Eleanor's Socks

This is my first attempt knitting socks for Eleanor, she grows so quickly, it is usually a fail for me, because I cannot keep up.

However, I am attempting socks. I tried a very plain version of socks to see how well these fit her and will base more complicated future socks off how I may need to alter these ones to fit her. So we shall see how it goes.

I used some of the yarn that Vera dyed as I figured Vera would find it cool that her and Eleanor socks are similar colors.


Very basic toe-up socks.


Afterthought heels.







Yarn: Knit Picks Bare Stroll Fingering Sock Blank
Content: 75% Superwash Merino Wool, 25% Nylon
Color: Dyed by Vera with Yellow and Orange Wilton's Icing Dye
Care: Machine Wash and Dry

Needles: US 1
Size: US 9 Children


These socks are cute and little and took barely any time. I am finding that I love to knit little people socks to try things out on because of the ease to make them. Hope they fit her well.

Vera's Christmas Socks

The pattern on the top of these socks come about from seeing Monika's Graham Hat in broken rib and loved it! The "wrong-side" texture was so lovely that I had to try it on socks.


For a little background, when I was out in Washington State this summer, I had Vera, Justice, and Echo dye up some yarn for socks I would knit them for Christmas.

On the back of the chair is the skein Echo dyed, on the back of the seat is the sock blank Justice dyed, and on the front of the seat is the sock blank that Vera dyed.  Sorry, forgot to take a picture of Vera's yarn in ball form.


And here is one of the pairs of socks from Vera's sock blank:






Don't you just love the texture on these?!?!?




Yarn: Knit Picks Bare Stroll Fingering Sock Blank
Content: 75% Superwash Merino Wool, 25% Nylon
Color: Dyed by Vera with Yellow and Orange Wilton's Icing Dye
Care: Machine Wash and Dry

Needles: US 1
Size: US 9 Children

I am not going to lie, I loved making these.  The texture is just so nice.  I will be making the husband a pair of socks after the New Year with this same texture.

Dyeing to Try

I have wanted for some time to try self-striping yarn, try to dye some of my own that is. I have been watching podcasts (Gentle Ribbing, The Dyer's Notebook, and I have been going through past episodes of Fiberista Files.)that talk about dyeing in general and I just couldn't put it off any longer.







The yarn was originally Lion Brand Sock-Ease in the color Marshmallow, but I used Black Cherry Kool-Aid and Blue Raspberry Kool-Aid to dye it red and blue.  I wound it a specific way on my Niddy Noddy to get an even amount of stripes per each color and dyed it up.  There is a small gap of white between each color transition which was intentionally, but we see how the effect of that is when actually knit up.

The only downfall, was that there wasn't quite enough blue-raspberry dye so there are some white specks in the blue. I used 4 packs blue and 4 packs red and the yarn soaked up all the dye with some anomalies. So I guess I needed 5 of each.

I plan to use this yarn to knit Justice's next pair of socks.  I was thinking about trying the Breaking Hearts sock pattern with it.

The End is just the Beginning

As many of you guessed, the whole spinning wheel venture left me wanting a wheel. My loving husband for my Birthday/Christmas present purchased me a Kiwi 2. This wheel comes with a high speed whorl also!

So here she is:


I stained her an orange color. It didn't look so bright in pieces, but she's definitely orange put all together. The husband says that it looks like she went tanning and stayed in there a little too long so she turned orange.





I am starting off with another Knit Picks Full Circle roving in the Caramel color.


I am very happy to have her, but Wookie doesn't like the wheel.  He will occasionally come up to it and bark at it.  So the craft room is now locked when I am not in there because Wookie has started taking some of his annoyance out on my crafting items.



Which is quite ridiculous, because he is just as spoiled as he ever was.  :)  Maybe he is too spoiled!

