Crabby Witches

Quite a few years ago, I bought this really fun fabric that we called Crabby Witches at the place I used to work at. I have heard that it was reissued because it was so popular, but I never saw it again. A Google search turned up this similar iteration.

Last year, I finally decided to make a quilt with it. I started with a design from this book written by a friend and former co-worker.

I didn't have quite enough fabric to fussy-cut enough squares for the quilt described in the book, so I went off on my own tangent. Along the way, I added the narrow sashing with the small sashing squares.

I finished sewing the top just about a year ago. It would have been done sooner, but I have this weird preference for hand quilting my projects. And, I also have a bad habit of having multiple projects going at any one time, so I'll work on this one for awhile, and then that one, and then maybe the other one over there. . . . Which means that more time elapses by the calendar before any of them are done, rather than if  I had simply worked on one until it was done.

 But where's the fun in that?

Anyway, I quilted the last bit about a week ago, sewed the binding on over the weekend, and handstitched it to the back over the last two or three evenings of TV-watching.

Scary Pumpkins!

On Sunday, Tim and I finally got around to carving our Halloween pumpkins. This year, the two pumpkin-ettes that our garden produced join them.

In the interest of full disclosure, this photo was run through Photoshop to make it more Halloween-y.

The original was taken at night, but on Portrait setting, so the flash went off. I adjusted the Brightness/Contrast, which darkened everything to an appropriately spooky shade. However, then the ghosts in the window disappeared. So I created a selection layer to make them just a little more visible.

My classes are paying off!

Silk Sox Revisited, and other knitting

In 2011, I wrote about knitting a silk sock, here and here and here.

It went badly enough, that I put that particular yarn aside, and knit some other things.

I knit a hat for my husband, with the alpaca yarn he gave me last Christmas.

I used this pattern, which is a top-down style. Another cap I had made him was bottom-up, and never quite covered his ears.

Then I made a pair of socks for myself using Mighytsock yarn. The colorway I used is called Wildflowers, which I don't see on the web page. Last night, I kitchenered the second toe, and wore them today.

Have I mentioned that I have a weakness for variegated yarns?

So, after nearly a year, I'm ready to take another run at the silk socks. I made a couple of changes, with the intent that they will fit better. I cast on more stitches (110 instead of 96) and cast on with the German Twisted Cast On, which is supposed to be more elastic than a regular long-tail cast on.