Life interrupts Halloween

My Halloween did not go as expected. The Plan was to wear the Luna earrings to class, then hang out for a bit showing them off and studying, and then come home to help my family with the trick or treaters (their neighborhood is quite the hub). I had a dress fitting scheduled for this morning at 10am.

First, I woke up late, but not so late that I wouldn't make it to class. I had stayed up till 3 the night before, grading and procrastinating the grading. The phone was what actually got me out of bed. It was Dad, calling from the hospital to say that Mom had appendicitis and they were going to have to operate.

And that was when I knew, Halloween was not going to be quite so awesome this year.

Class didn't go smoothly for me, the TA, but that is a slightly duller story. It involved me tripping in front of the class. I did wear the Luna earrings, with a gray sweater and a black skirt which I thought sort of resembled an undercover Hogwarts uniform.

I headed down to Galveston, where my parents live, a little before noon and got there a little before one. Mom's appendectomy started just before 11, but the hospital took its sweet time in getting her from recovery to her actual hospital bed, so she was still in the surgery area when I got there just after 2 (Dad said they didn't need me just then, so I took a nap at their house). To give a little more information, she had gone home sick on Tuesday, thinking she just had some minor intestinal issues, but it kept getting worse so after midnight she and Dad went to the ER. She works at this hospital and knows a lot of people, so she gets pretty good treatment, but they're still pretty slow. Dad's glad that her surgery was done by the day staff, though. Everyone keeps asking, so they didn't do it laproscopically, or however you spell that. The surgeon she got was highly skilled and respected, and he doesn't like it, so he just went in the normal way.

Dad and I hung out with her for a few hours, and then I stayed there and Dad went home to pick up my brother and deal with the trick or treaters. His totally sweet setup for scaring children and dispensing of candy involved a few tealights on the stoop which my brother didn't see, so he caught his enormous baggy pants on fire. I was on the phone with Dad at the time and heard Tom say "why am I on fire?" Dad put it out with his "spooky" black gloves, now also singed, and there's about a 5" hole in one leg of Tom's pants.

Mom was very sensitive to the drugs they had her on, so she pretty much slept all day yesterday. I brought her some little satyr horns so she'd have a costume, but she couldn't keep them on very well so we gave up. It was pretty funny when the nurse noticed, though. I got a bunch of knitting done.

I got home at 9. Dad had been out of candy for an hour and a half (they never, ever have enough, so I'm glad I stole some candy corn before going to the hospital). I got into costume anyway so I'd at least have some pictures. The robe is my Dad's from when he got his master's, and the "wand" is one of Mom's long cooking chopsticks.


Mom was much better today, and she'll be discharged this evening. But this recovery will not be quick. So we could use some vibes. The dress fitting went pretty well, but I have no new pictures for me. She did give me the leftover scraps including the still-intact bodice. Tomorrow when the light is better and my batteries are charged I'll try to get you a closeup of the material.

I'll close with a bit more Luna.

Dirigible Plums

I'm dressing up as Luna Lovegood for Halloween. I've got the scarf, and now I have the earrings.

Luna was wearing what looked like a pair of orange radishes for earrings, a fact that Parvati and Lavender seemed to have noticed, as they were both giggling and pointing at her earlobes.

"You can laugh!" Luna said, her voice rising, apparently under the impression that Parvati and Lavender were laughing at what she had said rather than what she was wearing. "But people used to believe there were no such things as the Blibbering Humdinger or the Crumple-Horned Snorkack!"

"Well, they were right, weren't they?" said Hermione impatiently. There weren't any such things as the Blibbering Humdinger or the Crumple-Horned Snorkack."

Luna gave her a withering look and flounced away, radishes swinging madly.

-Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

I forgot to include something in the picture for scale, but they're about an inch and a quarter tall and 3/4 of an inch wide.

