Please forgive me if I sound a tad grumpy this week, but as I’ve waited impatiently for autumn to arrive for ages it finally has. Only to have Halloween hot on it’s heels, drowning out my beloved, golden, autumnal shades with blank and cobwebs. Is it just me or does Halloween seem to start earlier every year? It now seems more of a season than autumn does.
However ambivalent I feel about ‘spooky season’ though I can’t deny that it brings some cute knitting opportunities along with it. Who doesn’t want a tiny knitted bat, for example? Or, this very cute hat which is worth knitting for the pattern name alone - ‘Ghouls Just Wanna Have Fun’
So yes, I understand that in the yarn world these things take time to make and create so I’ll forgive their appearance in the first week of October. Halloween trees in the stores though? That’s a step too far. Particularly when they are aligned next to their plastic Christmas counterparts. Enough plastic already!
This week my crochet obsession has been side-lined by an unplanned foray into the Stephen West 2023 MKAL - although I did find time to play with some of my completed squares as I pondered adding more colours.
I’ve spoken at length before about Mystery Knitalongs (KALs) and in general I’m not a fan. I don’t generally like surprises and I like to know what I am getting in to. I was so full of admiration though for how we handled the false start to his much-anticipated 2023 GeoGradient KAL.
It was really was a masterclass in how to respond to a series of very unfortunate events. I can’t imagine how hard he and his team worked to re-issue (and re-knit) a new Clue 1 - not to mention amending all the directions and videos for the subsequent weeks.
The topic has already taken up way too much air time so I’m not going to dwell on it here (there are summaries on his Ravelry group and on Instagram if you are interested) but I was so impressed by his positive spirit of moving forward that I decided to join in, more as a show of support than anything.
I won’t be sharing photos just yet as I don’t want to give spoilers, but I will be posting progress over on my Instagram account - suitably hidden behind the placeholder image for those who want to check.
Making me smile:
Did you know that the myth of Friday 13th being unlucky is a relatively modern one - perpetuated by the patriarchy? Me neither. It actually used to be a day for celebrating women and their power, particularly when they came together as a community. This article is a fascinating read - especially today.
This campaign by The Centre for Ageing Better for more age-positive stock photos and images on the web. They have launched a free to use age-positive image library which is fantastic to see. I can’t tell you how many times I have tried to crop my hands out of images when I’ve skimped on the handcream that morning and they are looking a bit dry and wrinkly. Here’s to more images of older hands (and the rest of us) online.
I know that I’ll never find the time to knit it but this fabulous (and free) pattern for a knitted fair-isle dress caught my eye this week. I couldn’t resist adding it to my queue - also known as the Impossibly Long List of Dreams.
Happy Weekend. I hop you manage to undertake some seasonally appropriate knitting!
Unapologetic Halloween enthusiast here (Halloween starts 1st September in my world 🤷♀️), with the caveat that it’s still 90* in South Texas, and will be until ~Thanksgiving. Hard to get into 🍂🍁fall 🍁🍂 when it’s still “tank tops and flip flops🩴” weather!
I’m with you on Halloween Louise, and came across a crazy stat recently, something like 2k tonnes of landfill created just in the uk from Halloween each year ) don’t quote me on the numbers, but they were shocking…
Samhain however, count me in. Having been squashed for centuries I’m all for going back to some of the original festivals and reconnecting to the seasons 🍂
I don’t know if I’ve ever done a KAL you know… autumn always makes me think of knitting more…