More Scary ... this time, Socks!

What? Doesn't everyone have Hallowe'en socks?

We have one lovely lady in our life who can't get enough of all things Hallowe'en. She loves the holiday and we love her so we made her Hallowe'en socks. Kroy. 3mm needles. With embroidered jack-o'lanterns. We're planning to do a lot more wool embroidery. This was fun! (And yes, she is one of the ones who appreciates our work. She'll definitely be getting more.)

We have noticed over our (considerably long) lifetime a growing trend to making much more of a holiday of Hallowe'en. When we were kids, it was more low key. We all dressed up in costumes. Yes. But they were mostly homemade concoctions. There were lots of hobos and ghosts (from old bed sheets). Witches were common. We once made a witch's hat out of black bristol board. Our best and most memorable costume involved a fake beard we made out of curls of paper glued to a mask.

We didn't really see the appeal of the holiday. We got candy at home. Not a lot but enough. And walking around the neighbourhood begging after dark wasn't our thing. Let's not forget that we were timid even then and fearful of the dark. We'd had our share of being bullied in broad daylight. It seemed silly to ask for more trouble after dark from enemies real OR imagined.

One memorable year, Hallowe'en coincided with the night of our regular Girl Guide meeting. Afterwards 3 of us set out trick-or-treating. We rang the doorbell of our first house and were horrified to see Dawn MacDougall (who's probably all grown up and way smarter now) reach out and "soap" the door screen. BEFORE the lady opened the door. We hadn't been given any notice that Dawn was packing (soap) or that she intended to deface any windows or screens. This was something nice girls didn't do and we were certainly nice girls. The lady was horrified, too. Soap is pretty hard to get off a window screen. However, we suppose she thought it couldn't have been us because who would be so bold (or stupid!) so she ponied up the candy.

Our 2 friends were hardcore Hallowe'en experts. They carried pillow cases for maximum candy acquisition. They gamely held up their pillowcases and the candy dropped into the abyss. We held up our pint-sized plastic jack-o'lantern which was fairly full by then with candy we'd got at the Guide meeting and the lady suggested we were pretty greedy and shouldn't we be calling it a night. Ah, yes. Good times.

 Happy Hallowe'en!!

Something scary

Copyright © Cheryl Coville 2011

The  Illustration Friday  prompt this week is 'scary'. We did this drawing earlier this year and the subject matter and tone are so out of character for us that every time we turn the page in our sketch book and see this one, it gives us a little jolt. It must resonate with some deep, dark spot in our psyche. Hope it doesn't give anyone else nightmares!!

In our mailbox

In today's mailbox.....2 more Haunted Houses postcards from a swap over on Postcard Cottage. On the left is Tamara's with a terrific bat which we think she cut from a Hallowe'en print (So cute!!) and on the right is Regina's who also made good use of Hallowe'en printed fabric. It's fun to open the box and find such beautiful postcards inside.

Worksssss in Progess Wednesday

We all know about Grandma Coco's attention span. It's pretty short. She's been making herself crazy with deadlined projects and now that they're completed, she's back on track with many irons in many fires....just the way she likes things.

So, on this particular Wednesday, she's working on the following:

SOCKS! Of course. These are specially made for a very sweet man who went out of his way recently to see that we got to a wonderful yarn store in a city that isn't our home. New socks seem like a small price to pay for such gallantry. The only problem is that he says he has 'hot feet' and, by that, we believe he means his feet feel hot in socks, NOT that, you know, he thinks he has George Clooneyesque feet or anything weird like that. We don't know if he's ever worn a pair of hand knit wool socks before. Maybe he'll just be blown away by the luxury that is in store for him. Maybe not. We're knitting these out of Ariquipa , which is 65% superwash wool, 20% alpaca and 15% nylon. It is soft, soft and the yarn is fine so the socks won't be bulky (which we think might be an issue). We've knit with Ariquipa before and we love it. These socks have lots of stretch. They are ribbed with an alternating twisted stitch that looks like a cable.

DOUBLE KNITTING!. We're working away on kid- and adult-sized versions of Coco's Cap. Along the way, we got interested in other types of double knitting....corrugated ribbing, for example, and the brioche stitch. It's a long and winding (and exciting!) road we're on. And we haven't got a deadline. :)

BEADS!!! Another micro macrame beaded bracelet. This one we're just winging. Because it's fun.

A spooky Haunted Houses postcard in the mail from Pat!

POSTCARDS!! We finished some postcards this week for trading but we won't show them because we don't want to spoil the surprise for our recipients but here's one we received in the mail from Pat. Thank you, Pat! Scary stuff!

