Fall Fever

I'm suffering from a serious case of fall fever.

While unpacking my booth setup stuff after the county fair last weekend, I set the cup of fake leaves down in a random corner of the room for a lack of a better place to store them.  They looked so lonely, I added a pumpkin.  And now I officially have fall fever.  I want candy corn, bonfires, jeans, boots, flannel shirts, and did I mention, candy corn?  I love candy corn.

The fair was a success, despite it incredibly hot and humid.  From my booth alone, I saw three different people get loaded into ambulances, presumably from heat related issues.  It was hot!  Naturally, no one was in the mood to buy wool hats but I did sell tons of pumpkins.  Despite the heat, it was a successful day.  My booth neighbor, Winnie from Sweet Threads, was a lifesaver.  There wasn't room in my booth for the fan I'd brought but Winnie had a spare and aimed it at me for the entire event.  Thank you Winnie!

I've been pretty lazy since getting home from the fair.

All I've managed to accomplish craft-wise is to bind off a scrap shawl I was knitting and I started a granny rectangle blanket.

I'm loving the granny rectangle, although I can't crochet for more than about 30 minutes a day or my hand feels like it's going to fall off. Crochet bothers my carpal tunnel.  Anyway....  

I've never crocheted an official granny rectangle before.  I've always just made two (or more) squares, sewn them together then granny stitched around them to create a rectangle.  This time, I watched a you tube video to learn how to do it correctly and I love the results.  I'm already afraid I'm going to run out of yarn though.  I may have grossly miscalculated how much I'd need.  The blanket may end up being a weirdly large table runner.  We'll see.

As for the scarf, it's another simple scrap Palette garter stitched scarf.  Every row is a different color and I leave a little extra yarn hanging off the ends to become fringe.  Super simple to knit and a great way to use up little bits of mis-matched left over yarns.  I've made a zillion of them and will most likely make a zillion more.

And that has pretty much been my week.  I hope your week has been as relaxing and frivolous as mine has been.

Happy knitting!

Pumpkins

We finally got rain!

And the pumpkin patch began to grow.

I recently found out I'd been accepted as a vendor at the county fair and I've been frantically knitting for it.  I applied so long ago and didn't hear back so I thought I didn't get in but, Surprise!  So, yeah.  Frantic knitting has been happening.  The pumpkin patch is growing, and yes, I know they still need stems.  

I've made about 1,000 things and they all still need something done to them. Ends woven in, seams sewn, eyes attached, stems attached, tags attached..... There's going to be a lot of attaching happening over the next two weeks.

I hope and pray I do well at the fair.  July has been an expensive month!  There has been, obviously, some yarn shopping.  Then our dryer bit the dust and had to be replaced.  My laptop also bit the dust and had to be replaced. I bought the new laptop, a vacuum and a 10 x 10 tent for craft sales during Amazon's prime days. I saved between $75 and $150 on each item so it made sense to get them but still....  I bought a Jeannie Gray Knits banner for the tent. Something went wrong with the mower's clutch and every time you'd engage the mower blades and start to go, the mower would cut off.  The a/c compressor in the car went out on a 98 degree day and we discovered that same day that the window control was also broken and the windows wouldn't go down.  That was one HOT ride home!  Sarah's prescription sunglasses broke. And hopefully last on the list of July expenses, my husband found out he needs a double hip replacement sooner rather than later.  Oh, and there may have been some additional, 'I'm having a nervous breakdown' yarn shopping. Yikes!  I'm going to need to sell a LOT of pumpkins!  At least I know I have enough yarn to make them.

And now, since the tent and banner both arrived a week early (when does that ever happen???) I just may take a day off from knitting and go see just how easy it is to assemble the tent by myself.  The write-up promised ease, but I have my doubts.   Honestly, I'm not even sure I can get it out of the shipping box by myself.  That thing is heavy!

Happy knitting!

On the needles

First, we finally have a house full of pumpkins and candy corn.  I just Love autumn!

I am so happy to have cooler temperatures and pumpkins.  My jeans, sweaters and boots have been dug out of storage and we've even turned on the heat.  I love fall!

I'm still frantically knitting for this season's Christmas bazaars.  The first one is on November 12th so I have some time but unfortunately, work takes up a lot of my time.  And then there's the whole house selling thing.  Cleaning up all my crafty mess, putting it all away, leaving the house for an hour or so, then coming home and getting it all back out again takes up a surprising amount of time.  I shouldn't complain.  Having lots of interest in the house is much better than having no interest.  Amazingly, according to Zillow, the listing has had 2,268 views in 13 days.  Thankfully not all those people have come to see the house, although it does feel like I've dumped the trash cans and mopped the floors that many times.  😄

At the moment, I'm focusing on knitting fur headbands.  They were extremely popular at Winterfest last year so I decided to make them again this year.  They don't look like much until you put them on  but they are super comfortable, soft and warm.

I wore one pretty much the entire time I was working Winterfest last year.

What have you been knitting?

Pumpkins

It's going to be a very long summer.  It's not even the end of June and I've already got a fairly bad case of fall fever.

It's all Sarah's fault.  She found the Pumpkin Patch sweater pattern online and ....  

I was a little frustrated at first because I assumed she was buying it off Ravelry.  She knows I practically live there.  But she bought it from somewhere else.  Riply or Ribbly or I don't remember.  That pattern was fine, or it would have been if she was the one knitting it.  The problem was, it came to her computer as a direct download and she wasn't able to print it or forward it to me.  I would have had to take her computer to access the pattern.  So I re-bought it from Ravelery.  

It was worth repurchasing the pattern though because the moment Sarah first showed me a photo of the sweater, I ordered the yarn for both hers and for one for myself.  We get to have mother-daughter sweaters!   Sarah is absolutely mortified!  

Our sweaters will have different background colors.   Sarah's is dark green and mine will be a rusty brown.  She's also pretty excited that I'm making progress on hers and not Too terribly worried about the mother-daughter thing.  She knows me well and knows (or thinks she knows) that I probably won't get around to knitting the second one for me. 

I'm knitting the sweaters with Brava from Knit Picks.  Here in Virginia, fall is still generally too warm for wool and as acrylics go, I really like Brava.  And, I was able to save 20% off my order because I took advantage of the Build Your Own Value Pack deal they have going.  The Build Your Own deal runs through December 31 and I have the feeling I'm going to be taking advantage of it more than once!

Throwback Thursday - The Pumpkin Patch

It's TBT & in celebration of our annual trek to the pumpkin farm...

That's a 2001 shot of my daughter, Sarah, on the left, my son, Zack, on the right & their friend, Lorane, in the middle on a wagon ride at the "The" pumpkin patch, other wise known as Mt. Olympus Farm.   We've bought our pumpkins from Mt. Olympus every year since.  It's tradition.  Zack & Sarah are almost-adults now (almost 18 & almost 20) but they still love going to the pumpkin patch to pick their own pumpkins.  Zack even rearranged his work schedule so that he could go this year.  I like to think it's because they like hanging with their mom, but I have the sneaking suspicion it's more like they know Momma's buying.

So, that's our pumpkin picking tradition.  What's yours?