Knitting for Charity

Two years ago at Knit in the Pit, I met a really fun, nice, upbeat woman named Stacy. 

She introduced herself and told us about her nonprofit foundation, Soap S.A.C.K.

From her website:

Our vision is to inspire groups of volunteers around the country to crocket/knit, collect and donate bar soap to their local food pantries, homeless shelters, relief efforts, missions trips, social service agencies and veteran clinics.

According to her website, 100,000+ soap sacks have been donated! Isn't that wonderful?!

I have been making some over the last week and I'm looking forward to donating them to our local food pantry. For more information, take a look at her website. She has patterns, stories and more on there. She's doing a wonderful thing and I'm happy to be a very small part of it.

Another Yummy Recipe

I've made this before and I LOVE it. It's a Trader Joe's recipe that I discovered. The closest Trader Joe's is a bit of a hike. Well...not really but I don't go that way very often. But last weekend my sister and I had to go to Joann Fabrics and it's across the street so we went in and got a few things.

This time I doubled the recipe by using one package of the Sweet Potato Gnocchi (in sage and butter sauce) and one package of Cauliflower Gnocchi. The cauliflower gnocchi was delicious and cut down on the Weight Watchers points. Win!

Here are the details:

Recipe: Sweet Potato Gnocchi With Spicy Chicken Sausage and Mushrooms

You’ll need:

Mushrooms
TJ Spicy Italian Chicken Sausage (optional, just leave out if you’d prefer!)
Olive oil
TJ Sweet Potato Gnocchi
Grape tomatoes
Arugula
TJ Grated Parmigiano-Reggiano
Black pepper

Slice mushrooms and sausage, arranging pieces on a skillet in a single, even layer. Add a glug of olive oil and brown everything over medium heat, turning occasionally. Remove from pan. 

Make gnocchi in the empty skillet, according to package directions, adding 1 extra tablespoon water to make it saucier (3 tablespoons, total). Add mushrooms, sausage and halved tomatoes to the pan, heating everything through.

Just before serving, toss in a big handful of arugula. Top with Parmesan and black pepper.

And here is the result. YUM!!!!!!! I highly recommend this. Here is a link to the original recipe post. There are a few others ones there too. I'm making the coconut shrimp tacos tonight.

Yarn Along

I finished up the cowl I had started before taking my son to school. It is supposed to be long but I made it a cowl. It is the Riptide. I loved making this! It kept me busy while on the long road to Pittsburgh. I knitted this with alpaca/wool yarn. It's super soft and squishy. 

Eggplant Recipe

As much as I LOVED the early quarantine days....the scale will tell you that I really enjoyed myself! Oof! Lots of delicious food, wine, sourdough bread, baking pies all adds up to too many pounds on me! I have rejoined Weight Watchers to help me shed some weight. It's slow going, but it's better than what I was doing!

I came across this eggplant recipe and it was really good and easy so I thought I would share it. Great summer lunch or dinner. 

I substituted the pizza sauce for crushed tomatoes and I only had arugula so I used that instead of spinach. Other than that, I made it exactly to the recipe.

Here is the link to the recipe.

You slice the eggplant 1/4" thick. Cook for about 9 minutes then top with the sauce, etc; 

and back into the oven!

7 minutes in the oven and topped with some fresh basil and parmesan cheese.

Tea for My Achy Body!

I made this tea and it was delicious and apparently has lots of good medicinal benefits.

I have no clue if it actually helps, but it was worth a try! Just thought I would share the link in case anyone wanted to try this. I made it on the stove and then let it sit all night in my fridge. You can drink it hot or cold.

Here's the link

Thank you, Jon #knitinthepit

For the past two years, I have been attending "Knit in the Pit" in Asbury Park. Jon Giswold put this gathering together to bring people together. To create a community in our area where people can come knit, crochet, meet, relax and enjoy one night a month together. We met at The Asbury Hotel on once a the month from 6-8. We enjoyed a drink, laughs and amazing atmosphere. The man at the head of it all was Jon. A great spirit, full of energy. FULL of it! Always hugging and smiling. Making every person feel good. He would walk around the room and say hello to every single person. He made you feel welcome. Always! Jon was a big supporter of the Knitting Community and passionate about providing support to others and their organizations such as Hat Not Hate and SoapSACKS.

To explain more about how it all started, I found this interview with Jon.

Michael Cook: To kick it off, Knit In The Pit; it is truly a remarkable and amazing group and community you have built in Asbury Park and beyond; tell me about it.

