back in to stitch, yarn over and draw yarn through stitch (3 loops on hook), yarn over and draw through two loops (2 loops on hook)
- Yarn over and insert hook from front to back in to same stitch, yarn over and draw yarn through stitch (4 loops on hook), yarn over and draw through two loops (3 loops on hook)
- Yarn over and insert hook from front to back in same stitch, yarn over and draw yarn through loops (5 loops on hook), yarn over and draw through two loops (4 loops on hook)
- Yarn over and insert hook from front to back in same stitch, yarn over and draw yarn through loops (6 loops on hook), yarn over and draw through two loops (5 loops on hook)
- Yarn over and insert hook from front to back in same stitch, yarn over and draw yarn through loops (7 loops on hook), yarn over and draw through two loops (6 loops on hook)
- Yarn over and draw through all loops on hook
Cozy Pattern:
Chain 30 and sl st in first chain being careful not to twist.
R1: Ch 2, 7 hdc, 1 pop, 14 hdc, 1 pop, 7 hdc, sl st to first hdc
R2: Ch 1, 30 sc, sl st to first sc
R3: Ch2, 5 hdc, 1 pop, 3 hdc, 1 pop, 10 hdc, 1 pop, 3 hdc, 1 pop, 5 hdc, sl st to first hdc
R4: Repeat R2
R5: Ch2, 3 hdc, 1 pop, 7 hdc, 1 pop, 6 hdc, 1 pop, 7 hdc, 1 pop, 3 hdc, sl st to first hdc
R6: Repeat R2
R7: Ch2, 1 hdc, 1 pop, 5 hdc, 1 pop, 5 hdc, 1 pop, 2 hdc, 1 pop, 5 hdc, 1 pop, 5 hdc, 1 pop, 1 hdc, sl st to first hdc
R8: Repeat R2
R9: Ch2, 1 hdc, 1 pop, 3 hdc, 1 pop, 3 hdc, 1 pop, 3 hdc, 1 pop, 2 hdc, 1 pop, 3 hdc, 1 pop, 3 hdc, 1 pop, 3 hdc, 1 pop, 1 hdc, sl st to first hdc
R10: Repeat R2
R11: Ch2, 3 hdc, 1 pop, 7 hdc, 1 pop, 6 hdc, 1 pop, 7 hdc, 1 pop, 3 hdc, sl st to first hdc
R12: Repeat R2, break yarn and work in ends
Sham-Ombre Hat Pattern
I created a St. Patrick’s worthy hat pattern consisting of the standard shamrock and an ombre effect as the hat transitions to the crown. I chose two coordinating green tones of Knit Picks Hawthorne fingering weight yarn that is light and perfect for spring. I love the subtle design and the two beautiful yarn tones! Because of the subtle effect, the hat doesn’t scream St. Patrick’s day and can be worn on other days throughout the year.
Buy the pattern on Etsy here or on Ravelry here. The pattern is a written pattern, if you would prefer a chart, please contact me, and I can make that happen!
Materials:
Go to this link to buy a kit with everything you need to make this hat on Amazon.
- Two colors of fingering weight yarn
- 5 Size US 5 double pointed needles
- Tapestry needle
Stitches Used:
Please comment below with any questions!
Valentine’s Cozy Roundup – Day 3
I love this cozy because instead of hearts, it has lips. The lip pattern can be found here.
I decided to have some fun, so instead of using a plain cozy pattern, I made up one with a little extra texture.
Stitches Used:
Cozy Pattern:
Chain 30 and sl st in first chain being careful not to twist.
R1: Ch 2, hdc in each chain around, sl st to first hdc (30 hdc)
R2: Ch 2, hdc in third loop around, sl st to first hdc (30 hdc)
R3: Repeat R2
R4: Repeat R1
R5: Repeat R2
R6: Repeat R1
R7: Repeat R2
R8: Repeat R2
R9: Repeat R1
R10: Repeat R2
R11: Repeat R1
R12: Repeat R2
R12: Repeat R2
R13: Repeat R1
Break yarn. Sew on applique, and weave in ends.
Valentine’s Cozy Roundup – Day 2
Day 2’s cozy is a puff stitch cozy from the Roving Nomad. I love how the v-shaped puff stitches resemble hearts! The only edits I made were to use a H-hook and start with a chain of 30 instead of 24.
Valentine’s Cozy Roundup – Day 1
I had surgery this week and am supposed to be doing nothing at home, so I whipped up six coffee cozies for my kids to give their teachers for Valentine’s Day. I plan to share one cozy a day until the big event!
