Boo!

The kids are getting ready to Boo some neighbours tonight. It’s a fun Hallowe’en tradition that we do in our neighbourhood. First assemble a bag of treats. I usually include some dollar store delights like balloons, stickers, pencils and bouncy balls. Of course I also include a few candies

Then we include a note. Every year, I am sure it is different, but the gist of it is this: Boo! You have just been boo’ed by The Ghost. Now you must boo someone else (or 2 or 3) before hallowe’en night. Hang this picture in your window so people know you have already been boo’ed. Happy Hallowe’en, The Ghost

So you sneak around just after dark, leave the bag on someone’s doorstep and then run and hide! Of course, this is the best part So if your doorbell rings just after dark tonight….you just may have been visited by The Ghost!

I finally have a pair of Hallowe’en socks, too. I made them with KnitPicks Stroll in Pumpkin and some black Regia I had kicking around. No pattern here, just a basic toe-up striped sock.

I finally completed a Brooklet cowl. The pattern is Brooklet by Cecily Glowik McLeod. The yarn I used is a fingering weight: Sea Wool by the Black Lamb.

I also made another Zauberball striped shawl, this time a Simple City shawl, using crazy zauberball. So easy and fun.

A couple of crafty things I would like to get to before Hallowe’en: how cute are these painted rocks? same goes for this pumpkin or apple centrepiece. Also, be sure to check out Tanis Fiber Arts…she has another giveaway on her site and it is some kind of gorgeous.

Next up…some Christmas crafting…

Kool-Aid, turmeric and coffee

A few weeks back I decided to try my hand at dying some wool sock yarn with Kool-Aid, just for kicks basically.

I had some bubble gum pink sock yarn left over from a couple of smaller projects and decided to dye it with a mixture of orange and red Kool-Aid (I was thinking that the pink, orange and red combo would undoubtedly give me a beautiful lush tropical coral-red colour…

So into the pot with the yarn. I added water to cover the yarn and let it soak for a half hour or so. I added a glug of vinegar to the water, which is probably a quarter to a half cup, and then I added the Kool-Aid and turned up the heat. I didn’t bring the water to a simmer but it got quite hot.

It was so neat to see the water turn so clear after sucking up all the dye the Kool-Aid had to offer (note to self: stop drinking Kool-Aid ) This is what I ended up with. A rather interesting colour, and a definite scent of cherries!I decided I really wanted to try and make some yellow sock yarn, seeing as yellow has been my favourite colour lately. Dark purple is creeping up my fave colour charts, too. Anyway, I had a skein of KnitPicks Bare sock yarn kicking around, and happened to have a jar of Wilton’s colouring paste in lemon yellow.

I dissolved a small amount of the food colouring in water before adding it to my vinegar and water dye bath. I ended up with a yellow, just not the yellow I was looking for.

So I decided to earth-tone it up a bit. I made a new dye bath with 2 tablespoons of turmeric powder, and that smelled like a delicious curry, and then I did one more dye bath with some strong coffee.

It is pretty close to what I wanted: I really love mustards and gold. Next time I really want to try beets and onion skins. My mother grew up dying wool that way so hopefully she can give some tips.

Smithsonian Natural History Museum: Hyperbolic Crochet

A family trip earlier this month to Washington, DC inevitably led us to the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. Amazing is an understatement, of course. If you can make it to DC, most of these museums are free, so it’s a great city to visit: so much to do and no admission prices. I thought I would share a very yarny exhibit that I thoroughly enjoyed; a crocheted coral reef (there is knitting in here, too). Two sisters are the brainchildren of this creation, and I can only say…I would loved to have seen their living room while this creation was being made.

I have a few FOs to share. First a pair of Fletcher mittens that I made for a mitten swap and sent to Ontario. I was very happy with how these turned out and will definitely be making more. I used some Briggs and Little and Noro Kureyon. If you’re on Ravelry, here is the link to my project page: Fletcher mittens.

I finally made myself a pair of Harry Potter socks, in anticipation of the final movie. I have read all the books, and love them, but the movies have a special place in my heart, too. I improvised the pattern, and made them toe-up with a short row heel. I used Knit Picks Stroll in mustard and wine…pretty close to Gryffindor colours.

Finger knitting – your cat will love it!

After Christmas I started volunteering at my daughter’s school a couple of mornings a week to provide some enrichment to her Grade 1 Class. I thought finger knitting might be fun for the children since it is quick and relatively easy to learn, and it provides them with a good set of skills (patience, concentration, hand-eye co-ordination).  It is also a great precursor to knitting. Here is the You tube video that I use when I need to refresh myself with the cast-on and cast-off: Fingerknitting. Give it a try – it is really fun, and maybe you can teach a child you know. All you need is a ball of yarn and a little hand!

Kids love to make a little scarf, or head band. In our case, a scarf was lovingly made for our cat. It is pictured above arranged into a heart on a chair. You can see what she thinks of her scarf in the picture below.

Don’t worry. She only wore the scarf for the photo shoot. I think the look in her eyes clearly says “I will kill you while you sleep.”

 

 

Sewing distractions

Right before Christmas I stitched up a couple of box bags for a couple of good friends. Box bags are great for sock knitting and small projects – so I hear, because I haven’t kept one for myself yet!

I am not a great seamstress, so if I can do it, anyone can. I was particularly proud of these 2 bags I made (I used an iron and a ruler – go figure). This is my favourite box bag tutorial, because I do subscribe to the “a picture is worth a thousand words” kind of tutorial. For the above bag, I used some fusible interfacing on both the lining and outside fabric, since that is what I had on hand.

Feel like surfing some great tutorials for a few hours? The Long Thread has posted their Top 100 Tutorials of 2010. Amazing stuff! I do intend to make another box bag, perhaps this weekend…and I am keeping it this time

Powerless before cherries, dark chocolate and toffee…

…I can’t stop eating these cookies. A few years ago, these were Martha Stewart’s cookie of the year. My dear friend Ann makes them every year, and raves about them. This year, determined to make a delicious cookie not covered in icing and shaped like reindeer, I decided to give them a go. So, check this: oatmeal cookie with dark chocolate, Skor bits and dried cherries. To die for. I must have eaten 5 today, and promptly put the rest in the freezer, because I obviously can’t walk by the cookie tin without snarfing one down! They are Martha Stewart’s Oatmeal Toffee cookies, and I’m telling you, they are a real treat. I went whole hog (bad word choice, I know) with my favourite dark chocolate chips (Ghiradelli). I know, I know. They don’t look like much. Looks, in this case, are very deceiving.

I thought I would also share this fun link for milk carton wallets. I did a knitting group swap last week, and threw in one of these little wallets I like to make, and everyone was oohing and ahhing over them. They’re a cinch to make, and kids love them! I find myself  sometimes buying drinks I wouldn’t normally buy, thinking of how cute the wallet will be They’re great for holding cash or a gift card, too. Cool and easy!

Would Martha be proud?

Probably not. First of all Martha would never start with a 3$ synthetic wreath like I did. I then made some pompoms with my essential Clover pompom maker, left a pair of long yarns and tied it around the wreath. I think it looks cute. My inspiration comes from Bleubird. What an amazing wreath. I didn’t have enough scraps for all those pompoms and I wanted something quick, too. It has that imperfect rustic quality to it. Of course, I meant for it to look rustic and imperfect…

I hope to add some jingle bells, and perhaps a few smaller poms here and there, but we’ll see. It was definitely a fun way to use up some scraps. And I managed to finish yet another pair of Newfie mitts for Christmas gifting.