Plath’s Adventures

This past weekend, we decided to make a trip downtown to go to the Detroit Urban Craft Fair. It was wonderful to see all the young, local artisans’ wares and pick up a few things. Jason got me a great pinstriped wallet he plans to tuck in my stocking, and I got Eleanore a Detroit t-shirt. I tried to snap a picture of the wallet, but Jason hid it from me before I was able to.

While we were in Detroit, we also stopped at Eastern Market, a huge market where you can buy local and non-local meat, produce, plants, baked goods, anything you can imagine. We picked up some local honey, as well as some pasture raised beef, organic eggs and flour. We couldn’t buy too much, as we’ll be out of town after Thanksgiving for a week. At the market, we also spotted a really neat grapevine wreath, but we decided to make one ourselves, rather than buy it. We have some wild grapevines growing amongst our lilac bush, and because they’ve never given us any fruit, Jason pulled them out and I helped him put this together.

I love it, and while it’s probably not as perfect as the one we saw for sale, I love it even more because we made it.

I also finished Eleanore’s Christmas tunic, for her to open and wear on Christmas Day.

I love this pattern, and think it’s perfect for Christmas. I’m knitting her a pair of solid off-white longies to match it, and I think it will look adorable paired with her red shoes.

It seems it took me moving back to Michigan to get the wheel out again. For two years and through four moves, it has sat idle until last week, I decided it was time to spin again. It must be the leaves falling, and the air turning cold that motivated me to dig out some of my small fiber stash and give it a whirl. Of course, I’m rusty, and have been a tad prone to bulky and lots of thick thin, and a touch of overtwist, but a little practice, and I hope to be able to spin some nice yarn for a sweater or longies for Eleanore.


You can tell that the natural was the first try after my two year hiatus.

I’ve been working on a few things for Eleanore, and managed to finish this pinafore for her.

I liked the pattern so much, I’m casting on another one for her to give her at Christmas, and wear on Christmas day.

Eleanore has been enjoying the little warm up we had last week. It was wonderful to be in the 60s and outside enjoying the leaves and sunshine. I planted a few flower bulbs, which will be nice to see blooming after the long winter, and she played in the leaves once Jason gathered them up.

We’ve also been enjoying our fall books. I’ve been putting together a little seasonal library for us to read, and we already have a few fall favorites.

The past few weeks, we made our fourth move in two years. Hopefully it will be our last for a long time. I do not want to pack another box again! We’re finally getting settled though, and are trying to enjoy our first Michigan autumn in a long while.
We’ve made a few more visits to our favorite orchard, Spicer’s for pumpkins, apples and cider. I’ve managed to make one batch of applesauce so far and am starting another today. It’s so delicious and easy using the slowcooker. I just peel and cut up the apples, add cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, lemon juice and a spoonful of raw honey and let it cook all day. The whole house smells like fall by the end of the day, and the applesauce is delicious by itself or mixed into oatmeal.

We’re actually back in our old house now that we moved out of two years ago. While small, it’s nice to have the built-ins that Jason made filled again:

I also have my yarn built-in back

My stash has grown since we lived here last, though, and I also have a dresser filled with yarn, too.

I’ve taken a small break from my shop knitting to knit for Eleanore, and finished a longies and hat set for her to wear to get our pumpkins:

That hat didn’t last long on her head though.

I’m working on an Oriental Lily sweater for her now, and a pair of mittens. Goodness knows we’ll need warm winter clothes this year!

I know the no knead trend has been around the blog world for quite a while now, but I’m just now joining the party. I stumbled upon this recipe through a facebook friend who linked me to the Mother Earth news website and decided to give it a go. I’m now hooked. It is super easy, and only takes a few minutes to throw everything together, plus one real “rise time” of 2 hours the first day (and 40 minutes rise plus 30 minutes bake time each day you want to make a loaf). It’s not fussy, you don’t have to proof your yeast or let the dough rise until doubled, etc. Just mix it all together and then store it in the fridge and it’s ready to go whenever you need more fresh bread.
It’s actually a recipe from this book Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day: The Discovery That Revolutionizes Home Baking
which I checked out of the library yesterday and definitely need to purchase a copy of, as I see many variations on the recipe that I *must* try. My only tip? Do not use a pyrex dish as your steamer pan. I tried it the first day and had a nice explosion of glass shards all over my oven and kitchen. Yes, I had an exploding pyrex dish. Fun. After a quick google search, I found out that I wasn’t the only one. I now use an enamel pan.

I’ve been on a domesticity kick this summer. We’ve been hitting the Ann Arbor Farmer’s market quite frequently this year, as well as Spicer’s Orchard to pick blueberries and raspberries (and we’ll be back for apples and pumpkins in the fall), and I’ve put up lots. Three big bags of blueberries in the freezer, a batch of blueberry jam, blueberry lime jam, raspberry jam, dill pickles and bread and butter pickles. So 14 jars of jam (plus 3 in the fridge and 5 given away to family), 12 jars of pickles (plus one already eaten. Oh how I love bread and butter pickles), not to mention the blueberry crisps and blueberry banana breads that have been made as well. The blueberries are Eleanore’s favorite. I wore her on my back while we picked and she would reach out and pull whole handfuls off the bushes and stuff them into her mouth before anyone could wrangle them away from her. Green, purple, blue, she didn’t care if they were ripe or not! LOL

As much as I love the summer harvest, I’m ready for fall. I’m planning mittens, sweaters and hats. I recently finished this set for a customer, and am working on matching socks right now.

It’s the Turning Leaves colorway from Mosaic Moon.
I’m not sure how she’s going to like them, but I experimented a bit on the socks, knitting a little elvish toe. If she doesn’t like it, I can frog the toe no problems

They’re both finished now and are drying after being blocked. My customer is out of town, though, so I have to wait to hear what she thinks. I’m working on a pair of longies out of Nurturing Threads Black Dragonfly colorway right now, for a stocking at Their Own Knitted World in September.

My baby is 16 months old this week.
New words: shoes, wall, all done (which she signs at the same time), horsie

We like to collect things at our house. Books, crafting supplies (ahem yarn and fabric anyone?), tools, vintage bowls, etc. Eleanore seems to have caught on quickly. Every day when we head outside for the afternoon, she walks around collecting sticks and leaves.

Jason got me a new digital SLR camera for my birthday, a Nikon d50, and I’ve really been trying to grasp all the settings to learn how to take better pictures. I still have a LOT to learn, but I think I’m improving, little by little. Of course, it helps that I have a pretty amazing little model who just happens to live with me. It’s so much fun to see how she enjoys life. Whenever music comes on, she dances and bounces and grins. She loves sharing peaches or bananas with Daddy, and loves to sit by herself with a board book, looking at all the pictures and reading to herself.