Lately, on Pinterest, I have seen a lot of different ways to make monkey bread that depart from the typical gooey sugar and cinnamon syrup. One such recipe was Mini Garlic Monkey Bread over at Crumbs and Chaos. This recipe is simple enough and tastes pretty good, but, as usual, I took it up a notch and made spirals so that the flavoring spreads more evenly.

Ingredients:
2 cans (8 oz) Pillsbury® refrigerated crescent dinner roll (or you could just make your favorite baking powder biscuit dough from scratch)
6 Tablespoons Butter
4 Cloves Garlic (pressed, finely chopped, or grated)
1 Tablespoon Dried Parsley, Basil, Oregano, OR Italian Seasoning
1/4 cup Parmesan cheese


Preheat oven to 400F. Grease a 12 cup muffin tin.

In a small saucepan, melt the butter. Add the garlic and cook for 30 - 60 seconds. Remove from heat and stir in the parsley and Parmesan cheese. Set aside.

Open the cans of crescent rolls and unroll the dough into a flat rectangle (or roll dough from scratch into a rectangle). Brush the dough with the butter mixture. Starting on one of the long sides, begin tightly rolling the dough. When you reach the end, pinch the seam shut. Using dental floss, cut slices about 1/2" to 1" thick. Place up to 3 slices in each of the muffin cups. If needed, brush the tops with more of the butter mixture.

Bake for 12 - 14 minutes or until the edges are browned.

Another great twist on this classic is Maple Bacon Monkey Bread. Just switch out the butter mixture here and replace it with the maple bacon mixture. Oh, and add about a 1/2 cup diced apples to the mix. SO GOOD!

About a year ago, at a family get together, my nephew introduced me to the delightful taste of combining apple slices with cheese and crackers. It was so good, I have done it several times since. More recently, while enjoying a lovely cheese plate his mother put together, Jacob added pepperoni to the mix. I must say I don't really care for pepperoni, but in this combination I loved it! About a week later, when I was planning out my meals, I was inspired by that little combo to create this pizza. The dough is a cross between a baking powder biscuit and focaccia bread. The sweetness of the apples really calms the spicy of the pepperoni creating a wonderfully balanced mix of flavor. Try it out and tell me what you think!

Pizza Dough Ingredients:
2 1/2 cups Flour
2 3/4 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1/4 teaspoon chili powder
1 teaspoon each salt, rosemary, basil, garlic powder, ground pepper
1 Tablespoon oil
3/4 to 1 cup water

Pizza Toppings:
olive oil brushed on top
1/4 cup shredded Parmesan Cheese
1 cup thinly sliced Sweet Apples (fuji, golden delicious, gala, etc.)
1 (8 ounce) package sliced Pepperoni Sausage
1/2 cup Cheddar Cheese

Directions:
Preheat oven to 400F. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.
Mix together the dry ingredients for the pizza dough. Make a well in the center and fill it with the oil and the water, then begin stirring with a wooden spoon until a ball forms. Add more water if the dough is dry or stiff. You should have a soft, not sticky dough. Place the dough on a floured surface and roll to about 1/2" thick. Place dough on cookie sheet.
Brush dough with oil, then sprinkle with the parmesan cheese. Place the apples on the dough then layer them with the pepperoni. Sprinkle the pepperoni with the cheddar cheese.
Bake for 15 - 25 minutes or until cheese is bubbling and the crust is browned.

If you want to take your pizza to a new level, check out the Stuffed Pizza over at I Want Crazy.

After releasing a few of the spats patterns, I had some requests for child and baby sizes. This got the wheels in my head spinning and this is one of the patterns I created. I also decided that the Tiny Spats patterns needed to have a matching headband. So, here you are; a lovely little spats pattern with a cute matching headband!

Materials:
30 – 40 yards (15 – 25 meters) Caron Simply Soft or a lightweight worsted yarn
D (3.25 mm) Hook
Yarn Needle
(2) half inch (1.3 cm) buttons

Only $3.50

I really feel like posting today, but I don't have a project to be posted. Sad story, I know, but alas, I figure I will share some of my favorite free flower tutorials. Please enjoy!

