The countdown begins.

Last week my parents stopped by for a chat. Their twice a year visit meant I was kept on the go from when they arrived until they departed. All the days pretty much ran together but one of the days we headed up to Schaumburg for a visit to Ikea and "the" mall. I have four boxes in my hallway upstairs containing a dresser and a wardrobe that are destined for the kid's room. It's the putting together part I need to get to.

Over in the mall I came across a wonderful store called Teavana. The day I stopped in they had 13 varieties of hot teas to sample. They had teapots covering their walls and over 100 varieties of tea you could buy or have them brew right in front of you. Thank goodness this place is not nearby I would be there everyday.
I worked on my son's christmas stocking over the weekend. He's watching very carefully to make sure there is plenty of room in there for Christmas goodies.

Last night I tried out four different cuffs for the top before finally giving up for the night. After trying a stockinette, a ribbing, a seed stitch, and a cable I think I'm going with a combination of stockinette and ribbing somehow. Stay tuned to see how it turns out...
(39 days until Christmas)

Finish up a couple of projects

Yesterday I was organizing my works in progress. I had 7 items I was currently knitting on! Ok currently is a stretch. Every week I take out the Jaywalkers to knit a few rows then bury it at the bottom of the pile again. I have convinced myself to hate this pattern/needles/trekking. I'm not sure which factor to blame with this project. Since I placed a Knit Picks order Saturday with 2 more projects to start I really wanted to finish a few that were on the needles.

I finished up a reversible scarf.

One side has two cables and the opposite side has three cables. I'm sure the cables would look so much better with a solid color but at least it's really soft and it matches the hat I finished a couple of weeks ago.
My One Skein cabled footies are finally a complete set. My feet are so happy. The Swish Superwash from Knit Picks left my nice bamboo needles colored forever but it worked up into an incredibly soft pair of socks.

Not exactly

Yesterday I decided to dye some yarn. First I stopped at my local yarn store and picked up the cheapest bare wool skein they had. I decided to dye the yarn with NEON food coloring I picked up at the store. Everything seemed to be going along smoothly until we heard an explosive sound coming from the microwave. My "purple" container had exploded. Thank goodness for food grade dye. I was going for a deep purple and lime. Hmmm, not exactly how I had it pictured.

What did your Halloween look like?

We were out of town on Halloween this year. Not a big deal since we're not huge Halloween fans but having kids we decided to go trick or treating at dark in a nearby town. This is one of the houses along the street we were told was the best street to check out.

I have never experienced such a crowd in my life trick or treating and now I can say I have. Lucky me.
This is the scene shortly after finishing up despite groans of the oldest that he was robbed by only traipsing down one street.