Halloween pictures

The boy's costume started with an idea - he wanted to be Ezio from the Assassin's Creed video game.

So I Googled for some pictures,

went to Fabricland and Dollarama to stock up,

and this was the result.

I'm quite proud of it, and the boy loved it.

We also decorated the deck where we give out the candy - smaller than our usual, but it still did my jailhouse pumpkin - what can I say - I love this idea!

Daylight shots:

Nightime...

It takes us a few hours to get it all set up, but it's worth it for the kids that ooh and ahh! (Especially the little ones! - they get the extra handful of chocolate)

A Halloween change

Today is the first time in 13 Halloween's that my son is not going trick or treating. It was a tough decision for him, but his 5'6" height, deep voice, and the fact that some of his friends are also not going, has made the decision for him.
He still loves the costume I made for him, and it went to school with him for the dance this afternoon.
The nice thing about him not going trick or treating? He can answer the door, and I don't get interrupted as much!
We still decorate the house for it - can't seem to help ourselves, but we have scaled back a touch - no scaffolding this year!!
Pictures to come...

new hat for the boy

My son has asked for a new winter hat. His reasoning is that since he got a new jacket this year, shouldn't his hat match? (This from a kid who has shown no other interest in fashion or clothes...)
Who am I to say no... We discussed styles, and it was decided that he really liked the chullo style of last years hat - the ear flaps, the ties, the large size of it. Cool. I just happened to have the Knit Picks catalogue, and they have a great chullo pattern using Palette wool.

One problem - while the greys, black and white are perfect, he's not fond of turquoise - that's really his cousin's "Thing" - Cousin S is a huge fan of turquoise, and wears it all the time. So the turquoise had to go.

 Easy fix - just add three more balls of Palette in shades of green - his choice of replacement.

Then there was the small problem of the pattern on the ear flap - the alpaca was not his first choice - could I replace it with a skull?

(Hey, he's a 12 year old boy, skulls are way cooler than alpacas...) Sure! Doodle up something,

knit it up

 get the approval from the boy, and start the second ear flap. I'm hoping to have both flaps done before the weekend, so I can get to the hat itself - these flaps are fiddly and annoying with tons of ends hanging - because I had to use all three shades of green on something this small. Next time, maybe one shade of green would suffice...

Oh, and just because it made sense (as far as shipping costs), I threw in a couple of balls of Chroma worsted weight to make another striped scarf a la Noro. Colourway Mesa, and I think it's going to look great.

one word - delicious!

This Pink cashmere blend scarf is really becoming one of my favourite knits! The tonal quality of the wool is really being shown to it's absolute best with this pattern, and the resulting fabric is so squooshy and soft - it is just delicious!

It's a good thing pink doesn't suit me so much - it will be really hard to give this up, but at least it's going to a fantastic friend who will love it properly.
I may just have to make this pattern for myself with the alpaca I just got. I tell you, I have the best internet friends!

One thing leads to another

Sometimes I wonder how I end up doing something, so I traced this particular episode backwards...

I was doing some sewing, and came across this fabric piece. Not a big piece - it's about 20" x 20", and I actually have about 5-6 pieces of knitting related fabric. (I think my Mom bought me these a while back).

So I wanted to do something with it. I was going to make some more drawstring bags (I have a bunch of them for small projects), but thought, a small bag is good for socks, but for something bigger, I want more structure. Then I remembered I had this pattern for an origami lotus bag.

And I liked it. It was simple, but different, and it would use the fabric pieces I had. It would hold more than a sock project. So then I needed a project to put in it.

I had found this scarf pattern, and really loved the simplicity, yet laciness of it. And then I remembered the lovely pink cashmere that Carol had sent me. And I just knew it would work.

And you know what? It works better than I imagined it would. You know when you hit upon that perfect mesh of pattern and wool? Well, this is it.  Really. The tonal quality of the wool works perfect with the linear laciness of the pattern (December scarf - a free Ravelry download). The squooshyness of the wool is perfectly enhanced by the yarn overs and k2togethers of the pattern. The patterns uses about 200 yards, and this ball has about 250 yards, so I'll get a few extra repeats in to add to the length.

As much as I want to keep this for myself, I think it is for my best friend, and godmother of my son. We've been friends since we were babies - our parents were friends, and we've been like sisters since then. There's no one who deserves it more.

Oh, and really? This is one of the fastest knits ever! The above was about an hour - it's just speedy! Or maybe I can't put it down because I love the feel of it so much...

But that's pretty much  how I came to be knitting a lace scarf, on top of all the other projects I have on the go...

sock cache

I've been knitting socks for most of the summer - just as "filler" knitting - while a passenger in a car, waiting in line or watching my son's baseball games - all that time that would otherwise be unused.
Using my favoured afterthought heel method, I've amassed a pile of socks waiting for recipients and heels.

