I hope everyone who celebrates has a happy Halloween! I did end up carving a pumpkin when I was home at my parents’ for a weekend. Mine is the second one from the right. The one on the farthest right was the one my dad carved while I was there. The type of pumpkin we used was different from what we were used to and the skin was so tough that we had to carve using a hack saw and a drill. It was an interesting experience.
Tonight’s crafting time will be spent trying to finish my Halloween costume. I still need to crochet up a few pieces to pull everything together.
This is the first time in a long time that I’ve had a crafty costume. I usually go for make-up based costumes. Are you making your costume? Have you finished?
It’s almost Halloween so I thought I’d wrap this up with my favorite movie that takes place on Halloween: Arsenic and Old Lace. It’s a silly comedy and I make sure to watch it every year.
I love the costumes in this one. Priscilla Lane wears some gorgeous costumes, but I also like the Aunts’ old fashioned clothing.
Ever since I taught some of my friends to knit hanging out has turned into hanging out and knitting. I was super productive all of last week and I got to the ribbing on the sleeve of my Audrey In Unst Friday night. I was really excited to post my finished sleeve on Monday, but then reality hit me. I had a really long paper due Monday and I spent my entire weekend working on it. “Whatever!” I thought, “I’ll have it finished by Wednesday!” And then I realized that I had a proposal due later this week for a big project for class. I like to imagine that I can knit on a schedule, but that really doesn’t work well with school.
Sp, here I am on Wednesday with one row left on my sleeves and a finished essay and proposal. I am finishing this sleeve tonight. It’s going to happen.
You might remember my on going sleeve length dilemma. The sleeve that’s still on the needles is one repeat shorter so the ribbing starts just below the fold my elbow. I finally remembered why I made the first sleeve a repeat longer. I had been worried that the ribbing would start above the fold of my elbow and that would be weird and uncomfortable. I think I might have made the ribbing shorter than the pattern intended to balance out the extra repeat so the first sleeve is the intended length. Looking in the mirror I preferred the shorter sleeve, but now that I’m looking at these pictures I’m not so sure.
I have to admit that I almost never think about the direction my button hole is orientated in knitting. I always think about it on the rare occasions that I sew (because I have trouble deciding which way they should be), but for some reason it never crosses my mind when I knit.
The Vertical Button Hole is worked by using two different balls of yarn. My swatch looks a bit like my beginner attempts at intarsia from before I knew what intarsia was called. You make a new stitch when you start working on the left side of the button hole and decrease it away at the end to keep the top and bottom from getting too loose. Stitches are slipped along the edges so it doesn’t look too messy, but it’s not a very snug button hole.
This button hole has got me wondering if there are instances where I should have used a Vertical Button Hole instead of a horizontal one. I rarely see patterns using this button hole. Any thoughts on the matter?
I wanted to share this little tutorial on how I made my bat lantern from this post. It’s nice because it’s a bit like a jack-o’-lantern, but it’s never going to rot, smell weird, and/or attract fruit flies. I’ve attached the template I made for mine, but you really can make any shape or pattern you can imagine.
You will need…
1. The template.
2. A sharp nail. The bigger the nail the bigger the holes.
3. A clean tin can. The template is made for a 4.5 inch tall can.
4. Scissors.
5. An old rag. You really only need this if you’re working on cement. It helps keep your can from getting scratched up.
6. A hammer.
7. Tape.
Cut out your template with the scissors and tape it around the can. Be careful to not tape over the dots.
With the can flat on a hard surface (I was working on my front steps), hammer the nail into the side of the can, going through a dot on the template. When the widest part of the nail passes through the side of the can, pull the nail out and move on to the next dot. Work around the can until you’ve made a hole through each dot.
Remove the template and hammer around the edges of the can lightly if it has become misshapen. It doesn’t look like much right now, but wait until dark.
Carefully place a tea light or a short candle in the can. The can will be full of sharp edges so be careful! Light the candle with a long match or a long wand lighter.
Dead Alive, also known as Braindead outside the States, was directed by Peter Jackson and has to be one of the goriest movies I have ever seen. Despite the gore, it is hilarious and not particularly scary. It’s one of my favorite zombie movies.
The movie takes place in the 50s and has some great costumes including a few good knits. There is some beautiful fair isle and a few adorable cardigans. Sadly, they all end up drenched in bright red fake blood so you have to ogle the knits while you can during the beginning of the movie. The gore is over the top and very stylized, but I wouldn’t recommend the movie if you get grossed out easily.
Congratulations Steph of Steph and Tony Investigate! I’ll e-mail you your copy of Agatha.
Thank you to everyone who entered the giveaway! I enjoyed reading your responses.
This is one of those techniques where I read the instructions and think, “Weird.” Naturally those always make it on my list of things to try. The Increase Button Hole is made by binding off a bunch of stitches and then working a couple YOs after the BO. On the next row you drop the YOs and stretch out the last stitch before the hole using the yarn from the YOs. Then you work a bunch of stitches into the front and back of the giant stitch to replace to BO stitches. Weird.
The Increase Button Hole is a bit less bulky than the One Row Button Hole and a bit more stretchy. It does gap a little, but it’s not too bad. It would be a good button hole if you wanted to a use a medium or large button but didn’t have a lot of stitches to bind off like the One Row Button Hole would require.
My only complaint is that the top edge is lumpy and bumpy from working into the front and back of the big stitch to increase. It makes the differences between the BO and CO pretty noticeable.
I wanted to make some Halloween decorations last weekend, but I didn’t want to do anything over the top because I felt like it was a little early in the month for that. I ended up making this little tin can lantern with bats on it. I was going to share the step by step process, but I’ve been busy with midterms so that will have to wait until next week. Until then, here’s a peek at how it turned out.