Boo!

It's Halloween time again!
Beautiful light through the trees, leaves everywhere and giant iguanas prowling the neighborhood.
Now, in truth, this is a stegosaurus costume, but the Younger Hug-a-Bug was playing iguana, and who could say no?

diy forest

As I mentioned the other day, the weather here has been really weird lately.
We have had the rainiest October that I can remember, and there have been a few days of snow already.
This, combined with myriad factors that seem to keep me inside (contractor in the bathroom, sick kids, etc.) has made for some long indoor days.

And, earlier this week, when it was actually nice enough to go out to the woods we saw this -
So yesterday, when we had a lovely mix of giant soggy snow blobs falling from the sky and rain, we decided to build a city out of blocks complete with an ocean, a farm, a savanna and a forest.
Not quite the same as being out in it, but it did help.

Tradition

I am really lucky.
I have a beautiful family, a warm house and I love my jobs.
One of my jobs is knitting for people who need projects made.
A couple of years ago a lovely man came into the Yarnery and asked if I would design some stockings for his new daughter-in-law and dog-in-law.
I got a call about a month ago from the same man asking if I would make another stocking for his new grandson.
I love that I can be a small part of creating traditions for this family.
I also love that I can follow the family as they grow together.

Altered

So, last week I wove a scarf that I wasn't too excited about.My weaving teacher recommended that we use variegated yarn for the first weaving projects to hide mistakes. I did that, and I wanted a challenge so I tried all one color, and I could see my mistakes, but I could also not see anything very interesting.
So, I felted the scarf down and added some needle-felting and I came up with this-It is quite floppy along the edges, I am choosing to embrace this, and the fringe looks a little worse for the wear, probably will get a trim, but ultimately I think I made the right choice.
The yarn was 100% undyed alpaca and the resulting felty scarf is warmer and cozier than you can imagine.
I used some handspun (by me) yarn for the swirls, I was going for a winter wind kind of thing.

We have a craft and baked goodies sale next week at church and this is one of my offerings.
I will also bring the PINK scarf that I made last week.This week has been about coziness and goodies, and that's just fine with me.

From the Fifth Lamp Down

Newer readers, and not so new ones too, might not know that this blog began as a place to share crafty stuff, but also as a year-long photography project.
My aim was to take a photo a day, wait no, a week, alright a month from the same place on the High Bridge in Saint Paul.
I chose the fifth lamp from the top of the bridge for my landmark.
I had hoped to share a fifth lamp photo for my 2nd blog birthday last week, but I just didn't get out there, so this morning I took a walk and here is what I saw.(that's the lamp)

Still weaving

The obsession continues...

I broke down and bought a warping board and made two more scarves since my last post.

I wanted to try out something different, so I wove a scarf using the same yarn for warp and weft.
I also wanted to see how some simple plaid would work up.
I think the white scarf is kind of boring, so I am working up a plan to give it a little snazz.

I am pretty pleased with the plaid.

The Younger Hug-a-Bug liked the warping board when I brought it home.
He told me it was like a big bow and arrow.

We spent a few minutes bouncing toys off the strings, it was pretty fun.

obsession

I work in a yarn store, as I have previously mentioned, frequently, but I don't know if I shared that the yarn store is owned by a company that makes wooden toys and rigid heddle looms.
I wish we sold the toys in the yarn store, but we don't.
We do however sell the looms.
Well, I decided that if we sell looms then I should learn how to use them so I would be a better salesperson and that is why I signed up for the weaving class that I spoke of last week.

What I didn't know it how satisfying it is to weave a scarf in a couple of hours, or how quickly I would become obsessed.

This may be the year that everyone I know gets a scarf for Christmas.

Since I finished my first project on Saturday at class I have woven two more scarves.

The first two were warped with fingering weight yarns, and the third was with a lace weight.
I'm not totally sold on the third one.
It could be the color.
I was using up some stash...

Anyway, all I can think about is getting back to the yarn store to lay out a couple of more warps to do more and more scarves.

I have to give the loom back at the end of class, it's only a loaner.
Maybe by the end of class I will have this out of my system.
If not, I guess I'm buying a loom.