Omar's Birth Announcement

Starry Welcome Birth Announcement

To see Shutterfly's birth announcement designs, click here.

View the entire collection of cards.

My First Crochet- Baby's Blanket

About halfway through my pregnancy I started feeling like I needed to make something for the little guy. I was also on a rather extended vacation and needing something to fill the time!

If I was in the states I'm sure I'd have gone to Hobby Lobby and started a thousand different baby projects. Being in Morocco and without a sewing machine, my options were slightly limited.

Being an avid Pinterest user, one day I stumbled upon to this link to The Curious Pig. In this particular post, she links to YouTube videos and other resources that she used to learn how to crochet. After watching a few of the videos I decided to go for it!

I started by watching this lady's videos on how to make granny squares (about a thousand times). After making and undoing a few times, I got the hang of it and starting cranking out the squares.

Once the squares were coming together, I used a piece of paper and colored pencils to make my pattern. As the squares were finished, it was fun to lay them out and see how the blanket would unfold!

After many size changes and 120 individual squares, it was time to start linking them together.

This is where things got slightly complicated. There are about a million ways to link these squares together and I was a bit overwhelmed trying to choose my method! I originally planned to "sew" them together, but then I found this tutorial from Carina's Craft Blog.

With this method, you crochet the squares together using the same stitches as the squares themselves. I ended up mostly going with it because it adds some size to the blanket. The downside was that my pattern was altered- the diagonal lines no longer touched each other.

Being very much a beginner, I found the tutorial itself slightly confusing. You begin by sandwiching squares together and sort of working back and forth, but I found it really awkward and that I had to constantly flip pieces over and turn them to get the stitching in the right direction. This was fine for individual squares, but with the rows it became really cumbersome. She also doesn't explain how to finish once you reach the end of a row, so I kind of winged it. 

Once all the squares are in rows (see above), you put the rows together in the same way. At the end, I did basically a giant granny square around the outside to finish the edges.

Overall I'm so happy with how it turned out! Not sure if this will lead to a future in crocheting, but it was fun to learn and exciting to actually finish a project.

Now I just need a little baby to wrap in it!

Birthday Dinner- Chicken and Apricot Tajine

Mohamed loves trying new foods, but in the end he's a Moroccan food lover to the core. So, for his birthday I wanted to go Moroccan, but I also wanted to try something new. This chicken and apricot tajine was really good!

The recipe had a lot of liquid, so I was nervous about making it in the actual tajine. Instead, I went for the dutch oven. You start by heating 1/4 cup of oil over medium heat. Add chicken pieces, 1 large sliced onion, 1 tsp cinnamon, 1 tsp ginger, 1/4 tsp black pepper, a pinch of saffron and salt. Cook for 5-10 minutes or until chicken is browned.

Once the chicken is browned and the spices are fragrant, add 1 cup of chicken stock and 1 tablespoon of honey. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to low, cover and cook for around 20 minutes.

Once the chicken is cooked, add 1.5 cups of dried apricots and 2 tablespoons of chopped cilantro. It's not in the original recipe, but also added a few potatoes, thickly sliced for some more savory substance.

Along with the apricots, add another 1/4 cup of stock, cover and cook for an additional 25-30 minutes. In the case of my potatoes, I think this cooking time was a bit too long (hence the mush looking photos), but I swear it was delicious!

Serve with bread and enjoy!

 Happy birthday Mohamed!