vegan banana oatmeal chocolate chip cookies

Bread board made out of an old school desk.

courtesy of How it all Vegan.

2 bananas, mashed
1/2 cup applesauce
3/4 cup dry sweetener
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 1/2 cups flour
2 1/2 cups rolled oat flakes
1 tsp cinnamon (or a ton if you're like me and over-love cinnamon)
1 tsp baking soda
1 cup dark chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 F. In a food processor or small bowl, mix together the bananas, applesauce, sweetener, and vanilla. In a large bowl, stir together flour, oat flakes, cinammon, and baking soda. Add the banana mixture and mix together well. Add chocolate chips. Scoop spoon sized portions onto lightly oiled cookie sheet and bake 12-15 minutes. Makes 6 large or 12 small cookies.

*my mixture seemed dry, so i added a bit of soy milk until it was a bit more wet. This made them turn out a bit bread like, but still super yummy that they got eaten in 2 days. Also mine made 24 cookies?

shake it, shake shake it.

I got my daily dose this morning and was happily surprised with their download offer! I know it's not the real thing, but at 7am i was having fun! Watch demo here. Download here.

cozy hands.

Taken by husband.

lay and love.

I love my bedroom these days. Our place is quite small, so we have to come up with decorating ideas that don't crowd. There are so many things i can't ever throw away, that we have to work around it all, but i'm no hoarder, and luckily these are all precious things. I love birds, and i tend to buy anything in bird form, so you'll see them all over our place, but one evening i was walking home and found this fallen branch and had to make it work. You can imagine my husbands face when i walked through the door with it. So i thought, what better place then with the birds? and deer of course ;-) and i feel like it tied the whole room together, and made it pretty cozy.

I worked so hard on my day off to organize this place. I've been putting off so much work because of cramped space. You can see by example A:

Transformed to this:

I think it came along nicely, and makes for inspiring times. I'm still having a hard time moving over to the sewing machine from the knitting, but i still have so many projects on the go and they are so easy on the these winter nights. I finished a hat, neck warmer and fingerless mitts for two wonderful ladies birthdays and was delighted with the turn-out! no more winter melt-downs.

winter melt down

It's been an incredibly busy week of knitting to the point of a melt down. That's right. My first melt down from knitting. But it's safe to say that it wasn't because i was making something that i loved, or that i was creating something i was really excited of seeing the ending to, but that I was getting some orders done and they were kicking my ass. But in the end i was happy with the turn out, even if the friend wasn't %100 about how the colour came out (that he chose) for the hat. Everything finished how i wanted it to and i was happy with the end result. Here are wrist warmers, one with thumb holes, one without and the hat and of course I had to make some cupcakes to make it all smoothed over. Vegan green tea cupcakes with lemon icing.

We also got back from a trip to the Okanagan to visit the parents and had a wonderful time that was way too short. I'm always reminded when I'm there, of how creative and talented my husband's family is and also of how giving. When talking about looking for a wooden box for my knitting, my father-in-law was quick to mention that he had just the thing.
I absolutely love it! and it will be so nice to keep my skeins from rolling around on the floor when knitting. I think i'll be taking a little break to get some sewing projects started, but when i do pick up the kneedles again it will be to do some of my own warmers and hats and there will be no more melt downs.

The Owls are not what they seem

It's been a busy week of knitting, but I found some time to create this little guy. I didn't follow a pattern as I'm sure most can tell! But I think he turned out quite cute. He was inspired by the current foggy days we've had almost every day this week, which have created a romantically haunting atmosphere. Everything gets so quiet and peaceful, but eerie at the same time.

My new book arrived today, and i've already got tons of projects ideas swimming in my head. Now if i can just knit as fast as possible to get this order done! We've got a road trip to the Okanagan ahead of us, so i think i'll have plenty of time to get most of it completed. As they say at the Lion's Den Cafe here, "have a creative day".

mousie mousie

I think she turned out okay. My first time, so I don't feel totally moved by her, and I had to alter the pattern a lot to get her to look the way I wanted. The pattern called for tubes turned into circles for feet, so I changed them, and there were no instructions on how to put her all together. So i just went with my gut. I also gave her a scarflette to cover the way the neck attached to the head! All in all, i'm pleased, and when i handed her to my neighbour, she squealed and gave her a big hug. So i'm happy. I have a new batch of hats and wrist warmers to make for a male friend, so I'm really looking forward to seeing which wools he chooses. That and the new simple sewing book I have coming in the mail, should keep me busy til spring!