Happy (belated) Halloween!

We hope you all had a safe and happy Halloween. We LOVE Halloween around these parts, as you might remember from years past. This year was no different!

Elliott and my costumes this year were totally inspired by the cutest Garden Gnome costume I saw over on Ravelry. I thought that was the cutest idea for a toddler costume and despite the fact that I already had two perfectly good costumes at home for him to wear...I couldn't help myself. I kept thinking about what I could do and pretty soon I just had to make it!

My costume was also born from my desire to be something pretty this year. If you notice from costumes from previous years linked to above, I am rarely a girl for Halloween and when I am, I'm not usually a 'girly girl'. So this year I was determined to be pretty :) When I saw that cute garden gnome costume it reminded me of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, so I took that and ran with it!

I ended up making myself a simple elastic waistband skirt out of cheap quilting cotton and modified a cheap $4 Joann's t-shirt into the 'bodice'. I cut out the neck, cut off the hems then added elastic to the bottom of my sleeves for a little poof. I also sewed up a quick red cape (also from quilters cotton) using the play cape tutorial over on Sew Mama Sew. I used a yard and a half instead of a yard and got a pretty respectable length cape.

And of course a black Hallowig! This knit up super quick using almost one entire ball of black Patons classic wool. I had planned to have it flip at the bottom like in the pattern photo, but when it grew after washing, I hemmed the bottom instead making a cute little bump. I finished it off with a bit of red ribbon.

Elliott's dwarf costume was crazy simple to put together. He wore a pair of brown cotton pants, an oversized long sleeve green shirt, and a pair of fleece 'boot' slippers as well as a 'belt' that I sewed together from a piece of black 1 inch elastic. (I tried to get him to wear a real belt...but apparently that was very traumatizing and involved lots of tears. Since this is supposed to be a fun holiday, I opted for a more toddler-friendly option ;)

I improvised a beard bib using some 'santa beard' fur fabric from Joann's. I just put right sides together traced the upper part of a bib directly onto the wrong side then made a beard shape at the bottom. I pinned, cut and sewed without messing with anything because this stuff shed like crazy. Once I turned it inside out, I added snaps and presto: a beard that a kid will keep on!

The hat was equally improved and easy. I sewed it together using some knit fabric with a tad of spandex. I measured Elliott's head, subtracted (maybe 3-4 inches) for some negative ease and used the natural tube of the fabric so I only had one seam to sew. I just made a straight tube for about 6-7 inches, then tapered it down to a rounded 'point', sewed the side seam and added a rolled hem. Easy peasy! And the best part? He actually WORE it! This kid hasn't kept a hat on his head for longer than 2 seconds for almost a year!

We had a great time this year and it was so fun to see Elliott start to get into it. He helped me carve pumpkins and really seemed to enjoy wearing his costume to my office potluck and his Gymboree class. All in all a super great Halloween!

DIY Halloween

My office has a great tradition of dressing up each year for Halloween...even when it doesn't fall on a work day. We usually get at least 60% to participate. And given we are an office of attorneys and legal staff, I say that's pretty good!

I've dressed up every year for the last nine (gulp) years. I'm a big fan of found costumes. I usually either raid my closet or B's closet, or incorporate something I have into my costume (like the year I used my graduation gown to be Harry Potter). I've also sewn costumes a couple times (like the year I came as a tea bag).

Anyway, this year (after a lot of deliberation - I decided on our costumes the week before), I decided to come as a Zookeeper from the San Diego Zoo. Only this zookeeper's had a rough time with it. I had planned to make Elliott the bear to my keeper, but B came up with the idea of making me the bear cub surrogate. (I still love the idea that it's someone's job to be 'mom' to a bear or a gorilla or a cheetah. So cool!)


For my costume, I added an old khaki work shirt to some green cargo pants and hiking shoes. B made me some awesome stickers to serve as zoo patches. Then I had fun 'beating myself up'. I drew red lines on the back of my shirt with a fabric pen and cut slices into the shirt to make a couple paw strikes. I put fake blood on some bandages and wrapped my head and my arms a couple times. We also had an old leg brace from when B broke his knee a few years ago, so I wore that and added some camo bandages...because if I really were a zookeeper, I'd wear camo bandages.


As for Elliott, I basted some homemade felt to the front of his brown jammies (mostly to cover the rock and roll dinosaurs on the front) and added some felt toe pads to the feet. Then I knit him a Teddy Hat (Rav link) from stash yarn. Elliott really needed a new hat for our San Diego winter, so this was a good two-purpose knit.

Although, how much Elliott will enjoy wearing a bear hat for the rest of the winter remains to be seen. See below for a couple notes (* and **) about this 'photo shoot'.

The hat pattern is really for an adult, but I knit it on smaller gauge yarn to make a smaller hat. I also knit the hat about an inch shorter than the pattern called for. All in all, on size 7 needles, I knit it with just under one ball of Knit Picks Main Line in Cocoa. I added the felt ear tufts to tie it into the bear suit.

And guess what!?! I won the contest for most original costume! This is the first year I've won anything, so my ribbon and smurf lunch bag prize was especially sweet ;)

Hope you all had a very happy (and safe) Halloween. I love seeing all your costumes!

