Last night we had a pumpkin carving party and a few families gathered to eat chili and pumpkin bread, and pear apple cake and carve pumpkins. I loved that most of the kids were old enough to carve their own. (I never did this as a kid as the tools my dad used were huge knives–I love the new pumpkin carving saws.) My friend Kristy took pictures.

A couple of nights ago, I got a call from Kristy when I was already reading in bed saying “The aurora is out!” We were lucky enough to get a great view from my back yard, but photographing it was really hard for a novice like me. I got one shot that I liked because you can sort of see the big dipper above the northern lights.

I have been crocheting a bit even though this past week has been mostly taken up by making costumes and other halloween activities–I’m working on a design for a new magazine, and I’ve been planning for a new big project that I’ll talk about next week.

Wow–I just realized this is the FOURTH Halloween that I’ve been blogging, so I have a bit of goolish content on the blog that it might be nice to revisit.

In 2005, my first year with the blog, I made a crocheted Halloween Treat Bag for a class. You can get the bag on my Ravelry store, but this week only, I’ll e-mail it for free to anyone who leaves me a comment on this post requesting the pattern.

In 2006 we carved a “knit-witch” pumpkin:

Speaking of which–I’m hosting a pumpkin-carving party later this week, and we’re contemplating making our own apple cider I’ll take pictures and report here if we do.

Ghoulish Snacks: Make this easy Halloween snack that jay brought home from preschool last year:

Bake and decorate Halloween Gingerbread Cookies with my recipe from last fall:

And of course, there’s Selma’s Hermione Tie which I made just this weekend:

What are you making this year?

Selma decided to be Hermione Granger for Halloween, and we’ve been collecting supplies: my mom sent my brother’s graduation gown which I will alter for her robe, she’s selected a chopstick for a wand, and asked me to knit her a tie. She chose the yarn: Lamb’s Pride worsted for warmth because she thought the tie would make a nice scarf after Halloween.

The knitting was simple enough. Truthfully, as James is underway, we had the most trouble tying it: “Selma, hold still!” I grumbled, while trying to read online instructions and tie at the same time. I think with a little more practice, I can get a neater knot.

Here’s how I made the tie, in case you’re trying to dress a little wizard this season as well. (The pattern is a quick write-up of my notes and tested only by me, so let me know if you see anything strange.)

Materials
Brown Sheep Lamb’s Pride Worsted in Color A (CA): Raspberry #M-83 and Color B (CB): Sunburst Gold #M-14 (less than one skein of each)
US Size 8 needles
4.5 mm crochet hook
1 stitch marker

Wide Point
With CA, CO 3 stitches
Row 1: K1, yo, pm,  k1,  yo, k1
Row 2: knit
Row 3: knit to marker, yo, sm, k1, yo, knit to end
Repeat rows 2 & 3 until you have 13 stitches

Begin Color Changes
Pick up CB
Row 1: knit to 2 bef marker, k2tog, yo, k1, yo, k2tog, knit to end
Row 2: knit
Rows 3-6: Change to CA, work rows 1-2 two times.

Work color change rows 1-6 until tie measures 13 1/2 inches

Tie Decreases
Continuing to work lace pattern and color changes, over the next 6 rows, dec 1 st at each edge on RS rows  until only 7 sts rem.

Work even until tie measures 53 inches. End with CA.

Ending Point
Continuing to work center eyelet pattern, dec 1 st at each edge on RS rows until only 3 sts rem. Final row: k3tog. Do not fasten off.

Edging and Finishing
Pick up final stitch with 4.5mm crochet hook, and with RS facing, sc evenly around all edges of the tie, join edging round with a sl st. Fasten off. Weave in ends. Block gently so tie lays flat.

Carol Ventura has a great post today about how she designed the Sunburst Bowl that’s in the current issue of Crochet Today (A must-have issue, by the way, that features top designers and great editors working within the strict constraints of using only one family of yarns–Red Heart–doing a fabulous job of creating home and fashion projects.) Carol is an amazing evangalist for tapestry crochet–she shares her immense knowledge with love and generosity and it shows. More and more people are trying out the technique as evidenced by the lively ravelry group on the subject.

