For the Love of Philly: Morning Glory

Garden Keeper Fritata

Simon and I live in a great neighborhood called Bella Vista and it has some amazing restaurants.  One of our Favorites is called Morning Glory.  Morning Glory is a Finer Dinner and it is a tiny gem of a restaurant. It is located on the south side corner of Fitzwater and 10th Street, and although its size is small the food is anything but your regular dinner fare.

View from the door

The menu has eats like, the garden keeper fritata which is filled with potatoes, greens and ham, Monkey Bread French Toast with mangoes, bananas and caramel sauce, and Guinness Beef Stew.  Their specials are always changing with the season, and highly recommended.  This spot is a Philly Favorite when it comes to brunch.

Special: Mediterranean Scramble

Eggs over easy with sausage and a buttermilk biscuit.

 With limited space "be nice or leave" is a great motto as you are in close quarters with other dinners and can watch the line cooks prepare your meal.  There are plenty of other interesting things about Morning Glory.  They make their own ketchup (it is some of the best ketchup I have ever eaten).  They also make homemade buttermilk biscuits and there is always fresh fruit compote on every table.  When you order coffee it comes to you in a metal cup. 

View of the kitchen from our table

 You can always expect a wait to eat on the weekends at Morning Glory, and it is well worth the wait to get in.  If you are impatient and want to be seated right away go on one of the weekdays right before or after lunchtime.  Or if you can only make it on the weekend go early or late the wait is shorter than if you go between 10am and 1pm. 

Morning Glory

10th and Fitzwater Street

Philadelphia PA 19147

Hours:

Monday-Friday

7am-4pm
Saturday &Sunday

8am-3pm

Out to Work

What a lovely Christmas tree. 

 Now that the rain has stopped and the weather has become seasonably cold again it is time to get into the spirit of the holiday season.  I have big plans for next weeks blog posts, and will be having a holiday event on Blue Betty called 12 Days Before Christmas.  There will be recipes, tutorials, traditions, and even some special guest bloggers.  The 12 Days Before Christmas blog event will start Tuesday the 13 and run through to Christmas eve. 

 I have a to do list as long as my arm, so today I am going to try and get a big chunk of it done.  Wish me luck.  I'll be back tomorrow with a great post about one of my favorite eateries in Philadelphia. 

What to Sew Next

I have a wedding coming up in January and I want to sew something fabulous for this event, but I can't decided on what I want to wear/sew.  Here are my top runners for dress options.  Any feed back would be welcome. 

I have been drooling over this dress for months.

Bustier Dress Burda Style

But I also like these patterns on burda style.

Bustier Cocktail Dress with Long Sleeves

Or

V-neck Cocktail Dress with Starburst

This one is totally different that the others.

Printed 70s Wrap Dress

 I have also been eyeballing this dress from Colette.

Peony by Colette

There is also a dress in the new Collete book that I am absolutely in love with, and although I've asked for the book for Christmas I feel I should start sewing this dress ASAP.  I only have about a month to complete it and I want to give myself plenty of time to do it right.

Back from Boston

I'm back from Boston and I feel like I ate my way through Quincy.  Jules knows some great places to eat in her neighborhood and I think that is all we really did all weekend is eat.  (But I'm always up for food and I judge a place on what I can eat and if there is yarn to buy.)  The first night in town we went to possibly the best sushi place I have ever been too I can't even begin to describe how good it was.  It was called Fuji 1546, If you ever find yourself in Quincy go eat some yummy sushi I highly recommend the spicy tuna roll, the miso soup, and this appetizer called salmon wontons.  Jules also took me to Shabu and I had my first experience with hot pot and I have decided I need to find a place in Philly that does hot pot.  

Now on to the pictures!

Jules took me to a yarn store in Boston right around the corner from where she works.  Windsor Button has everything you would need for crafting.  They also have a wall of buttons.

Such a beautiful day in the park. A great day for....

Ice Skating!  We went skating on the frog pond.  It was so much fun, I hadn't ice skated since high school.  I fell once, but that's because a small child decided to try to squeeze past me and knocked me on to the ice.

Lacing up out skates.

 And we're off Skating!

The park was decorated for the season. 

Linus the sweetest cat ever decided to climb a tree and then cry for help even though he could get down on his own. 

Jules making sure he can get down. 

All in all a great trip.  I wish Jules and woody lived closer, but it was great to go see them.  I can't wait till they come here to visit.

Monday's Technique Tuesday: Swatches, Row Count

I can not say enough how important it is to swatch before you start.  With the excitement of a new project who wouldn't want to jump right in, but hold your horses, take a deep breath and swatch with your yarn and needles first.  Last time we looked at stitch count, and today we are going to look at row count.  Now some may say row count is not as important as stitch count, (sometimes I do feel that way), but when it comes to decreasing or increasing you should really have an accurate row count

We are going to look st the same swatch that we looked at for stitch count.

The length from top to bottom of the stockinette section is 4 inches:

Start at the bottom and count the stitches that forma a vertical row:

In this swatch there are 24 stitch in 4 inches:

Divide the number you got by the number of inches and there you have it your row count. for this swatch the row count is 6 rows per inch.  A helpful tip is to use a straight edge to line up you vertical row of stitched it allows you to better read the row you want to count.

Off to Boston

I'm off to Boston so I'll leave you this silly Picture of Me.

I am off to Boston for a fun filled weekend to visit one of my super awesome friends who lives there.  Expect lost of Photos when I get back to Philly.  As you read this I will be about 1/3 of the way there.  I have no idea what to expect, but I'm sure it's going to be awesome!

Stitch Guide: Eyelet Rib

This stitch is another variation on the rib stitch.  It has eyelets in the knit spaces and you can knit this stitch with a right and a wrong side or knit it so there is no wrong side.  The SSK and K2tog give this stitch an interesting texture and movement to the ribs. 

Eyelet Rib Stitch (knit flat, with wrong and right sides)
Multiple of 4
R1: K1 (YO, SSK, P2) to last 3 sts, YO, SSk, K1
R2: P3 (K2, P2) To last 5 sts, K2, P3
R3: K3 (P2, K2) to last 5 stst, P2, K3
R4: P3 (K2, P2) To last 5 sts, K2, P3
R5: K1 (K2tog, YO, P2) to last 3 sts, K2tog, YO, K1
R6: P3 (K2, P2) To last 5 sts, K2, P3
R7: P3 (K2, P2) To last 5 sts, K2, P3
R8: K3 (P2, K2) to last 5 stst, P2, K3

Eyelet Rib (knit flat with no wrong side)
Multiple of 4
R1: K1 (YO, SSK, P2) to last 3 sts, YO, SSk, K1
R2: P3 (YO, SSK, P2) to last 5 sts, YO, SSK, P3
R3: K3 (P2, K2) to last 5 stst, P2, K3
R4: P3 (K2, P2) To last 5 sts, K2, P3
R5: K1 (K2tog, YO, P2) to last 3 sts, K2tog, YO, K1
R6: P3 (K2tog, YO, P2) to last 5 sts, K2tog, YO, P3
R7: K3 (P2, K2) to last 5 stst, P2, K3
R8: P3 (K2, P2) To last 5 sts, K2, P3

Eyelet Rib (in the round)
Multiple of 4
R1: YO, SSK, P2
R2: K2, P2
R3: K2, P2
R4: K2, P2
R5: K2tog, YO, P2
R6: K2, P2
R7: K2, P2
R8: K2, P2