From left to right (underneath):
A grey and blue Mirasol Punta yarn - lovely stuff to work with, really nice. I love how the colours came out. These socks may be for a friend, or for my son.
A pale pastelly grey mix Fleece Artist Sea Cell yarn - soft and squooshy, but a little short on yardage. Probably for my Mom - she prefers her socks on the shorter side, or m u MIL, who is really short, so short socks work for her.
Fame Trend in shade of beige and brown. A nice enough yarn, but it's single spun, so not my favourite. The socks are nice, though - probably for a friend.
Misti Alpaca sock yarn - one of my favourite sock yarns, ever. These are nice and long, and for my FIL - a specific request from him!
In front - the vintage Socks that Rock with contrasting toes, heels and ribbing - these are all mine!

Since I still carpool a couple days a week, and my son is well into basketball, I'm still working on socks, and still dipping into my stash of vintage STR - I'm working on a grey-pinky mix right now, using some leftover grey bamboo sock for some nice squooshy toes and heels.

2 things I love

Alpaca and colourwork. 

Note - this is not the alpaca that Needles sent me - that stuff is being kept for me! This is some other Alpaca I had kicking around the stash. This hat is a Christmas gift for a great friend and cottage neighbour. His wife and daughters are getting something hand knit, so it only seemed fair that he gets something as well.

This particular hat will have a sewn hem (that's the big bit of blue at the bottom). I doodled up a pattern, based on some I saw on line, and I hope it;s going to be long enough (right now it seems to be right on track).
Of course, by doing this, Dahlia, and it's never ending swaths of stockinette has been sort of put on hold. It's still in rotation, but this time of year, knits for myself get put behind those for other people. And I'm good with that.

pajama-rama

I love making pajama pants. They're easy and fun. I make them for my son, for myself, and for carefully selected friends. (I gave up making them for the nieces and nephews after the less than lukewarm reception hand made gifts get from them).

This is the selection at the moment - cut out and ready for sewing.

Here's some up close shots:

Sewing themes! Obviously for me.

Elvis! For one of my best friends. A huge Elvis fan, and she works at home and is always on the lookout for comfy pajamas. (She does get dressed during the day!)

For the kid - sports themes.

There's also some florals, some stripes and some plaids. I swear, if I could live in pajama pants, I would.

startng the Christmas stuff...

I've changed my whole outlook on Christmas lately. Instead of trying to force that hand made stuff on family, and getting shot down all the time, I just don't bother anymore. I keep the effort for those that are appreciative. People like my husband, son, Mom, Father and Mother in Law, and some friends.
My boss is one of those people. He loves the handknit socks I gave him last spring, and even told me as we were carpooling last week, that I "could sit in the back to knit if I wanted to keep his Christmas gift a surprise". We discussed it a bit, and he said socks would be good, or he could use a scarf to go with his black leather jacket. Sold.
Digging around the stash brought me this:

It's some unknown yarn I've had forever, lost the tag on, but always wanted to knit with. It's about a DK weight - heavier than regular sock yarn, but not quite worsted.

I tried a few patterns out - slip stitch patterns, linen stitch, since I find them the best with variegated yarns. However, I got a few inches in, weighed what I knit, and what was left, did a little math to see how long the scarf would be and, well, it won't be long enough. Rip. Try striping it with some Red Cascade (Did I mention my boss requested red?), but the weights were just different enough to make it not quite right. I tried it with some black silk, but the black overpowered the red and grey.

Then while doing laundry, I looked up and saw it. My loom. I could use the Red Cascade as the warp, and the variegated as the weft.

I think it's going to work.

Happy Thanksgiving

Today is our Canadian Thanksgiving. Unlike our American neighbours, our Thanksgiving is on a Monday, giving us a three day weekend. I am, of course, at the cottage, enjoying some spectacular un-autumn like weather. Seriously, we are talking Humidex this weekend, it's been so warm. The kids have been swimming, and we've been relaxing with the neighbours, enjoying a final warm long weekend, before we start enjoying the cooler, snowier long weekends that are to come.
I roasted a huge turkey on Saturday (cottage Thanksgivings take liberties with the actual days) - by cooking the turkey early, we get more opportunity for leftovers - quesadillas, sandwiches, and possibly soup, although it's been a little warm to have a boiling pot on the stove all day!
I hope my Canadian friends are enjoying time with family and friends, and for my American friends, I know you're looking forward to 4 days in November. (actually, I am too! I hope to be in Florida visiting my Mom during that time - I'm good with the double turkey thing...)