This afternoon, my book club met at my house. The book for this month was Joe Biden’s Promises to Keep. I don’t usually read autobiographies, but I enjoyed Biden’s and I liked learning more about someone who could eventually be vice-president. It was a cold and rainy Sunday, and I wanted to make a meal that was simple and warm, and used the vegetables I had from my weekly produce box. (Actually, at first I thought it might be fun to make book-themed food, but it turns out Joe Biden’s favorite meal is pasta, and his favorite dessert is oatmeal-raisin cookies, so that didn’t really fit with what I wanted to serve).

Last night, I set some dough for No Knead Bread, using a combination of white and white-whole-wheat flour. This afternoon, I took half of the dough out of the refrigerator, formed it in my baguette pans and let it re-rise. I used a bit too much dough and the baguettes overflowed their chambers a little, but they came out quite tasty.  I I found a sweet potato soup in Robin Robertson’s Fresh from the Vegetarian Slow Cooker, and I had nearly all of the ingredients from my box; I only had to buy fresh ginger. I made a salad with greens, olive oil, salt and pepper and some sliced oranges and their juice. For dessert, I used some plums that I had sliced and frozen right before our trip to Hawaii, and I made a cobbler. The cobbler turned out especially well, so I thought I’d share the recipe. The topping was adapted from a recipe for Pear, Cranberry and Vanilla Crumble from Regan Daley’s In The Sweet Kitchen: The Definitive Baker’s Companion.

Plum Cobbler

Filling

5-6 cups sliced ripe plums

1/4 c. flour

1 orange supremed and chopped

Zest of 1 orange

Topping

3/4 c. flour

3/4 c. sugar

3/4 c. margarine

3/4 c. rolled oats.

Combine filling ingredients in an 8×8 glass dish. In a medium bowl, mix flour and sugar and cut in margarine. Add oats and combine. Sprinkle topping over the filling. Bake at 350 until topping is brown and crisp.

When Selma was a baby, I took a class at the Yarn Gallery in Seattle–my then neighborhood yarn store–from Morgan Hicks and I learned to make a crocheted scarf that was double-sided. It’s made with two colors of yarn, one worked only on one side of the work and one only on the other. While it sounds like double knitting, it more resembles thermal fabric. I found the scarf recently and I wanted to reproduce the technique and play around with it, but I could remember neither the name nor the method. A quick e-mail to a designer list I participated in revealed the mystery. The technique is known by a few names: waffle weave crochet, honeycomb stitch, thermal crochet, reversible crochet. Basically it’s worked, most often in two colors, in alternating loops to create a double-sided fabric. There was recently a ravelry discussion about it on the Crochet Liberation Front board that Dee pointed me to. She made cute two-color scarf with the technique that you can see on Ravelry.

Vashti Braha–one of crochet’s truely brilliant minds has made a few projects using a variation of the technique she developed, including a coffee cup cozy that converted the technique into the round:

Vashti says, “Sometimes crochet just isn’t thick enough.” Vashti’s pattern is from the book Kooky Crochet. It uses sock yarn and it’s a great project for using up scraps.

Here’s a scanned instruction on how to create one variation on the stitch, called Reversible Afghan Stitch. Here’s a web archive which includes photos of what the author calls Helena’s Potholder Stitch.

I’m hoping to play with it soon, and I’ll share the results. I like the idea of a double-thick hat to keep warm in Alaskan winters. Have you tried this technique? I’d love to see what you made.

I’m entranced by this embroidery created by miss_glass on flickr. (via Manhattan Craft Room)

The September issue of Crochet Today magazine came out while I was in the midst of moving, and I didn’t get to see a copy until I was in Hawaii (I found it at Safeway!). I have a pattern for toe-up crocheted socks. Toe-up socks are my favorite method. They do have one challenge, and that is getting a roomy-enough heel so the sock is easy to put on, but the ankle still fits. These are ankle socks because they were originally meant to be in a summer issue, but they ended up in fall instead.