Sunday Inspirations

Knitting Inspirations:

I started watching which is a nice video-podcast that I recommend, anyways, there was discussion about afterthought heels and she linked to this Improving Afterthought post, which I think next time I knit myself a sock I will try.



Recipe Inpirations:

This Firecracker Chicken sound good! You could make it more paleo by skipping the cornstarch and putting less sugar in it. I find you rarely need as much as they suggest, I will probably try it by halving the sugar listed.


I use to use this blend of tomato powder and basil for pork sometimes and I loved it, but the kind I bought had other things in it that I no longer want to consume, so I will need to be making my own Tomato Powder because it's almost impossible to purchase by itself.


This Pumpkin Cake Roll looks delicious and I am sure it wouldn't be too hard to convert into Gluten Free for a nice treat!


Ah, I am a huge fan of "upside down cakes" and this Cranberry Upside Down Cake looks delicious and if I use a similar theory to this Apple Coffee Cake for the batter, I think it would be delicious.


Not that I can have these, but for those who can, these Lemon Glazed Doughnuts look delicious!


Almond Brittle sounds delicious, the husband's aunt bought us some Cashew Brittle last year and it was delicious . . . although I have never been a fan of Peanut Brittle, so we shall see.


Paleo Toffee Caramels are something I so want to try! Everyone cross their fingers and hope I have Thanksgiving Saturday off so I can try to make these!

Spinning on a Wheel

Well, hopefully today will be one of the last Saturdays that I have to work for a while, but we shall see.

Any who, onto the spinning. For my birthday weekend, which was at the beginning of October, a co-worker let me borrow her spinning wheel. I was super psyched because I had never spun on a wheel before.

Her wheel was a Kiwi and it was easy to learn on. I like to spin thin though, it's just my thing, so we had to compromise because at first it wasn't working. So here is my not so thin yarn:

It's from a bright roving I dyed a long time ago, but it was pretty to spin.


As you can tell, the skein is not very big and the yarn is Navajo plied and about a worsted weight.



So after we had our introductory period and I was a getting more comfortable with the wheel, I decided it was time to try my way of spinning again:

This roving is : Knit Picks Full Circle in the color Wolf. It was lovely to spin.


It was still a struggle with the spinning sometimes, but we agreed most of the time to disagree and went with it.  I have a nice size skein of 3-ply lace weight yarn.  Not sure what to do with it.








As you can tell, it's a little under spun in places and loosely plied.  If I had a high speed whorl when plying this it would look much better, but I am very proud for this being my first full skein on a wheel spinning.

Spindling Finish Line

I know this week is a little blast from the past, but here is another, remember this dyed roving?

Well, I finished spinning it this previous weekend and love how it turned out!

This is my spindle full of the plied yarn.


A couple close-ups of the variety of color.





Here is my skein drying.


All twisted up.


A penny for comparison of thickness.


A little closer, it ended up being a fingering weight yarn.


As you can tell from the close-up, there are many plies in this yarn.  I spin very thin and this is a 6ply yarn.  I held two singles together while I Navajo plied them.




I didn't measure, but I have about a normal sock skein size, about 300 - 350 yards or so I would estimate. I plan on knitting myself some mittens of my own design.

I have more wonderful spinning to show you!  Just wait and see!

Tuscan Potato Soup

Do you remember this Tuscan Style Potato Soup from one of the Sunday Inspirations?

Well, I made it with little modifications. I substituted the butter for coconut oil, used home-made chicken broth, and instead of milk, cheese, and heavy cream I used coconut milk. I did not use the coconut milk whole, I did not shake it so the thick cream stayed at the top and only used that, about a cup and half or so.  I didn't add parsley or any of the greens she had listed as optional, but I do think they would work well in it, especially maybe some spinach.

My version is not completely paleo, because I did include the white potatoes still.

It looks a little different, but it was awesome tasting! It will definitely be something I make again in the future.

A Winter Pair

Do you remember this whole dyeing/yarn problem? Ugh, it took me a long time to forgive this yarn, evidently about 3.5 years! This is the "blue" version.


