Now, something pretty

I knit on the latest new project last night, while waiting for trick-or-treaters:



This is a very simple hat pattern from "The Gentle Art of Knitting" (it's the one she refers to as "brown or blue hat" - it's the one with a small garter stitch welt every so many rows).

Yes, it's knit flat and seamed. Yes, that's not how I'd have designed it if it were me. Yes, I might rewrite it to knit future versions in the round (because knitting in the round, that's how I roll). And yes, there are going to be future versions - I ordered yarn for one for a gift-exchange, and yarn for, if there's time, one for my sister-in-law for Christmas. Both in shades of blue, and both in the exact same yarn as I'm using here. (Blue Sky Alpacas "Melange.")

I can't convey in a photo just how NICE this yarn is. It's super soft, not scratchy at all (some alpaca, at least the kind from more mature animals that have guard hairs, can be a bit scratchy. This is not). While I don't think it would work so well for a sweater - at least, not a sweater you wanted to wear more than a few times without it pilling away to nothing - it is lovely for accessories - hats, or neckwarmers, or fingerless mitts. (I think it would make especially good fingerless mitts if you were the kind of person whose finger or knuckle joints ached when they got too cold). It's very, very soft. It puts me in mind of what yarn would be like if you could comb a whole bunch of the soft baby hair out of little kittens, and spin it up into yarn. Well, that is, if kitten fur had a long enough staple length to spin without some kind of binder. And, in my case, if the kitten fur was free of the allergens that bug me.

(Knock wood - even though it seems EVERYTHING makes me hive up these days, wool and especially alpaca do not bother me. May that it always be so.

Though, that said - I've found a home treatment for the hives. The stuff sold as "Miracle Foot Cream," which has aloe and menthol, seems to get rid of them. I THINK what is happening is that the menthol is enough of an anesthetic that it stops the itching, and then that allows either for them to go away on their own, or maybe the aloe helps speed their disappearance. Or maybe the hives are caused in part by dry skin and the aloe helps with that. At any rate - the foot cream is cheap enough and doesn't seem to have any side effects (you have to be a little careful with hydrocortisone cream), so as long as it works, I will use it.)

***

I had almost 20 trick or treaters last night, that's more than some past years (But I still have candy left, despite being pretty generous, especially toward the end).

The best costumes were a young family - the littlest girl was a black cat, the slightly older girl was a princess, but the parents - who stood back to watch their daughters - were Zombie Bride and Groom. And the costumes were pretty impressive.

There were also two little girls - not sure if they were sisters or friends, I didn't recognize them - but they were so POLITE. It always makes me smile to see kids with that sort of almost old-fashioned politeness. (Yes, say what you will about Eddie Haskells, I like kids who are seriously polite. There are a couple of children in church - she's six and he's maybe four, and they're small for their ages at that - and they're so super polite and so serious about it that it's funny and nice and sort of touching all at the same time. Oh, I'm sure they don't always act that way - but they have always been super polite to me, and I appreciate that.)

Anyway, these two little girls - one was a girly vampire (not, thank goodness, a "slutty" vampire - just a girl vampire) and the other was like Bride of Frankenstein or maybe Teenage Daughter of Frankenstein. They wished me a "nice Halloween" and thanked me for the candy, and one of them said, "I like your house!" and the other one said, "You sew really neatly!" (Well, actually, I was knitting as I sat there and waited on the kids, but I'm not going to quibble with a seven-year-old Frankenstein Monster Girl.) I don't know whose kids they were - I couldn't see who the dad was standing off on the sidewalk - but whoever they are, I thank them for their child-rearing efforts.

I switched off the porch light around 8:20, figuring most of the kids would be done by then (I think technically trick or treating goes until 8:30, and by 8:20 I hadn't had anyone for a while).