I crocheted two pairs of these, and numerous step-out-bits, because the socks (not me) are going to be featured on Knit and Crochet Today–the companion TV show for Crochet Today that is on PBS. It looks like my socks will be on episode #205, so once the show airs the socks will be available as a free PDF download. I’ll link to it once it’s posted.

The toe and heel are worked in single crochet. I wanted to have a lacy pattern for the ankle and foot, but a solid footbed so the socks are comfortable to walk on. I couldn’t use single crochet because the double crochet from the lace pattern would cause some distortion since it’s so much taller than a single crochet. To solve the design dilemma, I used linked double crochet stitches on the footbed and double crochet for the lace. When worked in the round, the linked dcs have a very nice, smooth fabric which is perfect for the footbed. The ankle is worked in crocheted ribbing, attached as-you-go. The socks could just as easily be made longer. I used two balls of Heart & Sole sock yarn, but had some left on the second ball. Each ball is 213 yards. Working in self-striping yarns can be quite a challenge in crochet–it’s easy to end up with odd pooling or a camouflage effect. Here by playing with the stitch pattern a bit, I was able to get the colors to cooperate.

Hopping between the two outlying states of Alaska and Hawaii is a great way to experience extremes. James is in Hawaii with the ship for training, and last week, the Kids and I flew down to visit. When I left Cordova, fall was settling in, each day, the temperature was dropping a little bit, so we were transitioning slowly into winter (after an unusually chilly and rainy summer even by Cordovan standards). But last week, I spent a lot of time like this:

Aside from the knitting, this is not my usual vacation pose. (The socks, in honor of Socktoberfest, of course, are being worked in Mountain Colors Twizzle, and would have zoomed along nicely during the vacation if I hadn’t decided to change the stitch pattern after I was about 5 inches down the ankle.) I’m not typically a pool-side or beach-y person. I don’t like wearing my swimsuit (or anything above my knees for that matter), and I don’t really like just sitting in the sun, but Hawaii had its effect on me. I even got to be fond of fruity drinks. My favorite was the lava flow: Coconut milk, strawberry puree, pinapple juice, vodka.  The pool was the best place to relax because the kids could safely play while adults socialized. You can’t see it in this picture, but the beautiful, blue pacific is right behind me and you can hear it, and see it if you just turn your head.

One thing I do like about warm weather is sandals and the toes to put in them (funny that I’m knitting wool socks, but it was the best travel project I had ready to bring). Our first day there, I was able to sneak in a pedicure.

We stayed in a hotel which was in proximity to great beaches, the zoo, the aquarium and lots of fun things for kids to do. But if we go again, I’m hoping we’ll be able to find better meals–one of the downsides of Waikiki was the food. Everything is so commercial, it’s hard to find restaurants with fresh food. We stumbled upon our best meal after going boogie boarding at Bellows Beach on a day we rented a car. (Turns out we love boogie boarding!)

After the beach we stopped at a strip mall with a Vietnamese noodle shop. I had one of my favorites, the Vietnamese sandwich which is fusion of french and Vietnamese cuisine in the best way. A baguette prepared with mayonnaise, pickled veggies like carrots, cabbage, cucumber, cilantro and some protein–mine was fried tofu. Yum! James and the kids had excellent noodles. Towards the end of the week, we started to get a little more creative about food like bringing takeout from Whole Foods to the pool. (If you want to see more Hawaii pictures, they’re on flickr.)

On Sunday morning, we arrived back in Anchorage after a night flight and we had a day’s layover before our flight home to Cordova. Insted of leis, here’s how we were greeted when we stepped off the plane:

Brrr…. Back home now and I’ve got major inertia, I’m finding it a bit difficult to get back into the swing of things with writing and work. There’s no snow in Cordova, but the White dusting on the mountains is moving lower every day, it seems.