Pumpkin!

Today our playgroup had our annual Fall/Halloween party. After much discussion regarding Halloween costumes surviving playgrounds The Bug decided to dress as "something else". Initially the something else was Fancy Nancy; shocking I know. She went to her room to get dressed and the next thing I know she's a pumpkin. She has tan pants (the stem and vine) orange leggings over the pants, her orange Halloween shirt over a green long sleeve shirt, her yellow sweater and orange hat. Lucky for her she likes orange and has a lot of orange clothing. Then Mr. Gnome painted her nose green.Really this was all her idea. I'm quite proud of my creative little pumpkin. I love this picture.
Her Halloween shirt you ask? She made this at the beginning of the month and it's taken me this long to get a picture of it. Oh, she's worn it, she's also gotten it dirty before I get the camera out. A plain white shirt tye-dyed orange, not long enough as you can tell; she was excited. Then black fabric pen for the jack-o-lantern faces. I did one (can you guess which?) and she did the rest.

Impulse and Cute

A few weeks ago during a moment of weakness I cast on for the Woodland Shawl (mine will be wider and possibly longer). I've wanted to make this for a long time and I finally got the yarn at Stitches. Oh I've been itching to start it. Notice I said a few weeks ago and it's only four inches long. It is low priority. There was the bug's sweater, then her costume (pictures soon), and of course the gray thing, then one or two holiday gifts I still need to make, and the left-over sock yarn blanket that only needs 62 more squares. And of course I've wanted to make these every year and never get around to it. And OH have you seen these! It may get done by spring...At least I'll have some lace for when the lace bug hits.

More interesting or at least cuter are pictures taken by Mr. Gnome of his girls in action.

Halloween Feast

Halloween seems to be The Bug's favorite holiday. She talks about what she's going to be and checks out Halloween books from the library all year long. When Halloween finally comes along she gets so excited to see the decorations everywhere. Until she has to go near them. Then she totally looses it. This brave outgoing child who will talk to anyone, try anything (foods) is terrified of mechanical and even non-mechanical decorations. Someone in a spooky costume and you have a quivering girl shaped pile of jelly. Part of me thinks it's her overactive imagination and part of me thinks she gets herself so psyched up all year long that the real thing is too much to handle. When I stumbled upon Wing-It Vegan I new we had to have a Halloween feast. We made the Mummies and Ghosts, though my ghosts look a bit more like blob monsters which are still scary. The beans are worms, or grass....or something....
All day she has been asking me when we'd start dinner.
She didn't want ketchup eyes on her ghosts/blob monsters or mustard eyes on her mummies but she enjoyed putting them mine. Scary enough to eat!

Monster Pancakes

Sometimes your creations can get you.
We thought we were creating a beautiful thing with apples and pancakes.
They seemed so happy and fun. But we were wrong; looks can be deceiving.
Because when they were cooked and finished they were mad, evil apple pancakes. Determined to dice their creators.
There was only one way to stop them. Drown in Maple Syrup and ingest.

Fancy

Leg warmers for The Bug. This is the self striping yarn we made back in May. The theme that month had been a character. Naturally The Bug went with Fancy Nancy. She wanted big stripes and boy did she get big stripes.
There is half a ball left and I'm thinking fingerless gloves for the kid. We'll see since she usually looses them......
A note about Fancy Nancy. If you know me you know I grown every time the kid talks about being a princess and that I'm not all that Fancy. However I do like Fancy Nancy. I like that she makes herself fancy how she wants to be fancy. Fancy is gluing glitter or lace on discarded things. Fancy is dress up. Fancy is wanting things just so. Nothing wrong with knowing what you like and making (as apposed to buying, ahem, Eloise) things to be the way you like them.

Ready for the cold!

We finished insulating the attic. It went pretty fast and all things considered it went pretty easily. We did follow the above gender rolls (can you tell that that person on the left looks like a woman and the person on the right, in the attic, looks like a man; apparently gay couples cannot insulate their attics, at least not without a wig). We can't wait until February to see what this does to our gas bill!
I also finished the Bug's sweater. This is Little Miss Green Jeans, the yarn is Maple Creek Farm I got it at Maryland Sheep and Wool. She's practicing her ballet here.
It fits great. I did make it a little longer than the pattern calls for and I'm glad I did. The orange is Oh so Bug.
The button band is looking great. These buttons I got at Stitches and they are just perfect! She's pointing to her favorite. There are three more for later use.

