Happy Halloween

I have to say I'm not a Halloween fan. I don't decorate the house for it now that the kids are grown. I prefer fall decorations. That being said, I'm sitting here watching the Ghost Hunters marathon on Sci-Fi Channel. It's one of my favorite shows. Go figure.

Now for the knitting part. As usual, the end of the month crept up on me and I didn't have a pair of socks made for the Sock A Month KAL. I seriously considered skipping October since I didn't want to be racing the clock to finish a pair of socks. But I've made a pair a month for almost a year now and I hated to miss this month. So, baby socks to the rescue again. October 26th I cast on a pair of
Baby Monkey Socks by Sheri Berger of The Loopy Ewe. I had a lone skein of Patons Kroy Sock 4 in Pink Power that I figured would be perfect. I finished the socks last night at 11:45 p.m. Very easy pattern and fun to make, not to mention very quick.



I participated in Dish cloth Round Robin on Ravelry. The coordinator compiled a list of participants. Then she mailed package with several dish cloths to the first person on the list. That person took two cloths from the package and replaced them with two dish cloths that she made. Then the package is sent to the next person and so on until it arrives back at the coordinator's.

Here are the two dishcloths I made for the Round Robin




The pattern is very simple - Using worsted weight cotton and size US 7 needles, CO 39 stitches. Row 1 and every other row: K2, P2 to the last 3 stitches, K these 3 stitches.

You just repeat this row until the cloth is a large as you want.

And here are the two dish cloths I picked from the envelope before I sent it on to the next person.



The Helena sweater is on hold. I kept goofing up the lace pattern and was getting frustrated. So I started another sweater using the Baby Delight pattern from Babies and Toddlers - A Knitter's Dozen. I'm using Sirdar Snuggly DK in Fair Isle.

The sweater is knit top-down and I'm almost ready to do the sleeves. Then Ariane told me that the baby was born a couple of weeks ago and she went out and bought a gift so she doesn't need the sweater right now. There are so many other things I want to work on right now that that's a relief. I will finish the sweater to add to the pile, though. Helena's fate, on the other hand, is up in the air.

Now that the socks are done, I'm working on a pair of Manly Mitts from the Summer 2005 issue of Knitty for Scott. I'm using some Knitting Fever Alpaka yarn that I bought on clearance at A.C. Moore last year. I have 3 skeins - 1 gray, 1 brown, and 1 cream. I hope I have enough of the gray and the brown to finish these mittens. Otherwise, I'll have to incorporate the cream somewhere in the pattern. I hope the alpaca makes warm mittens for when he walks the dog. Using a stranded pattern should help block the cold.

And that's it from me for today. Don't eat too much candy tonight!