Happy Good Friday! Hopefully you have the day off as well!

This week I spent most of Sunday in the kitchen prepping freezer meals. I’ve been busting it trying to complete my 2017 WIP’s before the end of the month. My sister came to visit and even came along for knit night {she crochets}! I might swatch for a sweater this weekend 🙂

Finished Objects

At the beginning of March I declared four WIP’s {works in progress} that I’d started in 2017 to become FO’s {finished objects} by the end of the month. I finished one last week and two more this week. I still have one more day of the month though!

I finally finished my Clark Socks that I started back in October of 2017. These will hibernate in my Box of Socks until Christmas-time. I think my mom will love them!

I also completed Gina’s Brioche Hat and Cowl {just the cowl though} that I started way back in January of 2017. Feels so good to get this off the needles!

My final FO is a cute bag that will be my after-school crochet club’s April project. I just made one adjustment for the pattern to be more beginner friendly- instead of holding the yarn double we will use a chunky weight yarn. It will be a challenge for these fourth and fifth graders, but I think they will love it!

WIP’s- Focus Projects

My final WIP-it-or-rip-it declaration for March is the “Sugarplum Shawl” by Rachel Roden. This pattern came as part of Jimmy Bean’s Craftvent calendar {which I highly recommend for 2018}, but is now available on Ravelry as a single pattern. The kit included 24 days worth of notions and yarn- all needed to complete the pattern.

It’s intended to be knit over the 24 days before Christmas… but I was bogged down by Christmas gift knitting and never finished it. I’ve got one more day of the month to meet my goal! This shawl will also be a Christmas present for 2018. Perhaps then I will have the time to knit 2018’s Craftvent calendar during Advent.

Something New

I approached a new obstacle this week: weaving in the ends of two-color brioche.

I looked at several videos and tutorials. All of them had you weave your end under the knit columns, like this. I just wasn’t satisfied with that approach. So I decided to try my own way! I will try to record a video soon.

What God’s Teaching Me

This week God is whispering in my ear to breathe and to be flexible. To say “YES” more often than I say “NO”. We’ve had a busy week with Young Life, Stars games, and my sister in town visiting. Where I usually have two week nights to go to the gym and then relax at home after… I got zero this week. That is super hard for a regimented girl like me.

I tried typing these key words “breathe” and “flexible” into my Bible App’s plan search engine. I found a 15-day plan titled “Margin”. Hmm… maybe I need to create margin in my life instead of scheduling every minute with a specific goal.

“… most of us are living at an unsustainable and unbiblical pace. The key is creating margin.” – Margin, created by Craig Groeschel and Life.Church

Is it “unbiblical” for me to book my day up with chores, cooking, and knitting goals so that when my husband asks if we can go see a last-minute movie, I panic? Perhaps. I can confidently say that I’m addicted to schedules. I live for the thrill of crossing all the items off my to-do list. I thrive on making goals for myself and meeting them. {Many people close to me would agree.} This can be a good thing, but am I missing some of the opportunities God’s giving me?

I’m not quite sure how to slow down, but I’m going to try to reap as much as possible from this Bible reading plan over the next two weeks. My sister is visiting us for the next few days, so this will be a good time to put the practice of “margin” in place- then we can enjoy the time together fully.

What We’re Cooking

Beef Empanadas

The Pillsbury beef empanadas from last week were such a quick weekend night meal. And, come on, anything wrapped in a pie crust is going to be delicious! I will change two things the next time we enjoy this recipe- 1) MORE CHEESE! I will layer the cheese within the empanada and put quadruple the cheese. 2) MORE SPICE! Perhaps I expected these to taste like tacos, so I was a little disappointed with the flavor. Next time I’ll try some taco seasoning {we like Ortega} to spice things up. Overall, we were very pleased with the empanadas. My husband devoured his, which made my heart very happy!

New Leaf Freezer Meals

After making some freezer-to-crockpot meals with some success, I decided to do some meal prep on a larger scale. I ordered my Ziploc bag stands from Amazon {sanity-savers!}, picked four recipes, made my list, and went off to the grocery store on Friday night. I walked out about an hour later with under $100 worth of groceries to make eight meals– oh yeah!

I got my recipes and grocery lists straight from New Leaf Wellness. They had a FREE downloadable in January for a year’s worth of crockpot meals! I picked four recipes from April’s menu to double- Shredded Chicken Quesadillas, Chinese Pepper Steak, Chicken Teriyaki, and Mushroom Spinach Stroganoff. I had most of the spices and sauces in my pantry/fridge. I had to purchase the produce, meat, and dairy items. Like I said, under $100 for eight meals… that’s less than $15 a meal. Half of the whole budget was beef top sirloin, so I know I can do it for even less with different recipes.

