Butter

Since Steven and I gave up eating sugar my beautiful stand mixer has been horribly neglected. Today thanks to the inspiration of my new cookbook The Homemade Pantry, I made butter!

Some of the things in this book are actually useful. The homemade version is actually healthier or cheaper. I don't think butter qualifies for either. It was more like an edible science experiment. 

Step 1: Cream in Bowl. This was not the most difficult step.

Step 2: Turn on Mixer

Step 3: Pour

Step 4: Squish

BUTTER!

Disclaimer: No hats were involved in the making of this butter, only a hair tie. 

The Fold A Novel

Starting with the outside, because you should always judge a book by its cover right? The cover looked like it was scuffed up It wasn't scuffed, it was an artistic choice to put little white dots around it. I would not have picked up this book in a store.

But, I didn't get it at a store. I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review.  I'm glad I did. This was a fantastic book. I started it when I was bored and had a few minutes to spare. I ended reading the first section in that sitting, and would have read more if I didn't have somewhere to be. I love books that start off and make you want to keep reading.

I enjoyed the story of this book, but it did get a little weird at the end. The book definitely qualifies as science fiction. The half has mainstream appeal. If it became a movie there would be fancy tech and some neat special effects. The second half is appealing to a smaller crowd. Not really my kind of scifi, but I already wanted to know what happened at that point.

I've read a lot of books lately that ended terribly, this one didn't, so that was nice. It mostly concluded at the end, and nothing that made me go back three chapters trying to figure out what happened.

I would recommend this book. I have already got my book club reading it. I would love to share all my favorite things about it, but there would be spoilers. But it's good.

Mr. Percival Gnome

I haven't had any new knitting, because I've been working on bigger projects that take longer to complete. We haven't been hiking, because we have been too busy on the weekends. Also it's been 90F+, and who wants to hike in that? I haven't read any more of my free for blogging about them books, because I have been reading book club books instead. 

But I got a little tiny garden gnome. I've decided to name him Percival, per my friend Nancy's suggestion. He was a prize for a silly game I played at a friend's bridal shower. I had to guess the couple written on a sticker on my forehead.

These are the clues I ended up with:

1. They are real but have been portrayed in movies.

2. One is from Europe, sort of?

3. They existed in a time before electricity. 

4. One of them died sort of young?

Mr. Percival Gnome now lives in our tiny garden. He tried out the Thyme and Basil, but ended up living in the fruit free. I can't remember what fruit, mostly because it hasn't made any yet. Maybe something with a P?

The Most Ridiculous Hat

This yarn is called Big Loop Yarn, it is from Loopy Mango. It is absolutely ridiculous. It uses size 50 needles. Of course I needed to make a hat out of it. It needs to be winter and I need to be in the middle of a blizzard before I can wear this hat. Or maybe a summer knit in San Francisco. I think the entire hat is under 50 stitches.

On a slightly more practical project. I also made a blanket. Until the ridiculous 90F weather of today I had actually been using this blanket. It is 32 stitches wide. I didn't count the rows.

To not waste yarn for the cast on,  I used two different ends of the ball of yarn and felted them together with the felting needle. when I finished the 32 stitches I cut one end and kept going with the other. To attach the second ball and to weave in the ends I did the same thing. I was lucky enough to not have too much extra yarn. The blanket weighs about 5 pounds.

A side note. To get the picture with my cat on the blanket. I called him over and he came. I pet his a little and set him on the blanket. He jumped off. I tried this a few more times and gave up and went to sit down and write this. Then as soon as I picked up my laptop, he jumps into that chair and sits down.