Enjoy!

Wow!

I did Needles a small favour - I sent her a signed copy of Steph's new book (my LYS had advance copies, and Steph signed them all when she visited). Needles confessed to being a bathroom reader as I am, and well, we have to stick together, so when I offered to send her the book, she jumped at the chance, and we traded - she was going to mail me the money.
Well, she did, but when I got home yesterday and saw this waiting for me, I knew there was more than cash in there.

All I can say is wow! How Needles knew is beyond me - Alpaca is my favourite fibre, I am all about the naturals and home grown, and I'm pretty sure this is from a local (to her) alpaca farm.

I feel incredibly lucky to have friends like this - we've never met, and probably won't - we live 3 provinces apart in Canada (3,317 km, according to Google Maps) and that's a couple of days of travel. But through the Internet and a shared love of knitting and fibre, she got a book signed by an author in Ontario, and I got some of the most delicious and squooshy Alberta alpaca.
And the coolest card ever, by the way.

I definitely got the better part of the deal...

new sweater for me

I wanted another cardigan for me. I wear them a lot, so knitting them for me is a no brainer. But this time, I wanted something a little different. Not my basic top down cardigan, something DIFFERENT.
Enter the Dahlia cardigan. It's beautiful, it's different. it's drapey, it had to be mine.
And at the Kitchener Knitters Fair, I found the perfect wool - Elsbeth Lavold Silky Wool. I've used it before in my blue cardigan, and I love how it knits up and how it wears and how it feels. The Purple Purl had the perfect colour as well - a rich, ruby red.
Done Deal.

The lace panel on the back knit up in no time, and was fun to knit. I reminded me that I really like knitting lace.
Now I'm in the endless stockinette portion, and it's dragging a bit, but I'm continuing because I love the wool and the sweater.

Red is SO hard to photograph properly. It's not as pinky as it appears above.

It's closer to this shade of red, dark, but still some brightness to it. It also uses an afterthought sleeve, which is kind of funny, since I'm demonstrating afterthought heels (a method that can be used for many uses, not just heels) at our Guild on Tuesday night.

found and fixed

A while back, probably about a year ago, I made this little shrug like sweater, using one ball of a chunky Rowan wool I had. It's a beautiful blue, with flecks of green in it, and I just love the colour. I was sure I had bought two balls of the wool, but at the time of construction, I only had the one on hand.

I loved the sweater, but there was a problem. Who needs a short sleeved, cropped sweater made out of CHUNKY WOOL? Right - not many people. So this sat. Then, I found the second ball, and put it in a bag with the sweater and the proper sized needles... and it still sat.
Recently I picked it up, and decided to just do it. I unpicked the sleeve ribbing, and added length to the sleeves first. (Longer sleeves were more important to me that added length).

Much better. I've even worn it already. I know it will get more use this way. Tossing the stash and finding the other ball of wool was a good thing.

Halloween approaches...

... and the talk turns to costumes. My son is at that age - he's 12 (a TALL twelve), and is still sort of wanting to go trick or treating. But his age, and especially his height, are against him. The fact that most of his friends are smaller than him is a point in his favour, so they might yet still go out. If not, there might be a large group of them in my house that night...

But... he still wants a costume. And I'm still enough of a sucker that I will indulge him again this year. Last year's Robin Hood was a pretty big hit. And easy, since it was a pattern - I just followed the directions. So when I casually asked what he wanted for this year, I wasn't really prepared for this:

Meet Ezio from the video game Assassin's Creed. (Yes, I let my 12 year old play Mature rated video games. Yes, I'm a horrible mother, but I highly doubt he will grow up to be a serial killer. We monitor and talk about what going on.)
Anyhoo, Simplicity, McCalls, Butterick and Vogue don't make these patterns. So I'm cobbling it together. I have a couple of patterns that will work with some tweaking for the main parts, and the hood and cape. The belt will be interesting to figure out, and I've already told him he can forget the hidden hand knives. I do have some standards!
I hit Fabricland last weekend for the members sale, and haunted the clearout section. I got some great heavy white cotton, some metallic red, and bits and pieces of other stuff to make this work. We can steal from some past costumes and stuff around the house for the belt and such, and I guess my tall black boots will be pulled into use again (if they still fit him!)

I admit, I do like making his costumes, and I get a lot of pleasure from the creation of them. But sometimes, I wish for the easy...

info for Barbie O

Barbie O. in Montreal wanted to know where I found my serger part. I started with a site called www.smscanada.com (Sewing Machine Canada). I found the part there, but they only deal wholesales, so through them I was directed to http://www.sewingpartsonline.com/, as they had the best price for the particular part I needed.

