The Sock Bun

When I first saw the sock bun on The Freckled Fox I must confess I was more than skeptical. My hair is heavy and it's long. I use hair pins and hair sticks to keep it up. But, half way through the day my head hurts and I end up lowering the bun down to my neck. 

What did I have to lose? My husband has way too many socks anyway! I took one and followed the sock bun tutorial. As I said, I was skeptical...10 seconds and it stays up? We'll see about that!

Well, it stays up and it feels great. What's better than a sock bun? Two sock buns of course!

Knitting socks

I have been knitting for three years, for half of that time my focus has been primarily on socks. When I first started out it was so complicated. Until I realized that all knitting really comes down to those two stitches, knit and purl. Keeping that in mind I plunged fearlessly on. Now for me knitting in the round is more enjoyable than flat knitting. When the piece starts to take on a real sock shape it’s like magic. I just follow the pattern and pretty soon...there is a foot shape! Socks are small, they don’t take up much yarn which not only makes them a less pricey project then say, a sweater, but It also means that they take less of your time. I love the new self striping sock yarns that are available, they are mathematically figured to automatically stripe themselves as you knit along. That is fun. The self striping prompts you to go on because you want to find out what it’s going to look like.The pair shown here are the socks from my Socks and Bones post. Here I am balancing along on a log in the middle of a marshy place filled with skunk cabbage. I managed to make it across without getting my new socks wet and slimy.  

“And I am hypnotized by knitting socks. Once a sock has been cast on to five double-pointed needles, I adore the mindlessness of going round and round like a hamster in a wheel.”

“The only way to knit a sock in the round is to keep coming back to your starting point. But, almost imperceptibly, progress is made. It’s a pattern, yes, but it’s not really a circle, it’s a spiral and all the stitches and rows, like days and weeks, are linked to form an unbroken chain. We can think we are getting nowhere with the cyclical nature of domesticity, and yet all the time, as with sock knitting we are moving on to a new row or color.”

quotes are from The Gentle Art of Domesticity by Jane Brocket

Recycle Sewing and Snow Bunnies

I cannot remember when we’ve had as much snow as we got last week. When a big snow is predicted I plan for it. I stock the house with food, water, candles, batteries and lots of library books. Then we settle in. Outside obligations come to a halt and I look forward to a couple of days of reading, sewing and making comfy foods. This time I made myself a pair of pajamas out of an old red flannel sheet and a pair of bloomers out of curtains that a friend was getting rid of. I make sheets into curtains and clothes out of curtains. While I was busy with all that my daughter did a bit of recycle sewing herself. She made this adorable black bunny out of a glove of mine whose match has been missing since last winter. Of course I found it’s mate the day after the rabbit was made! I told my girl that she must turn that one into a bunny too. It’s much easier to live with two very cute bunnies than one lonely glove.


The snowy season calls for special foods like these whole wheat donuts. To combat the gray/white sky I try to put as much ‘sunshine’ on the table as I can.

Socks and Bones

As a child I collected deer jawbones. I kept them in a box like treasure. I would take one out from time to time and comb my long, dark hair with it. All the while imagining myself a beautiful Native American princess. When my daughter came home with these two jawbones I thought it was pretty cool. Her story is that her and her friends came upon a deer skeleton in the woods and claimed it as property of "the fort". The bones were gathered and arranged artistically in the fort along with a lot of other broken, sharp and dangerous treasures that I'd probably rather not know about. My girl tells me she was allowed to take what she wanted home because I'm the only mom who happily allows "dirty bones" into the house. About the sock- I started this blog with my spring sock so I thought I'd show off my fall sock. It's taking a long time what with all the doll making going on around here but it's coming along.

another green, growing thing...

I am finishing up my first pair of hand knit socks. They are great, I have never had a sock actually fit the contours of my foot. Too bad they take a bit of time to make, I want more.