A few weeks back, I visited my grandma with my sister. My grandma is an AVID garage saler. Most weekends are planned around at least a few sales, which means that she has some really great stuff. Luckily for me, she decided it was time to go through some of the doilies and lace trims that she has been hanging onto for years and give them away. She had a large stack of beautiful doilies that she parted with, half went to my sister, half to me. I knew that at least a couple of them needed to become clothing for my daughter. Well, last week, I used a lovely fabric remnant I had in my stash to create a dress using the #doily as a collar. Below are the results.

Just as a heads up, this tutorial is not intended for a beginner. I am assuming that you have some knowledge of making clothes and using your sewing machine. However, I am happy to answer any questions you may have about my process. I don't claim to be a trained seamstress and there are most likely ways of doing things that I haven't thought of, I am just outlining what I did. As always, constructive suggestions are welcome.

Materials:
Large fabric doily
At least 20" of fabric (for an 18 month old)
Thin cardboard or cardstock
3 yards double fold 1/2" bias tape
3 yards lace trim
3 buttons
1/4" ribbon to make button loops
A dress that already fits well
Sewing machine/thread/pins
Iron/Ironing board
Rotary cutter/Mat/Straight edge

Prepping the fabric:
Pre-wash and iron all of your fabrics. If you have never made your own pattern before, you may want to get a brush up from the Shwin Sisters. They have some really great sewing tutorials in general, however, I will show you some basics in this tutorial. 

I started by taking a dress that fits my daughter well and measured the waist and the length. I added 10" to the waist (to account for the pleats and seam allowance) and an inch for the length because I had originally planned to do a rolled hem. Then I straightened out the edges of my fabric (Seven Alive has a good tutorial on this) and ironed my folds to make sure they stayed put. From there, I measured 19" (my length) from the edge I just straightened and used my rotary cutter and a straight edge to make this cut. Then I cut my waist width to create two squares of fabric, one for the front and one for the back.

Pleats:
To make the bodice portion, I did three pleats in the front and 2 pleats on the back. (If my outline isn't enough, Tumbling Blocks has a more detailed tutorial for Honeycomb Smocking that uses this same method). For my pleats, I cut two strips of thin cardboard (a cereal box works great), one at 3/4" wide and the other at 1 1/2" wide. With my fabric face up, I found the center of my front rectangle and lined up the smaller strip with the center, then I folded my fabric over the strip and ironed it. Then I lined up the same strip with the edge of the fold and folded the fabric back over the strip and ironed again. I took the same strip and lined it up to the left of the center line, then folded my fabric over the strip and ironed it. Then, once again, I lined up the strip with the fold I just created, folded my fabric back over the strip and ironed it. That created my first box pleat. I pinned these folds, then flipped my fabric over and removed the pins. 

For the remaining pleats, I first placed the 1 1/2" strip under the pleat and folded the fabric over the strip and ironed it. Then I lined up the smaller strip with the edge of the fold, folded the fabric back over and ironed it. Then I pinned all of the pleats, and flipped the fabric back to being face up and repeated the same process to create the other side of the pleat. I repeated these steps again for the final pleat. Then I pinned all of the pleats at the top and about 10" down to hold them in place.

To make the pleats on the back side, I folded the back rectangle in half and cut along this fold, making 2 back panels. Then I followed the process outlined in the first paragraph to create one box pleat in the middle of each back panel.

Next, I took my doily and folded it in half and ironed it. I lined this fold up with the top edge of my pleats and measured to about 1" below the pleat. I then sewed the pleats shut with a decorative stitch.

Creating the pattern:
Once again, I referred back to the dress I had that fits well. I used this to create a base for the pattern I wanted for the doily dress. I really only need to see how the neck line and the arms worked because I already had my dress length, so I started by tracing the neck and one of the arms. Then I measured the neck to find the middle and drew a line from this point as a center reference. I then drew how I wanted the arms of the doily dress to go. I cut the arm portion of this, keeping the neck line in tact. Then, I measured the distance in height between the front and back neckline on the dress I already had. I transferred this measurement to the pattern and drew in a neckline on the other half. Then, I folded the arm hole I had already drawn and traced it for the front piece. I cut all of my pieces out and kept the neck line pieces for the doily and to position the arm holes.

As a side-note, I am planning on using bias tape to finish the edges, which is why I didn't account for a hem. Also, I used the edge of the armhole, but did not cut the side of the dress as I didn't account for the seam allowance in the pattern. You will see what I did there later.

