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.