* First up, the cute embroidered onesie is courtesy of Mamieknits. So cute!
** Second, right before I took this photo, Elliott, Jenny and I were getting settled on our blanket during one of our weekly visits to Balboa Park when a couple of strangely familiar faces began crossing the grass in front of me. It took a couple seconds for all my neurons to fire, but then low and behold, I realized it was Lolly and Kris! She stopped about the same time and we were both like - hey is that you? Talk about a small world and such a totally random encounter! They had spent the day at the zoo and, I have to say, I can't wait to see their pictures!

FO: Bunnies!

I didn't intend to make Easter baskets, but I got inspired at the last minute after I found cute little baskets and came across the pattern for these little egg cozies. A little extra time, some extra yarn in the stash bins, and three adorable nieces for inspiration, and I was off knittin' some bunnies!

Pattern: Bunny Egg Cozy by Kawaii Crafter
Yarn: Tahki Cotton Classic in 3001 White (from stash) and scraps of pink and grey yarn also from stash
Needles: US3

Talk about instant gratification. I was able to find random bits of yarn in the ol' stash bins and these knit up so quickly- I made all three in one afternoon! I don't know why plastic eggs would need cozies, necessarily, but that's really beside the point. ;)

Unfortunately, it slipped my mind to take pictures of the assembled baskets before we gifted them away (duh), but in the event you want to make a baskets for a 20 month-old (or three of them, as the case may be), here are some things you may put in each: a tiny stuffed bunny rabbit, plastic eggs filled with little toys or organic cheddar bunny crackers, a mini box of raisins, a chunky cardboard book about colors or numbers, a mini rubber ducky, and of course, an egg topped with a bunny egg cozy!

It's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas...

Firstly, thank you for the lovely comments on my Hourglass sweater! You guys are the best! Now on to the business at hand...

Christmas is going to be very low key around these parts this year. I heart Christmas. I love planning the presents and the food. But sometimes, its nice to keep things simple. Besides simple gifts = money saved (and boy do we need to do that right now. Each day we are thankful that B's car doesn't shimmy and shake apart as he drives down the street!). I've also saved a bunch of money this year by buying in bulk (thanks again, Nonnahs!) and making things from my stash. Now not everything is a stash project, but I saw several specific-people-inspired projects when organizing my stash for Ravelry, so I went with it!

I also had some early deadlines this year which helped me keep things on track. And now that three of my four knitting gifts have already been received, I figured now is as good a time as any to share.

First up is the first gift I completed. I needed to get it into international mail and although international mail is now always fast and expensive, I wasn't really sure know how long it would take. Turns out it takes about 5 days.

These are Dashing knit in a little over one ball of Zitron Ecco (124). The yarn was really nice to work with and the pattern was fun and easy. I really like how these particular warmers go down your arm. For someone like me who is almost always cold, I think something like these would be a godsend. But, I put them in the shipping box anyway ;-) ...which is good because they went to a friend who is desperately trying to keep warm in his first Japanese winter.

I also knit up this drop stitch scarf, Yo Drop It from the Stitch 'n Bitch Nation.

It was knit from most of a hank of Touch Boucle (566-2), about 243 yards, that was generously gifted to me by Dr. Nyl in a lovely care package while she was living in Australia. I kept thinking about my hair dresser (who I've known for more than six years and never knit for!) and how she would look so pretty in these colors. It was just about the time the drop stitch scarf pattern came up in the Stitch 'n Bitch page-a-day calendar, so I knew I finally had the perfect project for this yarn. It was an easy, fast moving project but the boucle was a little sticky and splitty. I also added some fringe because it just wanted some :-)

Finally, (well not really finally, because my last knitted gift will have to wait until after Christmas to be shared :-D), I made a pair of hand mitts for my 'facial-lady' (calling her an esthetician always seems so hoity-toity for me, so unfortunately she's stuck with this stupid name instead). Now I've wanted so give her a proper thank-you for some time. I was having a serious battle with acne a couple years ago and contemplated getting a medical prescription because I was feeling so desperate about the situation. Now, I usually like to explore non-medical options first and fortunately, D was able to help (she's in the same shop as my hair dresser). Fortunately for me, I've found one of the few affordable facial-ladies in town (she is 1/2 of what most people charge!) and within a month or two my skin was dramatically clearer. I see her now once a month for maintenance and I am starting to think of myself as having clear skin that occasionally gets a breakout vs. having acne. Anyhoo...the mitts:

Hee, hee - I just realized you can see my hitchhiker's thumbs in this photo!

These mitts are endearingly referred to as "21C Fingerless Mitts in 8ply" and the pattern can be found here. I knit them in less than a ball (with about an 1/8th left over) of Vickie Howell Craft in Kelly. I had this as a random ball of yarn and I kept going back to it for D. I knew she would like the organic aspects of this yarn. The color was perfect and she's a surfer. I thought what better way to warm-up after surfing in our terribly cold ocean (or at least that's what I refer to it as!) than with a pair of hand warmers. Yay! once again for Ravelry. I was able to search through all of the mitt patterns until I came across one in just the right yardage and gauge combination to let me use the Craft without having to adjust the pattern. Thank YOU Ravelry!

Now that B is back in town (you can tell I needed to use the auto-timer for the photos above), we've also gone about getting our place jolly for the holidays. We picked out our tree last night and set it up with a glass of eggnog in hand.


B left a signature touch:

Heeelppp meee!!!

Ugh. But then, who am I so determine the 'correct' way to hang an ornament, so the poor snowman is still precariously dangling. Although, I am OCD enough that this is actually quite troubling to me. Things should be straight. And right side up. Oh well, tis the season!