Jon Giswold:  I have been a knitter since the age of 10 and have kept my craft at home. It always made me self conscious to knit in public. Over the past couple of years however, men have been coming out of hiding it seems or at least more visible to media outlets than before. Many of us found community in a local yarn shop or groups. I found that in the dead of winter, I was feeling isolated and truth be told a little lonely. I reached out the owner of The Asbury Hotel in Asbury Park, David Bowd to see if it would be okay to sit in the sunken living room at the hotel, where Tea Dance entertained men during the summer months, but was also a little quiet during January through April. David was more than generous and invited us in. It started with 4 gay men, friends of mine and 1 woman who saw on Instagram an open invite to join me for a knit together. Now, just over a year later we have surged into a CommuKNITTY with sometimes 100+ showing up at the Hotel for our monthly knit together. The IG page has over 750 followers and our closed FB page has almost 300 members. We knit together and knit for social causes such as HATNOTHATE (HATNOTHATE.org) and Soap Sacks as well as now going into the Boys & Girls Club of Asbury Park to teach kids to knit. It has become an event and a force for good – organically.

One of the best nights was when we brought Brady along. He loves to make things and was more than happy to hang with us. Jon made him feel so special. It was a night I will never forget. This is a picture of Louis (aka Brooklyn Boy Knits). What a fun night that was!

Sadly, we learned yesterday of Jon's sudden passing. Details are vague on what happened. But it seems it may have been a complication of his hip surgery last month and an infection or possible blood clot. He was in contact with people on Saturday. A friend was coming over to bring him ginger ale because he wasn't feeling well....20 minutes later she arrived and he was gone.

The knitting world has lost a very bright light! Life can change in an instant. I'm glad I got to meet Jon and attend these fun nights at Knit in the Pit! 

Thank you, Jon, for creating so many fun memories for us. Your spirit will go on I'm sure!

Stitching Time

My friend, Carrie, likes to purge her stuff every once in a while. I was the lucky recipient of some of her yarn and this cute little kit! It's the Mini Maker Felt Embroidery Kit, Snow Garden.

Everything you need comes with it. The design is printed on the felt and all you have to do is the stitching. It's mindless and was perfect to work on during our home office update meeting. Lucky for me, I didn't have to have my video on and I could listen and craft! Bonus of working from home!

I really enjoyed making this and would like to order some kits. They would make nice little presents for friends. 

Have a great weekend! We will be watching our little guy in his first ever baseball tournament. Just a one day local tournament but I am so excited for him. He's been to so many tournaments for his big brothers and it's fun to see him being the one playing now! This also means LOTS of knitting time for Mom!!!!! Yay!

Yarn Along

Knitting keeps me calm. Thank goodness for that!!!! Because my nerves were shot last week anticipated and preparing for my oldest leaving for college, I casted on a new color work project that I knew would keep me company during the trip.

This pattern was the perfect thing for me. All over color work always flies off my needles. This is worked in the round and is supposed to be a long scarf but I decided to make it more of a loose cowl.

I will sell this in the farm store when it's done. Using alpaca/wool blend yarn, it's super soft and squishy!

The pattern is Riptide by Jill Zielinski. She is a new-to-me designer that I discovered after posting on Instagram for ideas of what to knit next. She has so many that I loved instantly! I'm sure this won't be my last pattern by her.

Hope all is well with all of you!

Pitt!

After a tearful goodbye with his friends, we hit the road to take our oldest to college.

It's still hard to believe that he's 6 hours away and starting this part of his life. I am proud of him and all that he has done to get to this point. Pitt is an incredible school and I know he will have many opportunities and a great education. Let's hope everyone stays healthy and they can have a full semester on campus during this crazy time. I miss him already!

Beach, Knitting, Crashing with Family

Over the last few days we have logged lots of time with family and time at the beach. Our power was out for days and I still had to work and I am grateful for my sister Andee and my in-laws for letting us crash! It also gave us lots of time to hang out, enjoy the beach and knitting time for me!

I finished a light weight summer knit top. The pattern is Bracklinn Crop. I used some left over yarn and two colors were gifted to me by a friend. It was an easy knit. I also like how it fits. I'll have to get a picture of it on.

I squeezed in some quality time with my oldest son. We leave tomorrow to take him to college. I can't believe it. It's really happening! We're going to miss him like crazy.

After the storm....

Well folks, Isiasis tore it's way through our parts last week and did she leave a mark! We are very fortunate to not have any damage that needed to be repaired. But what a mess she left behind. I was so scared the giant tree was going to come right down on my chicken coop. I sat inside watching the ground rip up as the gusts of wind brought the tree closer and closer to toppling over. We were left without electricity for 4 1/2 days. It wasn't until my dad called and told them he needed to get water to his alpacas that they came to help. There were lines and trees down on our road and it took them days to get here. But they did and everything is back to normal. My fridge and freezer got a complete cleaning (much overdo anyway) and we stayed with family that did have power so we could work.