This set turned out better than I expected. Even though the yarn and I had many issues years ago, it is wonderful for keeping out the cold!


The mitts fit fairly well, but I will make mods on the next pair.  I have decided all of this yarn that I dyed, regardless of color, will become mitts/mittens and hats.  Yes, I am going to give into mittens.


I will most likely do ribbing or some equivalent of garter edging for the arms in the future or do increases after the wrist, because it's a bit snug on my arm.


The hat was made to match the mitts, I did the band the same way the band on the mitts is started, picked up stitches, increased and knit stripes.  I added the black because there wasn't going to be enough blue.  I like the way it turned out.












The blue wool is a bit rough and does irritate my forehead a little, but minimal.







Yarn: Barlett Yarns/Halcyon Yarn / Lana Gross Basics Joker
Content: 100% Wool (very rough feeling wool) / 80% wool and 20% nylon
Color: dyed blue-ish colors by me / Black
Care: hand wash and dry
Needles: US 3, US 6
Patterns: No pattern for the hat, it's all made up, but the pattern for the gloves is here Camp-Out Fingerless Mitts
Modifications: I did mod the gloves slightly, because my hands are larger than your average females.

John's Finished Socks

All finished with John's socks also and they are sent out. Not sure if he will like them, but I hope so!



Plus a few reminders what the sock looks like on my foot:




Hopefully Rhoni will send me a couple of pictures of them on John. I enjoyed making these socks, regardless of his huge man feet and would definitely knit him socks again if he likes these.


Yarn : JoAnn's Sensations Bamboo and Ewe
Color : Turquoise
Content : 40% Wool, 30% Nylon, 15% Rayon
Care : Machine Wash
Needles : US 1 / 2.25mm (KnitPicks 47" Circular)
Pattern : Modified version of Kellswater Socks
Modifications: Top down, heel flap, modified version of diamond/cable chart to fit 76 stitches, and no anchor chart used.

In the middle. . .

Well, I showed Liam's socks and Justice's socks, but didn't show Vera's socks. Her socks are a miniature version of Justice's socks. So they could have matching socks.

Yarn: Red Heart - Heart and Sole
Color: Tequila Sunrise
Content: 70% wool superwash / 30% nylon
Care: Machine wash, lay flat to dry
Needles: US 1.5
Pattern: Lazy and Cabled Socks



Didn't take many pics of them, I need little people sock blockers so I can take better pics of little socks!

Eleanor's Doubleknit Seahawks Scarf

So to go along with her Dad's shadow scarf, I knit Ellie a double-knit scarf. Evidently the Seahawks are kind enough to have girl colors which are hot pink and green, I think I did a pretty good job at choosing my colors.

I used the principles from Extreme Double Knitting to make the SEAHAWKS double knit and read correctly on each side. It was actually a heck of a lot easier than I anticipated, just killer on my wrists!

Yarn: Baby Bee Sweet Delight Baby Yarn
Colors: Limeade and Baby Red
Content: 60% Acrylic / 40% Polyamide
Care: Machine wash and dry
Needles: US 1.5



Here you can see a bit of both sides.


Here is the full side of one side, it was hard to get the whole scarf.  I made it around 33", which is recommended for toddler scarves.


Up close.


The green side up close.


I wanted it to stay double knit through out and not turn into a tube, so I did single stitches on the other side.



I really liked the process of creating this and hope to do more in the future. Just maybe with some thicker yarn and bigger needles! :)

Wookie as the Grinch

A few days ago I was cleaning and set one of Garren's (my nephew) Christmas presents down on the floor and Wookie took full advantage and snatched it up and claimed it as his.








Of course it is his now, because I will not give Garren a shark the Wookie has tried to annihalate and slobbered all over! If you want to see more, see the video I took, it's a little dark, especially at the beginning, but he is hilarious!