Day 1 – The Love Cozy
I saw a pattern I liked on Pinterest for a coffee mug cozy with the word “love” embroidered on it. I wanted this to by a coffee cup cozy, not a mug cozy, so I followed this simple pattern by Dakotah Knits.
After I finished the cozy, I chain stitched the word “love” on the cozy. Easy and cute!
Sweetheart Hat Pattern
I wrote a guest blog this week over at Her Exchange about self-care through creativity, especially knitting and crocheting. If you read the article, you’ll read about how after having kids, I really lost the joy in knitting in crocheting due to real or self-imposed deadlines and closed down my Etsy shop. I have decided to change the focus of my shop and reopen! Instead of selling finished products, I’m going to try to start selling my patterns. And if I’m being truthful, I really enjoy the design aspect of coming up with a new pattern more than I enjoy making that pattern over and over for clients.
Without further ado, here is my first pattern: the Sweetheart Hat. I designed this hat for my daughter as a Valentine’s seasonal hat, but hearts are really always in season, so she doesn’t have to put it away after the holiday. The pattern features my favorite heart cable that I’ve been putting on everything since college. The hat can be worked in sizes baby through adult, but the cable size does not change so the cable will be more prominent on the baby sizes and less prominent on the adult sizes.
Buy the pattern on Etsy here or on Ravelry here.
Materials:
Go to this link to buy a kit with everything you need to make this hat on Amazon.
- Worsted weight yarn
- 2 Size US 8 needles for cable
- 5 Size US 6 double pointed needles for remainder of hat
- Cable needle
- Tapestry needle
Stitches Used:
- Knit (K)
- Knit two together (k2tog)
- Knit increase two (KInc2)
- Purl two together (p2tog)
- Slip slip knit (ssk)
Please comment below with any questions!
Easy Slow Cooker Ground Beef Stew (Gluten Free)
One of my favorite things to eat as a child was my mom’s “Crockpot Soup.” It was one of those great slow cooker recipes where you just dump in some Campbell’s soup, meat, veggies, and let it stew all day. Unfortunately, Campbell’s tomato soup contains wheat, and I now have to eat gluten-free. I made some adjustments to the original recipe, and I have to say, I actually like the outcome more than the original! This is an easy, hearty, delicious meal. Perfect for these mid-winter evenings. I like to serve it with gluten-free corn muffins.
Servings: 6
Ingredients:
- 1 lb ground beef
- 1 cup diced onions
- 2 carrots diced
- 2 sweet potatoes cubed
- 1 cup frozen peas
- 3 cups organic marinara sauce
- 1 cup chicken broth
- Optional toppings: cheese, sour cream, or Greek yogurt
Directions:
- Break ground beef up into bite sized chunks and place in slow cooker
- Add all remaining ingredients besides optional toppings
- Cook on low for eight hours or high for four hours
- Add toppings and serve with corn muffins
Nutritional Information: Calories 363, Fat 15 g, Cholesterol 49 mg, Sodium 756 mg, Potassium 365 mg, Carbs 34 g, Protein 23 g, Vitamin A 293%, Vitamin C 63%, Calcium 11%, Iron 23%
Mandala Madness Nursery Rug
While I was pregnant with Zoe I found a pattern on Pinterest called Mandala Madness. It looked like so much fun! The pattern created a giant, whimsical circle of crazy crochet techniques and looked like a blast. But what does one do with a giant whimsical circle? I decided to make it and use it as a rug in the nursery.
This project was FUN. It is probably the most fun I have every had crocheting a project. Every row was a different color or texture. I finished all but the last two rows on it before having Zoe. Since her brother moved to a big boy bed last night and she now has a crib in her room, I decided I had better finish the rug so we can finish the nursery. (I’m not finished with her crib blanket, either.) So, eight months later, the rug is finished! I actually didn’t finish the 18 part pattern, I stopped when I got to the rug dimensions that I wanted. I can always add more rows onto it later if I decide to reuse it as a larger circular blanket. Right now it is about 4.5 feet in diameter, which is a great rug but a small blanket.
Is Thrive Market Worth the Membership Cost?
Want to give Thrive Market a shot? Use this code to get 25% off your first order up to a savings of $20.
Thrive Market is a wholesale organic grocery/natural product store that caters to specialized diets. They popped up on several of my deals sites this week because they are offering 25% off the first order one makes with them up to a savings of $20. (If you know someone who already uses the services, they can offer you a code that does the same thing.) However, like other wholesale stores, they have a membership fee to join (after a 30 day free trial, so you could always get the $20 off and cancel before the service starts) of $59.95. They claim to save the consumer 25-50% off wholesale prices, but would I really save enough to overcome the membership fee?