Hope this helps, Barbie!

for want of a $20 piece...

A few years ago, I broke my serger. I know, with the amount of sewing I do, you'd think I'd run right out a get it fixed. But I didn't. For one reason or another, I just never got around to it. My sewing machine (which is fairly new), does a pretty good overlock stitch, so I just used that. However, my pet peeve with the sewing machine is the bobbin. I hate winding bobbins - they never hold enough thread for me, and it's a pain to stop what I'm doing to wind a new bobbin. I would rather buy two spools of thread, than wind a bobbin.
But I digress.
After a few years of seeing my shrouded serger just sitting there, I decided to take a look at the problem a little more closely.  The piece that broke was the lower looper, and for some reason I thought it was an actual welded part of the whole mechanism. Turns out it's not. It's a small piece that screws onto the assembly. Huh, who knew? So I unscrewed it, and took what was left of it to my computer, and started Googling. I found out a couple of things. You really can find ANYTHING on the Internet, and there are hundred of different lower loopers for sergers!
I started with the easy - I found some sewing supply places near me and emailed them asking if they had the part that would fit my particular serger. Two of them never got back to me (there's some customer service for you!) and the one that did, simply said "we don't have your part. Can I interest you in a new Babylock or Bernina?" Sure! Instead of a part, I'll just get a while new machine. Okay, so the search continues.
I found a great site that actually showed pictures of the parts - very handy, considering my serger is a lesser known make. After scrolling through page after page of lower loopers, I saw it! The part! It had the right curve, the right bend, it all looked right! I looked at the price, and including shipping, it cost me all of $22.46. Really? I waited 3 years to replace a $20 part?
It proves my points. The internet is a wonderful place, and I'm an idiot for waiting so long.
Now I am waiting for the part to arrive from Tennessee. I've been madly cutting into my stash of fabrics that really need proper edge finishing. First up - a pair of evening parts in black vintage satin. Yum. Because a woman that dresses as casually as I do really needs vintage satin evening pants...

Stephanie came to visit!

Last night, the York Region Knitting Guild was happy to host Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, aka (for those of you living under a rock) The Yarn Harlot.
Even better, I was happy to host her, Rachel H, and assorted Guild members at my house for dinner. It's the second or third time Steph and Rachel have come by, and I tell ya, they are always welcome in my house! Great company, great food, and a terrifc drive to the meeting!
I had a degree of camnesia, but I did get a few shots...

Stephanie in my bathroom (seriously!) I don't know where you read her books, but that's my favourite place for them. We are a family of bathroom readers - out of camera range is the stack of Archie Comic Digests, and fishing and trivia books. Go ahead and judge us if you like - I make no excuses...

Dinner was a pot luck (thanks to all who brought food - so yummy!!) with lots of laughter and general merriment. (My husband and son were hiding in the living room before they left for dinner away from THE KNITTERS!

The drive to the meeting was fun - since parking at the shop is limited, we decided to carpool. And once Steph, Rachel and I saw Linda's convertible, with the top down, well, that was an easy choice. We stopped short of jumping in, and demurely used the doors, but we were constantly talking about being in a CONVERTIBLE! (typing cannot convey the silly tone of voice we were all using. I think Lindy was regretting having us in her car...) I was in the back and got Steph's hair blowing all over as she was taking her own picture.
We shan't discuss the drive BACK to my house, after the dew fell on the open car, and the sun went down. Fun ride TO the meeting, slightly damp and chilly ride BACK. Thankfully, I only live about 5 minutes from the shop, so it wasn't TOO bad...

Steph read from her new book, then did a Q and A that could have lasted well into the night, had we let it go on, but there was an opportunity for us to get our copies of her new book signed, so we regretfully ended the talk. Oh, did I mention Tove of Needles and Knits got copies of the new book? Before ANYONE else? I don't know what she did to get them (and probably DON'T want to know...) but she did, and Steph graciously signed copies for all. And get this - if you get to Tove's soon - there are still a dozen copies of the book available, and Steph signed them all!

All in all, a great night, and one I wish we could repeat often. Steph and Rachel are truly nice and genuine people. As she appears on her blog - that's what you get. And Rachel - well, I read her Twitter feed, and can identify with her - we're both Moms of similar aged boys, and have parents with similar issues. I really must get down to Lettuce Knit's Knit Night more often. One night is not enough time to spend with these two incredible women.

Best of all, in lieu of a speaker's fee, our Guild gave a donation to MSF in Steph's name. It meant a lot to her, which means it meant a lot to us.

Steph - good luck on the upcoming yarn crawl/book tour. And you are welcome to drop by my place any time.