LESSON LEARNED: Next time I meal prep, it will most definitely be a Saturday morning/early afternoon. Although the time per meal is only about 15 minutes, I don’t want to spend hours of my #scrappysunday trapped in the kitchen! These freezer meals will give me the time in the future for my beloved Granny Stripe Blanket and Cozy Memories Blanket.

My process was as follows:

1. Label all bags with meal name and today’s date.
2. Chop all vegetables for all recipes (so meat can stay in fridge). I did all the bell peppers first (40 minutes) and divided them into respective bags. Then all the onions (30 minutes). Then all the garlic (20 minutes).
3. Get some wine… you deserve it.
4. Then, two bags at a time I completed each recipe by pulling out all the remaining ingredients, and dumping them into the bags.
5. Put away ingredients from previous recipe and repeat step three for the next recipe- repeat for all recipes- this was the quickest moving part (1 hour)!
6. Flatten and zip bags, place on cookie sheet {to freeze them in the flat shape I wanted}, stack in freezer. I’ll take them off the cookie sheets once they are thoroughly frozen.

As you can see, this is quite the process. The most time consuming part is chopping the vegetables. I’m not a quick chopper, but I wouldn’t say I’m slow either. It took me 40 minutes to chop six bell peppers, 30 minutes for six onions, 20 more minutes for twenty cloves of garlic {I love my x-large GarlicZoom}. Everything else was relatively quick. I got all the spices, sauces, and meats in the bag in an additional hour (I trimmed and sliced steak in this hour as well).

Feedback to come on these freezer meals! I plan to use them for our Sunday meals since I’m usually home on Sundays to check in on the meals and stir them occasionally. Sunday is also the day that I don’t want to be in the kitchen so I can spend quality time with my husband and my #scrappysunday projects.

Overnight Oats

A quick and filling breakfast this week. My overnight oats recipe is simple: 2 parts old-fashion oats to 1 part yogurt and 1 part milk. Then I add honey and brown sugar to taste. Lastly, I stir in frozen berries and nuts if I have some in the pantry. I like my overnight oats to be very thick with no liquid at all. You can adjust the amount of oatmeal to satisfy your tastes!

What I’m Reading

Last Friday night I finished reading Ready Player One. I’m psyched to see the movie! We purchased MoviePass last weekend before we saw “Black Panther” so now we can see all the movies we want. We’re planning to see RPO this Sunday- perfect theater knitting time to start my April socks.

One of our generous fifth grade teachers loaned me a paperback copy of A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle. I started it on Saturday with a chilly toe dip into the pool {85 degrees outside and a frigid temp in the water}. I’m about 70 pages into this 232-page book. It’s… odd. Peculiar would be the best way to describe it. Having never read the book or heard anything about it before, I didn’t know what to expect. Is this really a children’s book? 

However, I think it’s really about to get good. I hope so! Even so, I would like to see the movie when it becomes available for renting. We’ve still got an old-fashion Blockbuster-like video store in our town and my husband loves any excuse to go there.

Check back next week for more going-ons in the Knitty Natty home!

Love in stitches,

Knitty Natty

It’s 77 degrees here in Texas today!

Naturally I’ve finished a hat and have another one on the go this week. Is it a good time to start a sweater? This week I talk about tricky {for me} crochet stitches and how one student inspired me to start reading my Bible again. I’ve been eating salads to detox from vacation and enjoying my back-at-home routine immensely!

Finished Objects

I just loved this hat pattern when I first saw it on Instagram! I’d just bought a skein of handspun yarn on my Thanksgiving trip to Oregon and I thought it would be perfect for this hat.

It took some trial and error to get it right. The original pattern calls for worsted weight doubled and the handspun was a heavy worsted on it’s own. I decided to add in a matching color of Kidsilk Haze {dreamy} and go down a few needle sizes. Then I adjusted the size by adding more stitches. All edits can be found on my Ravelry project page.

Fast forward quite a few months, and I’ve finally got it WIP’d before the end of the month. Just in time for our 80 degree weather!

WIP’s- Focus Projects

I started these socks all the way back in October 2017. The yarn was a seasonal Halloween colorway from Knit Style Yarns called “Monster Mash” and it came with a coordinating bag that I just had to have! {Sharon ships quickly and her yarn is beautiful!}

I’ve declared these socks a “WIP-it” for March, so I knit on them at many different restaurants and bars on my trip last week in Charleston.

Around the same time, the Grocery Girls Podcast talked about a new pattern called “Clark Socks” by Jaclyn Salem. Tracie started a pair, so I did too!

The pattern is really fun and clever. The diagonal purl stitches help you keep track of which cable row you are on- making it totally memorizable!

I’ve changed only one thing- the heel. I believe the pattern calls for a short row heel anyway, but I did the “Fish Lips Kiss Heel” as I have it memorized.

These are my March socks, so I hope to have them done by the end of the month. I’ve just got the feet left. Then they will go into my Box O’ Sox until Christmas time when they will be gifted.