Cutting the fabric/doily:
I started with the doily, by first scouting out any imperfections. Mine had a small hold in the decoration on one side. I knew I could hide this with the bias tape, so I strategically decided that it would be in the back. Then, I ironed the doily in half along this hole and flipped it 90 degrees and ironed the doily in half again. Then, I folded my doily so that the arm sides were unfolded. I then took my neckline pieces and lined them up and pinned them in place. I cut the neck line, then I cut along the fold for the back side (where the hole was) to account for the buttoned edge. Then I grabbed my pleated fabric and,  starting with the back side, I placed my armholes  1/2" from the inside edge for the seam allowance. Then I used the neckline pattern piece to determine how far from the top the arms needed to sit. Once in place, I cut the arms and neck out. For the front, I folded my pleated fabric in half to find the center and lined up my armhole with the center fold, again using the neckline piece to determine how far from the top it needed to be and cut the armholes for this. I cut a diagonal out from the armhole edge along the side so that the sides would taper out once they were sewn together.

Sewing the pieces together:
Now comes the fun part! I sewed the two back panels together first, leaving about 8" of the top open for the buttons. Then I cut from the top down to where I had stopped sewing. From here, I pinned the back to the front (right sides together, of course) and sewed the sides using a 1/2" seam allowance. Then I pressed the seams open.

With the dress basically sewn together, its time to finish the edges, which is a bit tricky. You will notice that with store bought double fold bias tape, one side is a little bit shorter than the other. This goes on the inside. Begin with the armholes first. Open up the bias tape and line up the edge of the shorter side with the edge of the wrong side of the fabric while pinning the tape in place. Sew along the fold closest to the edge. Next, fold the tape back and it will automatically go over the unfinished edge. The fold on the longer side should fall just below the seam you just sewed. Now, sew the other fold to the dress to finish up the edge. Repeat this for the remaining armhole.

Line up the doily neckline with the dress neckline and baste them together using about 1/4" seam allowance. For the button loops, line up the edge of your ribbon with the inside of the dress, then place the bias tape on top, fold the ribbon over that and go to where you want your button to be. This should be half of the length you need, so fold the ribbon at this point and cut to match the end. Cut as many of these lengths of ribbon as you want buttons. Next, fold these lengths of ribbon in half and line them up with the inside edge of one back panel on the wrong side of the fabric and pin (as shown in the picture). Then, follow the same procedure for attaching the bias tape as you did for the arm holes, taking care when going over the button loops. Before sewing the front side of the bias tape, flip and pin the button loops so they are facing the right direction.

All that remains is the bottom. Again, follow the same process for attaching the bias tape as the armholes, but before sewing the front, pin in a lace trim. 

Some time ago, while perusing Pinterest, I came across a crochet chart for a modern doily that I loved. I knew it had to be a rug for my daughter's room, but was stuck on what to make it out of. I put it to the back of my mind and started working on some Spats patterns, but that doily kept creeping into my mind and ended up inspiring me to create the Chevron Fancy Spats. Once that was complete, I kept thinking of this doily becoming a rug. So I started to research materials that I could use/afford to make it with, when I came across a rug made of old sheets. I have seen rag rugs before and not thought much of them, but this one wasn't braided, it was crocheted. A light bulb went off, I packed my little one into the car and headed for the thrift store. I bought a set of pale green, jersey, king sized sheets and began cutting/ripping 2" strips. Below is the end product.

Materials:
Q (15.75 mm) Crochet Hook
Old Sheet, a king size set was sufficient for this one, but it is on the smaller side
Doily pattern of your choice (simpler patterns would be easier)

