On a Whim Crafting

       Lately I have spent a lot of time on my Ultimate Sweater Machine. I can not hand knit but that does not keep me from knitting up great Christmas gifts. This are inspired hats and not official gear. The patch I purchased on line and carefully ironed on to the knit fabric. Materials for this hat (adult/large Adult) 100 needle bed machine. bulky yarn needle weights/ or weighted hem two yarn colors in worsted 4 ply I used Redheart pompom maker large row counter keyplate 2.5 To begin close cast on (e-wrap) 78 needles. Then add your hem with rods. With COR(carriage on Right) and needles in forward work position thread main color. Knit 20 rows. This will be your rolled edge.  Carriage should be on right. Change to color B or White in this example. knit a few stitches and tie the two yarns together to keep them secure. continue knitting for 2 rows. Now switch to MC and knit 6 rows. Now go back to Color B and knit 2 rows.  Continue switching until you have reached 70

      The other day while shopping for school supplies I came across this handy gadget on clearance for $20 bucks!! It normally sells for about $99 in store. With it comes a pan, cookbook and great instruction manual. No learning curve really, it was pretty straight forward coming out of the box. So far I have made chips, fried cheese sticks and pancakes this morning. The recipe for the pancakes was good but I think I can tweak it a bit and make it better. Because it works when the magnetic surface comes in contact with the steel pan the surface does not heat up until the pan is placed on it. If you pans are steel you can use them on the cooktop. It has pre-set temp buttons on the front and keeps the temperature consistent. You can also adjust the temperature yourself in increments of 5 degrees. For example it recommend a temperature of 375 degrees. However, feeling that it maybe too hot I turned the temperature down to 360 and the pancakes were a perfect golden brown. I love the pr

    I have been waiting all summer for the right time to start playing with my yarn. Last fall/winter and part of the spring I was a pretty busy bee on my Ultimate Sweater Machine. If you don't know what it is , it is a home hobby knitting machine. It is easy to assemble and does not need electricity, you put in the muscle. I make some great beanies on it. I can honestly say I have mastered the striped beanie pattern in the book and was comfortable enough to make my own alterations to the pattern. Here are some of the things I was able to do on this machine. These are just a few of what I did on the machine. If you would like a tutorial on how I make them please let me know in the comments. Thanks again and have a great evening. Sandy

I did not realize how much time has passed since my last blog entry. Sorry. Since last year I have begun a new adventure with ItWorks Global. www.wrapwithsandyep.myitworks.com If you have never heard of ItWorks, it is a health and wellness company whose flagship product is the Skinny wrap. I was hooked the first time I tried one and decided to become a distributor. My personal results floored me and my family members. I lost a total of 4 inches around my waist, by my 4th wrap/. These wraps firm, tighten and tone the area to which they are applied to, they are ready to go right out of the package. I have found that the results last anywhere from 2-6 months depending on my eating habits. I have maintained the inches lost by wrapping at least 2 times a month. This month we decided to take a little vacation and you know what that means horrible eating, well at least that is what it means for me. So I have started my cleansing and toning routine to get back to where I was before we

Now that Fall is here upon us, it is time for us to pull out our stew and soup recipes. Some of our cultural staples here in The Borderland, are caldo de rez (beef soup), Chile Verde (Pork green chile stew), pozole ( hominy) and menudo ( hominy and tripe stew). Today I'm going to share with you my Hatch Green Chile Stew or Chile Verde. What you will need: 1 1/2 lbs. pork stew meat (already pre-cut for you, you may need to cut some of the larger chucks), or pork shoulder cut into small chunks. 1/4 cup of cilantro chopped roughly 3 cloves of garlic 1/2 of a white onion 3 russet potatoes, peeled and cubed. 4 cups chicken stock . 1/2 cup of Hatch Green Chile prepared. salt and pepper to taste 1teaspoon cumin 1 teaspoon paprika 1/2 teaspoon oregano If you can't find it prepared:  measurements are approximate , they can be adjusted to taste. 4 hatch green chiles 1/4 white onion 2 cloves of garlic 1 lime juiced 1 tomato  salt and pepper to taste 1/4 teaspo

I did not finish the Slim in 6. The final phase was too intense for me and I was dealing with a neck injury. I am currently going to a chiropractor 2 times a week to help with my degenerative disc disease. He has given me the OK to begin exercising again while under his watchful eye. So first thing after he gave me the OK I went to my family doctor and got the OK from him as well with the caution to start with low impact and only 3 days a week to begin with. One late night I saw an infomercial for this exercise program and went ahead and ordered it, but I didn't use it until today. I will begin. It is low impact has different levels of intensity and mommy friendly. The part that got me was that it helps strengthen the back. Moms tend to carry children, heavy groceries and laundry baskets among other things. On my off days I will still do 20 minutes of walking on the treadmill. my starting weight surprisingly is where I left off with Slim in 6, 181lbs. Although I haven't worke