Stuff I have made recently, for your viewing pleasure

As some of you may be aware, I have been job hunting for the last month or so. Apparently job hunting makes me want to be crafty. So here's a compilation of pictures of what crafty things I have made while avoiding looking for jobs. Also, apparently this is a viable strategy for finding employment, because I now have a new job starting in about a week.

What is this, you may ask? 

It's a thing that goes under the door to block light and sort of block sound maybe a little bit.

I totally made up the pattern for that thing as I went along, but it is basically foam insulation for 1/2 inch pipes covered in fabric, and then the part that goes under the door is stuffed with fiber fil to make sure it goes all the way up to the bottom of the door because there's about a 1 inch gap. It's prettier and more convenient than the blanket we were using before, and now I can use the blanket as... well, a blanket instead.

On to the next one...

DOTA 2 Pillow!

Side view of the DOTA 2 pillow

This one is entirely for my husband, who plays quite a bit of DOTA 2 to unwind after finishing all his school projects. It's just fleece for the fabric, cut into a square, sewn together, flipped, and stuffed with fiber fil. For those who have never played DOTA 2 (including me), this is the logo that shows up on Steam when you go to launch it. I made this pattern up too, sort of; I printed out the DOTA 2 logo and used it as a template.

Fingerless gloves

Since I get really cold hands when I sit at the computer all day, I made myself these fingerless gloves out of cotton yarn that I had no other plans for. Pattern here. Buttons are from Joann's.

Atmos from Final Fantasy V in perlers

Ahh, back to perlers. This is a boss from Final Fantasy V, Atmos. I was very happy with how it looked in the end with our color choices, and it looks even better now that it's ironed.

IT Crowd perlers

And last but certainly not least, the IT Crowd characters. If you haven't watched The IT Crowd yet, it's a pretty funny show about people who work in IT. (I will issue a language/content warning though; it's not something I'd show to children.)

Not pictured are the 8 hand warmers (little fabric bags filled with rice that you can heat up for cold days) that I cut out the fabric for a year ago and never finished. I finally finished them. Even though it doesn't get that cold here. 

Also in progress: a crochet granny square rug that is nowhere near completion yet. I'll try to make some more headway on it soon. I have about 25% of the squares done so far. I work on them while I watch the Lizzie Bennet Diaries, which apparently everyone else has heard about before I did. At any rate, they make for decent entertainment while I crochet the same thing over and over again. Unfortunately, I am 75% of the way through this little snippet of entertainment, and not 75% done with the granny squares.

On the non-crafty side, I found a recipe for some really delicious peanut butter popcorn. Recipe copied below for your convenience. 

Spread 10 cups popcorn on a baking sheet. In a small saucepan over medium low heat, combine 1/2 cup honey and 1/3 cup sugar. Simmer, stirring frequently, until sugar dissolves. Remove from heat and stir in 1/2 cup peanut butter until melted, then mix in 1/2 teaspoon vanilla. Pour over popcorn and toss well to coat. Let cool before serving.

I also personally like to put salt on it too after pouring the goop over the popcorn. And as a side note, 10 cups of popcorn is about 1/3 c of unpopped popcorn kernels. 

And with that, I'm out.

Twice Baked Potatoes

I tried a new recipe on Sunday - instead of (relatively) boring mashed potatoes, I felt extra ambitious and went for twice baked potatoes. Here's what I did, modified slightly from the recipe on that link:

Twice Baked Potatoes

Ingredients

4 large baking potatoes
1/2 c bacon bits
1 cup sour cream
1/2 cup milk
4 tablespoons butter
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1 cup shredded Cheddar cheese, divided
1/4-1/3 c dried onion

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).  While it's preheating, scrub the potatoes and poke them with a fork.

2. Bake potatoes in preheated oven until a knife slides in easily and they are kind of squishy. This took about an hour and a half for me, though I bumped up the temperature for the last half hour to 400 degrees F. Leave the oven on at 350 F when you take out the potatoes.

3. When potatoes are done allow them to cool for 10 minutes. While they are cooling, measure out the bacon bits, sour cream, milk, butter, salt, pepper, 1/2 c shredded cheese, and dried onion into a medium-large bowl..

4. Slice potatoes in half lengthwise and scoop the flesh into the bowl with the other ingredients; save potato skins. Leave about 1/4 in of potato in the skins to make them a little sturdier.

5. Mix potato goop with a hand mixer until well blended and creamy.

6. Spoon the mixture into the potato skins. Top each with remaining cheese.

7. Bake for another 15 minutes, or until cheese is melted.

Makes 8 potato halves, which is about 8 servings if you serve it as a side dish. I hear you can easily modify the recipe to use with small potatoes if you want to serve them as appetizers, too.

Unfortunately I didn't get a picture before they were all consumed, but they were really good. I served them with pork roast (cooked in the crockpot with 1 can cream of mushroom soup, 1 packet of Liption onion soup mix, and 3/4 c water for about 6 hours on high for most of the time) and fresh pineapple, with homemade donuts for dessert. Which reminds me, I'll have to post about homemade donuts sometime too...