I didn't have any exclusively orange yarn, so I cut the orange stretches out of my Yarn Pirate Punkin Head yarn. Each radish took two orange stretches, a bit of white undyed knitpicks, and the leaves are from leftovers of those socks I just finished.

Loony?

Or yet in wise old Ravenclaw,
If you've a steady mind,
Where those of wit and learning,
Will always find their kind...

(Sorting Hat song, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.

Though some have questioned the wisdom of knitting oneself a doubly-thick wool scarf (it's done in stockinette in the round) to wear while standing in line for a movie, outside, in Texas, in July. But I wouldn't put it past my favorite Ravenclaw, Luna Lovegood--especially if it was supposed to protect against Nargles or Crumple-Horned Snorkacks.

I finished the first Twisted Flower sock, but I'll take a picture later. That thing is so hard to capture! I can't start the second because I need to wind the yarn, and my ball winder is currently holding the laceweight merino for my veil. I'm worried about tangles, so I'm putting off taking it off the ballwinder core until I have an empty paper towel roll I can use instead.

I wish you could feel how soft and squishy this is.



And because I can't wind the yarn for the second Twisted Flower, I started another sock.



This is in Cascade Sassy Stripes Superwash--the same yarn Mom used for her sock-in-a-day sock. One of the stores downtown that sells cool "sundries" has started selling yarn recently, and a lot of it is really gorgeous. Also among their stock are beads, purses, funny books, tiny catapults that launch tiny pigs or ninjas, fake cockroaches, antique ribbons, nativity scenes... it's a great store. And they were hiring, so my little brother has his first job working there. Dave and I made a trip down to look at wedding places (omg) and stopped in the store, where he bought a nice pair of chopsticks, a hackey-sack, some little tin soldiers, and a skein of purple sock yarn for me. Yay!

These are going to be little anklets, and I think I'm going to go for that sporty arch-support style, with ribbing around the middle of the foot. I can't decide if I should do plan 1x1 ribbing or a 1x1 twisted rib. If I go plain, I'll probably have to transfer to 0's. Any thoughts? And should I do slip stitch all over the heel to make it extra cushy and sporty, or just go for sleek? It's not like I'll be running in these, of course.

Turning a Corner

It's been a loooooooong time since I posted about the Cherry Leaf Shawl. This is how it looks right now:



The bindoff I did was the suspended bindoff, the only bindoff mentioned in Victorian Lace Today, which they promise "makes it very difficult to bind off too tightly." Well, I call BS on that. I even went up a needle size or three (really I can't remember if I used the 6 or the 8, so literally a size or three).

Then I started attaching the edging backwards. At first I thought I could deal with both of these things, but eventually I decided that the bindoff had to go, and as long as I was ripping stuff out I might as well also rip the border and do it right.

The top of the center triangle is now a bunch of live stitches held on an Options cable. When I finish the edging I plan to put the stitches at the start and end of the edging on the same cable and use a crochet bindoff I've been playing with that, hopefully, will make an edge that actually stretches and looks pretty. The top edge is supposed to be done in crochet anyway, so I think it will go nicely. Hope so, anyway.

Yesterday I worked the bottom corner of the edging, and man was that a PIA. Got it right on my third try, but notice the lifelines in red--one to secure all my hard work before the turn, and one to make sure that if something happens on this side of the triangle nothing will happen to those three aggravating repeats.

I have also been making



A Ravenclaw scarf in anticipation of the latest movie and the newest book, both due out in July (oh the suspense!)



Oh, and I finished my socks. These don't fit as well as the other socks I've made myself. The cuff and heel are too loose, and then somehow the toe is a little too tight. They aren't uncomfortable, but it bugs me. Still, the yarn (Bearfoot) is awesome and makes up for any flaws in the knitting.

I'm down to two projects on the needles, which is the lowest I've gone in months. I think once the shawl is done I'll start thinking about the Origami Cardi again. Oh, and I'm supposed to be making some socks for my brother.