Something New

There have been so many times in this hat pattern that I’ve reached a place where I’m completely lost. I know at that point that I need to set the hat down until tomorrow… or maybe a couple days. When I go back to the pattern the next time, it usually makes more sense! I don’t know what it is about giving my brain a chance to rest and process. This week I needed a little more help with the “Linked Double Crochet.”

When the written instructions still sound like a foreign language, I used this video from Moogly’s Tamara Kelly. It’s actually really easy! As soon as I saw her do one stitch, I went back to my written pattern. Suddenly I understood- the translating power of YouTube!

I’m so close to the end of this beautiful hat! It has been quite the challenge. Can’t wait to wear it in 10 months 😉

What God’s Teaching Me

This week, I was walking down the hallway of the public elementary school where I work, when I saw something that surprised me- a 5th grader reading the Bible.

He wasn’t using his phone or an illustrated children’s copy, this was a legit, hard-copy of the Bible.

I think I would be shocked to see anyone in public these days reading a physical copy of the Bible, really a physical copy of any book. {Aside, isn’t this another way that technology is stripping down our social connectivity? I used to see the cover of someone’s novel and have the desire to start a conversation with them. Now we have no way of knowing if someone is reading or browsing Twitter.}

When I saw this young kid reading his Bible in such an open, casual way, I felt a pang of guilt. When was the last time I cracked open my Bible? I think it’s been three weeks since I was last in town for a Sunday church service… but I probably just used the Bible app on my phone for that. I felt a God whisper, “Natalie, this boy is reading his Bible AT SCHOOL, because HE WANTS TO. You used to have that desire. I want to give that passion back to you, but you have to give me the time.”

Yes, Lord.

I know myself pretty well, and I’ll have to structure the time and space for reading the Bible. When I used to go to a weekly Bible study, I desired to read my Bible and complete the workbook each day. I enjoyed getting to discuss God’s Word with others. About eight months ago, we moved out of the city and to a new church that doesn’t run these studies. I’ve long since fell out of the habit.

I’m going to start small, by using the Bible app on my phone. I know it isn’t a physical Bible, but I will get there. Each morning while I’m getting ready for work, there is a period of time where I’m waking up and playing on my phone. Usually I’m on Instagram {shocking}, but now I’m going to be disciplined enough to open my Bible before I can get on any other media.

I use YouVersion, which is available for both Android and Apple. They have versions on versions of the Bible, but the best thing they have is reading plans. These plans include a devotional reading and related Bible verses. Some plans even have videos or audio to listen as the devotional. You can search for plans on any topic. I’m starting with a 7-day plan called “Never Say No: Raising Big Picture Kids.” Although I don’t have my own, I’m interacting with students every day; I want to love the like God loves me.

Even reading the super-short devotional in the morning has been a challenge for me. It doesn’t feel enjoyable; although it’s an interesting read, it feels more like a check mark on my morning to-do list. So, the most important step in learning to be like that boy, devouring his Bible at school, is inviting God in to change my heart into that of a student.

“Lord, feed me the desire to learn more about your Word. Give me a heart like your son, the little boy at my school who loves to read his Bible. Teach me how to study the Bible with a passionate heart. I love you, Father. Amen.”

What We’re Cooking

After a ful-filling (literally) vacation diet last week, I’ve been trying my best to detoxify. Salads are such an easy meal to put together. I make mine really simple by buying mostly pre-washed and cut ingredients- spinach, carrot chips, cherry tomatoes, and sliced mushrooms. I make them up two at a time and fold a paper towel in the one I’m going to have two days later- it absorbs the moisture from rinsing veggies! I can eat the same thing all week without getting bored, so veggies and fruit have filled my lunchbox.

Tonight I am trying out this Pillsbury recipe for beef empanadas. They look super simple. I think they will make an easy weekend dinner! I will share more next week.

What I’m Reading

I’m in the last chapters of “Ready Player One” and on the hunt for my next book.

I would love to read “A Wrinkle in Time” by Madeleine L’engle, but as it’s going to be a movie, the wait lists at the library are a mile long. I’m #266 on 36 {digital} copies! Luckily our 5th graders read the book this year so I think I can manage to borrow a copy. I’ve never read this book before and I can’t wait to see what it’s all about!

Check back next week for more going-ons in the Knitty Natty home!

Love in stitches,

Knitty Natty

Welcome back!

This week has been full of spring break travel and sleeping in. Plus, I’ve got a good friend’s wedding on the horizon! Enjoy!

Finished Objects

I finished this set of dishcloths and potholders for my good friend Stephanie’s wedding present. I almost always knit the initial dishcloths, and I decided to include some other favorites as well.

Works in Progress

Something New

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What God’s Teaching Me

What We’re Cooking

What I’m Reading