Tips:
1. I pretty much followed the chart for this pattern, however, instead of doing DCS for every row, I did SCS for one row, then DCS for the next row because I was concerned about running out of yarn.
1. I did not test different strip width sizes, I just started tearing at about 2" wide, then tried to make sure that all of the strips were approximately the same width. 
2. When picking a pattern, you can try one with fancy stitches that involve yarn overs, just bear in mind that you will have to be conscious of where the knots are falling, so you may need to untie and retie some of them as you go. Also bear in mind that this is pretty thick on it's own, so if you pick a pattern that layers stitches (FPDC/BPDC) it could be a hazard...
3. A note about the fabric, keep in mind that the back of the fabric will show up too. The sheets I used (and most sheets) were the same on the back and the front which is how I was able to get a solid colored rug. 
4. Plan on taking brakes. My right arm would get pretty tired.
5. Some of the sites I looked at for tutorials have you cutting a slit in one strip then pulling the next strip through to connect them, but I just tied my strips together and wound them into a HUGE ball. While I was crocheting, I made a point of pushing the knots to the back side so that I wouldn't have to weave them in. 
6. When I finished the rug, it didn't lay completely flat so I took the tops off my storage ottomans and placed them on it so it would flatten out, which worked great. This seemed to be a typical problem on most of the blogs that I read about using sheets for a rug. I would suggest at least putting books or something on top or, if you can, block the final product.

My Fancy #Spats patterns have been primarily crochet, but fear not knitters, I bring you Liana. It is a simple, lacey vine stitch that is easy to memorize. It comes in one size, which is approximately 11 1/2" around the ankle and 2 1/2" tall. As with most of my patterns, I used Caron Simply Soft for this pattern, but you can use any lightweight worsted yarn. It's a quick, fun knit and the end product adds such a fun frilly detail to the top of shoes.

Materials:
50 – 60 yards (45 – 55 meters) Caron Simply Soft or lightweight worsted yarn
Size 7 (4.5 mm) Needles
Yarn Needle
Size D (3.25 mm) Crochet Hook
2 half inch (1.3 cm) buttons

Only $4.50

Here are some items that I recently added to my Etsy Shop. Click on the picture to link to the listing.

I love the #broomsticklace stitch. It is so easy and quick to do, furthermore, with this pattern, it couldn't be simpler. Basically, this headband just stacks the stitches, so you can make it whatever length you like. There isn't a gauge so you can use whatever size hook you want and whatever size stick to create the stitch. Please enjoy! Oh, and don't forget to enter the #Giveaway, only 3 days left until it ends!

The name of the broomstick lace stitch comes from the fact that originally it was created using a broomstick. Basically all you need to create this stitch is a stick of some sort, however, most often, people employ a large knitting needle. When I have used a smaller crochet hook for the single crochets, I have used the end of a large crochet hook. Anything around the house will do (a tutorial on Repiny uses a Popsicle stick), just try out one stitch and see how you feel about the proportions. If you would like a video for this stitch, there is a great one by Sandra Roarty. 

Print the pattern

Materials:
10 - 20 yards Yarn of your choice
Hook recommended by yarn manufacturer
Hook/Knitting Needle/Stick with a diameter at least 2X the diameter of your hook, preferably larger
Button that will fit through one of the stitches

Abbreviations:
CH = Chain
SC = Single Crochet
ST = Stitch
YO = Yarn Over

Pattern:
Row 1: CH6, SC in the 2nd ch from the hook, SC in remaining 4sts 
Row 2: Pull the loop on your hook to make it big, then insert your stick into the loop, *insert your hook into the next stitch and pull up a loop, then put that loop onto the stitck, repeat from * with remaining 3sts. You should have 5 loops on your stick and no loops on your hook.
Row 3: Carefully insert your hook into the 5 loops on your stick, YO and pull through the 5 loops, CH1, holding the loops in place, SC5 in through the 5 loops

Repeat rows 2 and 3 until you reach your desired length and bind off. Keep in mind that your yarn will probably stretch at least a little bit, so ending 1 or 2 stitches early wouldn't be the worst idea. Sew on button and weave in loose ends.

I shared this post on the Friday Follow Along over at Leah Inspired. Those of you with blogs, link up and follow along and if you don't have a blog, just go check out the other great blogs linked up over there.

I'm in a giving mood this week and thought it might be nice to share the love by doing a little raffle. Entering is simple, just click the button below! Also, be kind and comment on this post with a link to either your blog or your favorite blog.  A week from now, you could be the proud owner of either a $20 gift certificate to my Etsy Shop or 3 of patterns of your choice from my Ravelry Shop.

The winner will be randomly selected at 12:00 AM (EST) on Sunday July 14, 2013 and emailed the next day notifying them of their winnings. The winner will have 48 hours to respond with their choice of prize otherwise another entrant will be selected and given the same amount of time to respond.