Blow Baby Blow

We are sealing and blowing our attic. I'm not ashamed to say I'm really excited. Ok I'm a little ashamed that this would excite me. Previously you could see sun light up there and the only insulation has been a small layer of gravel (?) and some really old newspaper.Mr. Gnome is ready to go!

Picking Up

This is the sweater I'm making The Bug. It really has come together fast. Until the other night when it was time to pick up the stitches for the button band. Then it all came to a grinding halt. It took the entire evening just to pick up the stitches in a way that didn't look horrible AND so there were an even number on both sides. Now I don't like picking up stitches in general but this was horrible. I can't really say why. Part of it is that it's knit up kind of loose, not too too loose just US8 on the body and 7 on the ribbing. But enough for holes to want to pop more where the 8s were used. Also the increases at the top didn't want to work with me.
Then the next night when all I had to do was knit the band and bind it off I didn't like the bind off. It was just too bind offy or something. Of course I didn't decide this until I was nearly done binding it all off. Ripped it all out and am now working doing a sewn bind off. I'm liking that a bit more.
Of course after all the picking up and ripping out it really needs to be blocked again. Ah well it's been too warm for a sweater anyway.

Sparkley

huh you can't see the sparkles. Trust me they are there. I'll try harder with the next pictures. The beginning of this was sock rough. For some reason I kept dropping stitches. And not the oh I just dropped a stitch. The oh crap I dropped a stitch rounds and rounds ago and now have to rip back to that point and this is lace every row and this is the fifth time this has happened and I keep missing the dang yarn overs and argh *massive ripping to ribbing after doing a good number of repeats*. It wasn't a pretty beginning. However after that possibly over the top ripping all went well. Of course there was the occasional missed YO but I'd get it the next time around not rounds and rounds later. I don't generally drop stitches and not notice; screw them up entirely and not notice, heck yeah! But drop them not usually my thing and I think that is what really threw me off. The second one has been started and so far *knock on wood* has been going quite well. Perhaps I can learn from my mistakes!

The Gray Thing

There it is. Thrilling isn't it. It has a long way to go. And really this is about all that can be said about it. See don't wish I'd blogged about the sock (just one) I finished, or the sweater that's almost done, or the shawl I started. Or even the Apple Berry Cobbler I made last night. Yes, gray thing, boring. But it's good to know it exists.

Two Down

Two gifts down. The smaller one for a friend's little one the larger one for my little one. I may end up giving The Bug hers sooner however. The only hat she has is this one. Remember that thing. yeay..... We'll see.
There is definitely one gift still to knit possibly two. I'm not counting the gray thing. I know I still need to tell you about the gray thing.

The End of the Mystery

The September Mystery KAL, actual name is Honey Quartet, has come to an end. We got the final clue two days before the end of September due to the designer's computer exploding. Thus I don't think anyone finished in September. Here are mine! We had the option to do fingers of just a cuff. I went with fingers just because I like them. I wore them today. When Mr. Gnome saw them he asked my how many pairs of these I have. ahem. The answer is blissfully unknown, and shall remain that way. Thank you.

See I Can Finish a Blanket

Just not mine.....Mr. Gnome's work is changing their logo. When I found this out the first thing that came to my mind was; What about the left over shirts? Left over shirts naturally lead to a blanket. I got the shirts a month or so ago. It was fun. I'm of course amazingly self conscious. I made it meaning for it it to be in the green room to be enjoyed and used by the talent. Also to be just left there and we'll see how long it takes for someone to notice. As I was finishing it I just hoped that it would not be hated. Or thought of as lame. Or something else negative. I know I'm crazy. Mr. Gnome brought it to work today. We shall see what the future holds.

Fairy-Mermaid Bolero

Oh sweet fall when we can start layering with cute sweaters, how we love you so.
This sweater is the Mermaid Bolero. A....shall we say... Challengingly written pattern. A pattern to keep you on your toes, if you will. ahem.
The yarn is what we dyed for the Fairy Lights DAL back in June. The idea behind this DAL was the welcome fairies into the garden. Now mine turned out more fallish, so maybe more of a thanking the fairies for helping out in the garden? The bug loved the yarn from the beginning and I searched for something to make for her using this yarn.
A close up of the stitch patter and more interesting the yarn colors. I love how it has orange, and pink and green and purple all thrown together.
Oh and that cute skirt she's wearing. We picked that up at a dollar sale at a local used clothing place. It's an adult size skirt; 2 or 4, so small adult (ah I remember the days...sigh). I stuck some elastic through the waist band and bam a slightly flowey slightly long skirt for the kid.