More stitching than finishing

I have been doing some stitching during the past couple of weeks but not very much finishing so this weekend, I picked up materials for some small and quick projects for gifts. I have been knitting hats using patterns from Handknit Holidays by Melanie Falick. So far I have finished two "Elf" Hats using one skein of Mountain Colors 3 ply wool in Alpine. The smaller hat will fit a child. The larger hat fits my son who refused to be photographed in it. I am going to make some more "Elf" Hats out of Lorna's Laces Shepherd Bulky in Mixed Berries and then try out the bobble edged Santa hat using Lorna's Laces worsted in Red Rover for the hat and Misti Alpaca's Chunky Baby Alpaca for the trim.

I have been stitching from my stash and have been working on a Mosey 'n Me Pattern called Scary Scraps -- the Mummy. Scraps is stitched on a piece of bright pink linen in anchor floss, needle necessities, and Rainbow Gallery threads. The individual sections of pattern are relaxing to work on and I think that he will be a very fun Halloween decoration when he is done. I also have all the Prairie Moon Halloween ornaments and stand ups to stitch -- if I get them done and finished, I could have a lot of Halloween decorations next year. I tried to concentrate on finishing Christmas decorations last year instead of stitching new ones and have a lot more things to put out. You can see some of my stand ups on the flickr feed on the side of the Blog.

I have also been knitting my second pair of socks. Not much to show so far but I am making progress. These are knit using the first color from the Art Walk Sock Club. I like how the painted colors are coming out in the stitch pattern on the sock so far. I am using the Bartholomew's Tantalizing Socks pattern from Cat Bordhi's book.

Happy Halloween!

I am home by myself opening the door for the trick or treaters. My children are out with their friends -- my daughter decided to trick or treat as herself because I failed as a parent and did not order her the whoopee cushion costume in time for Halloween. My son has been trying to think of things to claim to be as he trick or treats in his regular clothes -- I suggested a high school student but he said that was too obvious. He was trying to decide between child molester and serial killer when he left with his friends.

As the evening goes on, the trick or treaters at my door get older and fewer of them show up in costume -- it is a little cold out so in some cases the costumes may be covered up by jackets or sweat shirts. I have succeeded in giving out all of the candy that no one in the house will eat. So I can feel the evening has been a success. I also made popcorn in a pot on the stove for the first time -- I have always used the microwave bags or an air popper before. I managed to only burn a few kernels on the bottom of the pan.

I am also trying to transfer an address list from Palm format from a Treo to Outlook so I can have it on this computer. I am trying to decide how long is a reasonable time to wait before I assume it froze and will never finish.

I have been reading. I finished Crazy Aunt Purl's book Drunk, Divorced and Covered in Cat Hair over the weekend and have been thinking about the community of needlework bloggers. I have also been looking at the referrers that show up in my site statistics and found out that there are some blogs that link back to this post. The fact that technorati does not pick them up is a technical issue that I will look into later but it is cool to know that my comments have influenced someone else's work or that someone else has found my blog interesting enough to refer someone else. When I decided to start my blog, I wasn't sure anyone would read it. Almost 300 visitors a month seems outstanding.

Creative Embroidery piece

I finished my first piece for Susan Sorrell's Creative Embroidery - Organic Design class. The class is offered through Joggles. Her style of embroidery is very interesting -- much freer than anything that I have done before. This piece is supposed to be a Zen embroidery piece -- an abstract design using different stitches and threads. I used a variety of silks, appleton wools, cotton threads, and some DMC linen in various threads on a piece of hand dyed quilting cotton. Quite a departure from the rest of the charted cross stitch that I have done this month.

Stitching for exchanges

I have been stitching for exchanges. I posted my biscornu pictures last week. Here are pictures of my Halloween Treat Bag based on a pattern in a British magazine and of a pincushion from a Halloween Quaker Exchange. The pincushion is based on a motif in the Tsunami Sampler. I used a beaded border inspired by the fringe patterns in the Bead Embroidery book that I recently bought. The beads are brighter in person but I could not get them to show up properly on the photograph.

I also finished my first pair of knitted socks. I now have two rainbow ripple socks. I have started my second pair of socks using yarn from the Art Walk Sock Club and the Bartholomew's Tantalizing Socks from Cat Bordhi's book New Pathways for Sock Knitters. The socks look good so far -- I will post pictures soon. I will have a lot of opportunities to work on my knitting this year since

we have added indoor Lacrosse to our winter sports schedule.

I have even done some reading this week -- I finished Small Island and am now reading the latest Thursday Next mystery, First Among Sequels.