And that, in a nutshell, is what we're up to on this grey final Wednesday in October. Pop on over to The Needle and Thread Network to see what some other Canadian fibre artists are up to.

Week # 8 - Honeycomb Cable Stitch

This week's stitch pattern is no more complicated than any of the others but there are a few more rows.

There are now 48 stitches on the needle. Remember the 5 garter stitch border stitches on each edge.

 

Row 1: (right side) Knit

Row 2: K2, * p2, k2; repeat from * to end.

Rep the last 2 rows once more.

Row5: K1, * C2F, C2B; rep from * to last st, k1.

C2F = knit into front of 2^nd stitch on needle,

then knit first st. slipping both sts off needle

at the same time. 

C2B = knit into back of 2^nd st on needle, then knit

first st. slipping both sts off needle at the same time.

Row 6: P2, * k2, p2; rep from * to end.

Row 7: Knit

Row 8: As 6^th row. Repeat the last 2 rows once more.

Row 11: K1, * C2B, C2F; rep from  * to last st., k1

Row 12: As 2^nd row.

Rep these 12 rows 3 times, then work Rows 1 and 2 again.

Work the separator section:

Knit  6 rows this time in garter stitch, decreasing 1 stitch (by knitting 2 stitches together) somewhere in the middle of the last row.  (47 stitches total)

We're now 4 weeks away from finishing a lovely, warm scarf

for that special guy on our holiday gift list. Can you believe it?

We don't want to bum anyone out but.....2 months from today is.......You know.

For a printable .PDF, click here.

My happy place

 ... or....wouldn't Valium be quicker?

Copyright © Cheryl Coville 2011

Last week, Grandma Coco had the great good fortune to meet a cyber friend for coffee in a little town an hour away, which was halfway for both of us. As this was a first in-the-flesh meeting, it could have gone either way. However, we are happy to report that our friend is just as lovely in person as she seems to be in the comments. We are also happy to report that she's not one of those cyber weirdos you sometimes read about. Thank goodness. What a relief!

In fact, she came bearing gifts!! She brought us some books from her own collection. A couple of "good read" books and a very thought-provoking book about meditating through knitting. Mindful Knitting by Tara Jon Manning. Since we often knit for the peace it brings us, we found this one particularly interesting. A very thoughtful gift!

Grandma Coco has been feeling a little stressed lately. Too many (mostly self-imposed) deadlines!! Why do we always remember too late that we hate to do anything to a deadline?? Deadlines suck the fun right out of everything. We need to calm down, breathe and find our centre again. OOOOOOOHHHHHHMMMM.......

 

One of the projects that needed to be finished was a whopper! These socks are for really big, man-sized feet. Note how big they are in relation to our Birkenstocks!!! If it weren't for the deadline, these would definitely qualify as mindful knitting since they just seemed to go on forever....round after round, inch after inch. We wrote about starting them here on September 28. In the end, we used almost all of the Sock-it-to-Me Soft Focus and 2 balls of the dark grey. That's about twice the wool we'd use for a normal pair. The resulting socks will be very warm and will likely be worn for ice-fishing by Coconut Number One.

Just to be clear.....if Grandma Coco knits you socks, you only get more if you somehow communicate that you liked them. She can't be making socks for people who don't like them. That would be pointless.

If this is Tuesday ...

... then it must be time for another installment of the Papa Bear Sampler Scarf adventure. We've had a very busy week but we're zoomin' along on our scarf. So many attractive stitch patterns to choose from. This week's is called Twisted Texture.

There are now 47 stitches on the needle. Remember the 5 garter stitch border stitches on each edge.

Row 1 (Wrong Side):  purl

Row 2: p1 * C2B, p1;  repeat from * to end.            

C2B= Knit into back of 2^nd st. on needle, then knit first st.,

 slipping both sts off needle at the same time.

Row 3: k1, * purl into 2^nd stitch on needle and then purl first stitch, slipping both stitches off needle at the same time, k1; repeat from * to end.

Row 4: knit

Repeat these 4 rows, 9 times. (36 rows)

Note that you start with Row 1 (the wrong side) on the left of the chart and note also the strange stitch symbols which I made up. Hope it’s clear. Please ask, if it’s not.

Work the separator section:

Knit  5 rows this time in garter stitch, increasing 1 stitch (by knitting into front and back of one stitch) somewhere in the middle of the last row.  (48 stitches total)

So far, so good! Only FIVE! sections left. 

And don't forget, we have a little gift for anyone who sends us a photo of their completed scarf.

For a .PDF of these instructions, click here.