A Day on the Town

After such a difficult week and an unexpected snowstorm on Friday, when Saturday rolled around I wanted to treat myself to a nice day - one filled with simple yet happy things. So I drove into Boston to meet up with Lucinda of Sew Wrong.

We headed to South Boston, where we walked through some serious slush to get to KO Catering and Pies. They are a small place specializing in Australian-inspired food with a focus on savory meat pies. It was my first time there, and I will definitely be back!

We then walked off our pies by wandering over to Grey's Fabric and Notions. I only make it there a couple of times a year, but it's one of my favorite stores. The owner, Sarah, is super friendly and helpful (she showed me how to sew a zipper on the spot!). My favorite part is the wall of sewing patterns. Sarah has them all displayed on ledge shelving, which makes it super easy to browse her selection, and very difficult to walk away without buying one.

After fabric shopping, we wandered through the Mohr & McPherson showroom. This place makes me wish to win the lottery and refurnish my whole house. Even though I bought a lot of fabric, I didn't buy an awesome green $900 arm chair. So really, I actually saved money, right?

How did you spend your weekend?

Lucinda posted a great and detailed review of Grey's Fabric on her blog.

A Weekend of Making

The snow held off until Sunday this weekend, so I was able to host a couple of lovely ladies for a Saturday of sewing. Lucinda of SewWrong and Karissa of Kitty Kitty Crafts brought over their sewing machines, and we talked, sewed, and snacked. It was fantastic, and I actually managed to start and finish a whole project. I need to iron it and cut off some stray threads, but I'll be sharing pictures soon!

I had been wanting to bake some goodies for a while, so I took the opportunity to make snacks for our meetup. I baked some Irish scones, which we ate with strawberry jam, and two loaves of French bread, which came out surprisingly big.

It was a really nice break from my regular routine, I can't wait for the next sewing meetup! Sunday it was back to the dye pots and knitting needles. How did you spend your weekend?

Life lately

As the year is quickly coming to an end and things are winding down a tiny bit for my business, so I've managed to sneak in a few relaxing activities, such as these gloves I started embarrassingly long ago. I even managed to sneak in a whole book!

It's also possible that Nate and I have made several visits to A&J King Bakery. They're currently serving hot apple cider with caramel and it's delicious and addictive.

Tomorrow Nate and I will be getting on a plane for a seriously long flight to visit my family. I'm not sure how much internet access I'll have, but I'll pop in to share pictures when I can. Until then, Happy New Year! How do plan on spending New Year's Eve?

Cupcakes and Monthly Yarn!

Today is Nate's birthday! We celebrated this weekend, and I picked him up an assortment of cupcakes at Kickass Cupcakes in Davis Square. I pretend I did it for him, but really, they posted on Twitter about a creme brulee cupcake and I couldn't help myself. We got Red Velvet, Snickerlicious, Creme Brulee, Cookie Dough and Super Chocolate. They were all delicious. I saw they had some questionable reviews on Yelp, but I can honestly say I don't have a single complaint.

In other news, you may have heard me talking on Twitter and Facebook about my brand new yarn club. I don't know why it's taken me so long to mention it on here, but here's the details:

- Introductory rate available through the end of July
- Pay monthly, receive yarn in the mail every two months so you have time to knit it
- Exclusive, secret colorways! Each shipment will be a brand new color, unavailable on Etsy for at least three months
- Installment payment plan or full payment plan (with a bit of a discount)
- A 15% off coupon at the end of every 6 month period

For now, I only have a sock yarn club, but I'll be introducing a worsted weight yarn club in the next few weeks.

So what do you think? Are you ready to receive delicious, snuggly, colorful yarn in your mailbox regularly? I've already got some club members and I'm super excited! I've also added some new colorways to the ol' Etsy shop.

Places to Eat: Captain's Bar and Grill

View of the Friendship from the restaurant deck

Alas, another weekend over. I hope the heat wave was kind to you this weekend. Boston Handmade Marketplace was lots of fun, even if it was insanely hot and sticky.

Today I wanted to share one of my favorite restaurants with you: Captain's Bar & Grill. Outdoor seating can be hard to come by around here, and they have amazing food and and enormous upstairs deck with a gorgeous view. The restaurant is on the waterfront, and overlooks the Friendship, which docks in Salem. You get a lovely breeze, so it's a great place to go during these unforgiving heat waves.

My favorite dish is the grilled salmon with veggies

This Mac n Cheese is pretty amazing too

My favorite kind of Saturday? Meeting up with the lovely knitting group at Seed Stitch after lunch, then having dinner at Captains with Nate.

Places to Eat: Flour Bakery

Flour Bakery is one of Boston's delicious treasures. This is one of my all-time favorite places to snack. They are known for their amazing desserts and baked goods, such as the gorgeous Red Velvet cupcakes above. However, salty always beats sweet in my book, and they also have fantastic sandwiches. My personal favorite is their BLT sandwich, but there are also great options for vegetarians too.

mmm, bacon!!

Peanut butter & jelly

Grilled cheese!

If you live in Boston and have never been, what are you waiting for? They have 3 locations - just make sure you avoid lunch time during the work week or you will have a super long wait. For you non-locals, I recommend adding this to your list of eateries when you visit!

So which would you pick? A cupcake or a BLT?

Spain Trip Part 3: Food!

This is the last of my Spain posts and I of course dedicated it to one of my favorite things. The food is usually what I remember most vividly when I visit new places.


A snack of caviar and vodka at Mercado de San Miguel


A typical shrimp and garlic appetizer (confession: I didn't like it)

stuffed olives

tortilla de papas

jamon iberico and cheese

panna cotta


vegetarian paella

I hope you've enjoyed these photos from my trip! Spanish tortilla is one of my favorite dishes and if I get my disorganized self in gear, I will post a recipe on here.

Salem: Jaho Coffee

Food is definitely one of the great love affairs of my life. I spend a lot of time day dreaming about food, and I kind of "collect" restaurants. Since I'm sure I'm not the only one who loves food, I will be sharing some of my favorite spots with you. To start off, I have to share Jaho Coffee in my home town. While technically a coffee shop and not a restaurant, this is an absolute must-visit if you come to Salem. They have a great selection of coffee and tea, old-fashioned glass bottles of coke (they taste so much better!), gelato and fantastic food. And they serve all their sandwiches on homemade focaccia bread.



it just tastes better.

a-ma-zing

Homemade: Freezer Jam

Did you guys know about freezer jam? I hadn't heard about it until last week. When the lazy person in me realized I could make jam with 15 minutes of effort and no cooking, I had to try it. So Friday night I mixed up a quart of strawberries, 4 cups of sugar, lemon juice and some pectin. By Saturday afternoon, I had delicious fresh jam. And all I had to do was let it sit out on the counter.






Next time I would like to try the low sugar version, but overall I highly recommend freezer jam. So much easier to make, and it tastes fresher because the fruit isn't cooked. Have you ever tried it?

One thing I noticed was that most packets of pectin won't say "freezer jam" on them but will list ingredients for both regular cooked jam and a "quick and easy" version. The quick and easy version is freezer jam, so don't worry if you can't find "freezer jam pectin."