Happy Halloween 2010

Happy Halloween all! These are the 2010 pumpkins at Chris' house! Smiley and Frank.

I also want to show you the finished Warrior Princess photos from my sewing site.... more photos on the flip side (hit the sewing machine photo to the right)

This outfit took me over a month to make, and involved sewing, paper mache, painting, and lots of gun-gluing! Lots of instructions on the other site if you are curious!

The beautiful model is my beautiful daughter! Happy Halloween Sweety!

Costumes, Pumkins, Felting... and Knitting

I realise that I have neglected this blog again... Time to catch up. First I have been knitting a really wonderful Vogue Knitting coat. It is from the Early Fall 2010 issue, and is number 1, long cardigan. I am knitting it with Debbie Bliss Donegal Chunky Tweed in a natural brown colour 292113. This pattern is very chunky and knits quite quickly. The changes I am making (and you know I never make things EXACTLY as the pattern describes) I am patterning the back in the same cable pattern as the front (the back originally has BIG loose cables in the center - not my favourite). And I am making the sleeve length to my wrist instead of the three quarter length. This means casting on 8 less stitches and adding the increases evenly along the sleeve until the same upper sleeve width has been reached (yes, it is a bit of math, but not too hard to see why that works) You need the wrist to be a bit narrower than the mid arm starting width.


The top photo shows the colour the best, the bottom (without the flash) shows the stitch detail better.




The other thing that has consumed my time in the last few weeks is the Halloween Costume, found on my sewing blog under "warrior princess". I will be posting the modelled photos later today, so pop over through the photo of my sewing machine over there ----> to see the results. I am delighted with the outcome and have used many crafty skills to achieve them.



I will this weekend be dabbling in Nuno Felting. Something a couple of my knitting posse have learned to do and are willing to help the rest of us try. It should be a fun afternoon, with hopefully some cool results. Will post here the photos!


I will also be carving my annual pumpkin art. I usually post those photos here too, Happy Halloween to all!

As a last note, you all read about my charity auction sweater that I made a couple of weeks ago. It was going to a fundraiser night for a Nicaragua Mission where a group of women are going to teach locals to quilt in the hopes of creating better income and better lives, and also to take some supplies that are hard to get for them. I am delighted to announce that my sweater raised $180 and the whole night raised over $3000 for the trip. 100% of that goes to helping the women in Nicaragua. I am so proud of my friend Jane, who is going on this mission. (My knitting group is also going to help her refresh her knitting skills, so she can take yarn and needles and teach the women to knit too!)

Circle Shawl

My friend Susan asked me to write a pattern for some cunky hand dyed boucle yarn that she had in her stash for years. She wanted a shawl that was essentially a circle with a straight opening down one radius for the neck, and to allow the ends of the circle to hang open or be thrown over a shoulder. This is the first time I have designed a pattern without knitting it myself... Susan did a great job with the pattern! Here is the pattern...

Circle Shawl...
This is knit from lower back edge, in garter stitch, on large circular needles (not joined)
Yarn: bulky weight yarn.
Gauge: 5 Sts = 4 inches on 15 mm needles....
Cast on 13 sts. Knit every row (garter stitch)
Cast on 3 stitches at the start of next 6 rows. (31sts)
Cast on 2 sts at start of next 8 rows (47 sts)
Cast on 1 stitch at start of next 16 rows (63 sts)
Increase 1 stitch AT EACH END on next row and every 4th row, 4 times total (71)
Increase 1 stitch at each end on 6th row, and 12th row. (75 sts are on the needle now)
Work even for 5 inches. (middle of the circle!)
Work 34 stitches, cast off center 7 stitches , join another ball, and knit remaining 34 stitches.
Work both sides at the same time from different balls, work 5 inches more even.
Begin decreasing: Knit 2 together at outside edges only **center neck opening does not get any decreases!!** of next row and 6th row after that. (32 sts on each side)
Decrease 1 stitch at each outside end every 4th row 4 times (28 sts)
Decrease 1stitch at each outside end every other row 8 times (20 on each side)
Cast off 2 stitches at start of outside edges until 4 are decreased from EACH outside edge (16 sts on each side)
Cast off 3 stitches at the start of outside edges until 3 are removed from EACH outside edge and 7 stitches remain on each side.
Cast off 7 stitches from the start of next 2 rows. (all gone)
Add fringe to outside of circle if you want.

Silent Auction Coat Finished....

I finished the coat and decided I liked a hood in the chenille and hand made fish caned buttons.

The coat will be placed at a fundraiser dinner, Tuesday Oct 26, in the silent auction. Hopefully it raises some good bucks for Jane's trip to Nicaragua to teach quilting and bring hard to get supplies to women in need. If you live in the area (Niagara Peninsula, Ontario) please buy some tickets and bring a gang. I will be there!

Thanks go out to my knitting friend Jane, who graciously allowed me to raid her stash... the yarns are gorgeous.

****late addition***** this coat raised $180 for the Nicaragua Quilting trip!

Almost done...

I have been away for a week, golf and sun in Myrtle Beach. We hit a perfect week, with hot sunny days and mild nights. Hubby and I played 8 rounds of golf in 6 days. I would like to recommend DirectAir, from Niagara Falls... very inexpensive, and only 1.5 hours non-stop flight straight into Myrtle Beach airport. We left at 3pm, and were in our rental car by 5:30 on the way to our hotel.

We saw lots of these cute "racoon" squirrels on the golf courses. They were busy gathering nuts and burying them everywhere.

I was knitting a sock this week. I like to take sock knitting on the plane. The short needles won't poke into my neighbours! It also takes up little space in my carry on, and I have never been challenged by the skinny bamboo needles at security... they are no more threatening than wooden toothpicks!

The Charity Auction Coat is almost done. Just a few more inches of the last sleeve and then the sew-up.

Fronts Done!

both fronts are done, attached at the shoulders and the collar finished....

A diagonal stripe of chenille and tweed yarns....
Sleeves will follow soon!

Back Done!

Nicaragua Fundraiser sweater......

Fundraiser Sweater

My new quilting friend Jane is having a pasta night fundraiser for her trip to Nicaragua in January. She will be going to teach quilting to local women as a source of income, as well as taking unavailable supplies to help with daily life. (see the Pad Party entry).
The pasta night information is on her blog HERE, and if you live in Niagara, please attend! October 26th! Tickets can be purchased at Kindred Spirit Quilt Shop in St. Catharines.
I have offered to knit an original design sweater for her silent auction. So the first thing I did was call my knitting friend Jane and ask to raid her stash... I have serious stash envy toward Jane, and she has a floor to ceiling shelving unit filled with colour coordinated skeins of amazing yarns collected from years of sales and clear-outs and other obscure sources! She was quick to offer access to this delightful tower of yarn, and we went through and found this.....



Two yarns, one a shimmering chenille in muted teal, and the other a mohair, wool mix in teal with nubs of tan and cream. I am planning a coat with the textures playing against each other in an abstract pattern, maybe with a large draped collar... I am in love with that style.

Yarn value will be approximately $80, and take about 20 hours of knitting (I am a fast knitter), so I hope that we can command an excellent bid for the fundraiser on this item.... more photos to show as it becomes a great sweater coat! Stay tuned....