A New Hampshire Knitter

So, a year ago September I did something I swore I would never do again. A swap. To be fair to this one, this one seemed pretty straight forward. You take a single piece of fabric, cut 50 6 inch squares, send them to the organizer with a self addressed stamped envelope, and you get back 50 6 inch squares of varying prints. Even though I had jumped in feet first, I was a little worried about coming up with my initial fabric. I didn't want to feel as though I had sent in a sub-par fabric, and I was trying to tighten up the budget. (I had just started using YNAB and using that software had shown me just how broke I was.) After about twenty minutes passed before I remembered I had 4 yards of a lovely red plaid buried in stash closet that was just not selling on eBay. Seemed like a perfect opportunity to get rid of it pass on the love. My initial plan was to use the blocks in a disappearing 9 patch- one of my favorite charm pack blocks. I had spent over an hour (before cof...

About two weeks ago, a turkey breast jumped into my cart while at BJs. I'm not sure why I thought it would be a good idea; I've never made a turkey before. I don't even own a roasting pan. But I had this six pound turkey breast, and decided to make something of it, and cooked it in the Instant Pot.  (Seriously. I love that thing so much.) I decided to coat the bird using poultry seasoning, no real measurements were taken, just sprinkled the spices on and rubbed it in. I put it on high pressure for 35 minutes (using the rule of thumb of 5 minutes per pound plus 5 minutes. It took 15 minutes to come to pressure, then the 35 minutes at pressure. and then between 12 and 17 minutes at NPR. I believe it was closer to the 17 minute mark. But, all in all. 70 minutes to cook a bird, and I didn't have to watch it every five minutes.*   (For those of you without an Instant Pot, a Natural Pressure Release is when you let the device come down from it's high pre...

Every year, I say to myself that I'm going to commit to the Tour de Fleece- a challenge hosted by Ravelry to coincide with the Tour de France that happens in July... every year? Wikipedia says it happens every year, so that's what we'll go with. Not unpredictably, however, within a day or two, I give up. Although, "give up" denotes a conscious decision to do so. Usually I forget that I'm doing said challenge. This year was not so different. I joined a challenge through a Ravelry group for a local yarn shop, and I actually kept to it for longer than usual- 10 days! Here's some pictures of the beauties I've spun in the meantime...  These two were my first attempt at plying. You really can't tell from the photos, but they were rather horrible. This is a single ply, from the same braid as the plying attempts. (It was the braid that would not quit.) These pinks are not as eye-searing as the photo would make it look. This is, I thin...

Thy leaves are so unchanging We're now two months away from the first of two craft fairs that I'm working this year. Both of them are bookending the Thanksgiving holiday, and obviously, the minds of consumers will have already moved well past turkey comas and football to tinsel and snowmen. As such, I've decided to introduce a Christmas line in this year, the main feature being, well, Christmas trees.  That's the bottom half of it, anyway. I modified it a bit to make it one piece and in the round. 'Cause I STINK at seaming. I go out of my way to avoid seaming when I can. And I think the pattern calls for beads and other decorations to be added after the fact, and I'm adding them as I go, using some beads I found in the back of my closet when I recently cleaned it out.  I have enough of these beads to make two trees, and I have quite a bit of silver and gold colored beads. (Seriously people, every time I see those beads, or even think the w...

Happy Friday! I've recently decided (recently meaning within the last couple hours) to do a "No Spend Month" Challenge for the month of September. Am I crazy for doing this? I kinda feel a bit crazy. I went onto Pinterest, searching for hints and tips and whatnot, and quickly fell down the rabbit hole. (To be honest though, "Went to Pinterest" and "fell down the rabbit hole" are a bit synonymous.) I suppose the decision to do this started brewing a couple months ago- I created an account with YNAB (You Need A Budget.) They're not paying me to say this, but I seriously love it. It's $50 a year, but I've already saved over that each month. What's cool about it is it is extremely similar to the envelope system, and I can pretty much SEE every dollar I have- which is something a notepad and a pencil can't do all that easily. But it's hard to say exactly HOW MUCH I'm saving- because while the regular, known, expenses a...

I remember growing up, certainly in my elementary and middle school years, where summer vacation was like a long, lazy pause in time. Not so much by the time I got to high school, when I had band practice and band camp and a part time job cashiering at a local supermarket, but when I was young, the summer days dragged forever, never ending until Labor Day came and suddenly Mom was waking me up at way-too-early-o'clock to catch the bus and another school year was beginning. I miss those days. Now it seems like as soon as summer gets here, we're preparing for it's end. The days go faster and faster until suddenly another whole year's gone by and we're back to where we began. I haven't written in awhile, mostly because I didn't know what to say. More accurately, I felt like I didn't have anything to say. I knew what I was feeling but I didn't know how to express it. Earlier today, I decided to just take out the metaphorical blank piece of paper an...

I've talked before about my kitty, Molly. She's a very sweet tuxedo that usually looks like she's pleading. Or, due to the white patch on her upper lip, sneering. Usually pleading. Normally, she doesn't care all that much about yarn, or fabric. That being said... Today, I was updating photos for two of my etsy listings- a dropstitch scarf and a half circular shawl and then she decides to care. Although, not that she'll show her face. In the year and a half that I've had her in my life, she's very rarely allowed her face to be photographed. Ever.