Plath’s Adventures

All the Christmas crafting is finished, and the countdown has begun! I finished the second pair of socks for Eleanore’s stocking:

I *think* the yarn is June Carter on Glacier from Cider Moon, but I’m not sure, as the yarn has been tagless in my stash for a while.

I also even managed to fit in a surprise pair of socks for my mother in law, but I haven’t snagged a picture yet. She has been asking for a pair of socks for two years now, and I finally was able to fit in a pair for her. I used Araucania Nature Wool, a very light worsted/dk, and the International Sock of Doom pattern, so they worked up quickly. The pattern is now located here if you’re looking for it.

In the past week, I also found two new additions to our winter table.

My mother in law had the Santa Claus beeswax candle for years and years, and when she saw my etsy favorite list, she thought I might like to have hers.
The wool tapestry is from TheMoonGoat on etsy, and I love it. She is on vacation right now, so her shop is on hold, but you can see some of her past work here and a few pieces are on my favorite list, as well.

The season wouldn’t be complete without a visit to Santa, and we managed to see him at The Henry Ford Museum the other day. Eleanore even received her first set of Duplo Legos from him.

I thought this would be a tough year for us with Santa (and fully expected a screaming picture), but Eleanore was perfectly calm and collected, even though waiting in such a long line truly tested her patience, and she was ready for her afternoon nap.

Jason had a trade show to go to this past week in Indianapolis, so Eleanore and I tagged along for a few days for a mini vacation. We managed to go to the Children’s Museum for a day, and although she was young for most of the activities, she still had a nice time seeing the fish, hanging out with the dinosaurs and riding in race cars.

I also spotted some knitting graffiti downtown, which was really neat to see.

While we were nearby, we also fit in a stop to see the grandparents in Ohio, and made a stop at the Carriage Hill Metropark in Huber Heights, where Eleanore got to visit with some of her favorite animals: chickens and a horsie. She gets so excited whenever she sees a horse, I think riding lessons may be in our future.

Inspired by quite a few blogs, I pulled out my block of beeswax the other day, and made a few ornaments.

One tip I will give you, is if you’re using the plastic candy molds (like I used for the snowflakes), make sure you cool the beeswax a bit before pouring. My mold is now a melted mess, with only one cavity remaining intact! Oh well, you live and learn! The peace sign silicone ice cube tray worked perfectly, no matter the temperature. I’m going to try a few more as soon as my acorn and other snowflake molds arrive, as I think they’ll make great gifts, and will be perfect for our tree this year. Eleanore liked them so much, she carried around one of the peace signs all evening last night, smelling it and rubbing it, and holding it up to Jason’s nose, telling him to smell it. We’re nurturing such a nature lover.

They were great fun, and smell so deliciously of honey, I’ll definitely be making these next year as well. Bees are so interesting to me, and keeping them is on my list of things to try, although it won’t be for a few years. We’re going to try chickens in the spring, and we’d like to plant a few fruit trees, and then we may try bees if all goes well.

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.