For health reasons, I have recently had to go gluten, dairy, and almond free. Grocery shopping just got complicated and expensive. I’ve been trying to save money on a lot of the specialized ingredients required to cook well without those ingredients and was interested in checking out what the company had to offer.
Thrive Market really does cater to specialized diets. A costumer can choose from Certified Gluten-Free, Vegan, Keto, or Whole 30 (just to name a few) and then choose products that fit within his or her needs. From someone with food sensitivities, this is AWESOME. In an actual brick and mortar store, the gluten-free options are spread all throughout the store and one has to read every label. It’s exhausting. This makes that process infinitely simpler.
Having the groceries shipped to your home is also an added convenience. Shipping is free after you spend $49, which isn’t difficult to do when buying groceries. I know I would only use this for large stock-the-pantry type orders.
So let’s get to the cost comparison. Thrive Market claims to save 25-50% off retail prices (and they do), but my local grocery store and Amazon also claim to give me savings. All cost data was extracted from the Thrive Market, HEB, and Amazon websites on January 4, 2019.
The first cost comparison I did was where I saw the best cost savings. Thrive Market has their own brand of organic staples. I compared their prices again my local grocery store, HEB. I compared the Thrive Market brand price against the HEB brand price listed on their website (or the cheapest other brand when an HEB brand wasn’t available). I searched for several of the ingredients that are common ingredients for gluten/diary/almond free cooking and found them to be generally significantly cheaper through Thrive Market.
| Item | Thrive Market | HEB |
| Organic Regular Coconut Milk (13.5 oz can) | $1.99 | $2.29 |
| Organic Coconut Flour (16 oz) | $3.49 | $3.49 |
| Organic Coconut Aminos (10 oz) | $5.69 | $7.86 |
| Organic Arrowroot Powder (16 oz) | $4.29 | $5.37 |
| Organic Raw Cashews (16 oz) | $10.99 | $13.96 |
| Organic Ghee (13.5 oz) | $9.99 | $16.86 |
The second cost comparison I did was on the brand name organic products Thrive Market carries. I chose some products I’ve used and liked in the past at random. I compared these to the listed retail price, the HEB price, the Amazon Prime price, and the Amazon Subscribe and Save price assuming that the customer uses Subscribe and Save to it’s full potential and gets the 15% off discount. In general the Thrive Market and HEB products were identical while the Amazon products were a larger quantity. (For example, you had to buy six tubs of Justin’s Chocolate Hazelnut Butter. I divided the Amazon cost by six to get the per item rate. Also, while buying six on Amazon using Subscribe and Save is the cheapest option, most families probably don’t need six jars of this at a time.)
The results for the best deal were really mixed. None of the baby products checked were cheaper than what is available at the local store. It appears that for the very best deal on the name brand products, one should shop around. However, none of the Thrive Market costs were significantly more than the best deal and there is a convenience factor in knowing that and buying everything in one place.
| Item | Retail Price | Thrive Market | HEB | Amazon Prime | Amazon Subscribe and Save | ||||
| Kind Vanilla Blueberry Granola Bars (5 ct) | $4.29 | $2.79 | -35% | $2.98 | -31% | $3.41 | -21% | $2.90 | -32% |
| PB2 Powdered Peanut Butter (6.5 oz) | $6.15 | $4.29 | -30% | $3.84 | -38% | $ 5.24 | -15% | – | – |
| Justin’s Chocolate Hazelnut Butter (16 oz) | $14.99 | $9.99 | -33% | $10.49 | -30% | $9.99 | -33% | $8.49 | -43% |
| Bob’s Red Mill Gluten-Free All Purpose Baking Flour (22 oz) | $4.79 | $3.79 | -21% | $3.99 | -17% | $4.20 | -12% | – | – |
| Plum Organics Blueberry, Pear & Purple Carrot Baby Food Stage 2 (6 ct) | $12.90 | $7.95 | -38% | $7.08 | -45% | $15.34 | 19% | – | – |
| Happy Baby Organic Purple Carrot & Blueberry Happy Puffs (2.1 oz) | $4.35 | $2.99 | -31% | $2.78 | -36% | $3.36 | -23% | $ 2.69 | -38% |
| Annie’s Organic Cheddar Bunnies Crackers (11.25 oz) | $5.99 | $4.49 | -25% | $3.88 | -35% | $3.19 | -47% | $2.71 | -55% |
In the end, I decided that this is a good fit for my family. The convenience of being able to have many foods that meet my dietary restrictions at my finger tips and the significant cost savings on what are now my pantry staples offset the cost of the yearly membership. I just ordered my first box today. I will post an update after I try their products.
Want to give Thrive Market a shot? Use this code to get 25% off your first order up to a savings of $20.