Hallow's Eve Revelry

"When the bats like ghosts are gliding,
witches soar, on broomsticks riding,
jack-o-lanterns twinkle, grinning.
Our Halloween revelry will be just beginning!"

According to the verse on my collection of old Halloween postcards, at some time in American history Halloween was considered a time for fortune-telling - for fore-telling the future... your fate, your coming year, your true love...



Legend was that if you turned out all lights, and held a mirror in one hand, and looked in it with a candle in the other hand while walking backwards (sometimes while walking backwards down a flight of stairs!), you would see in the mirror a vision...

If you will but backwards go
Several rods or so –
With a mirror by the handle
And in your other hand a candle
You will surely meet your fate
Now’s the time – it’s ne’re too late!





For my part, I'm just happy to make costumes out of old furry jackets from the thrift store, make simple autumn food from the Organics to You delivery, and walk through the crispy leaves to the tea shop for Pumpkin Spice Tea...



Still, I won't be surprised to see the Goblins dancing if I walk out after dark!



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Sophia's Butternut Soup recipe

Roast two medium sized butternut squash in a hot oven - split the squash, remove the seeds, sprinkle with olive oil and a little maple balsamic vinegar; place in a pan and cook in the oven for 45 mins

Scoop out the cooked squash and mash it. You should have about 2 cups of squash, but I never measure things exactly - this is just approximate. In a heavy pan on the stove, add to the squash 1 cup cream, 1/2 cup milk, a dash of cinnamon and of salt, a tiny pinch of ground cloves, red pepper, and of nutmeg. Stir constantly while heating slowly. Do not boil. You may want to use a wire whisk to blend the ingredients.

You may also add very finely minced onions, leeks, and/or mushrooms, first sauteed in butter or olive oil.

Core two fresh apples and simmer with a small amount of water in a separate pan. When thoroughly soft, press through a sieve and add a teaspoon of brown sugar or honey and a dash of salt. It should be thick. Set aside.

Pour the squash soup into bowls. Place a scoop of the applesauce in the middle of each bowl. Sprinkle with a little more nutmeg. Some of my friends like it with a small spoonful of sour cream, or some grated cheddar cheese on top, too.

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another Brat

I have very little knitting content to report, because I've been.... well.... knitting presents, and those need to remain, you know, Secret! So, no pictures, no descriptions, no fiber-y hints. Just lots of surreptitious knitting and silence.

But I am making another hat for myself. Because I am stepping westward, I need a hat that will do what it needs to do in wet, cool weather but definitely not cold, snowy weather, I needed something a little lighter than those thick medieval helmets I've been making for myself! I started another Brat Sister Hat, this time in cashmere fingering weight to match the Veyla gloves in my last post.



I've been working on my collection perfectly normal-sized stash also. Ahem. A box from Blue Moon Fiber Arts might have arrived this week. And inside might have been several skeins of their new fiber Marine Silk, which I showed you earlier in it's Quilla incarnation, I think.

Here it is in Lodestone, a most lovely pale green with a subtle swath of spring yellow like the edge of a newly unfurling leaf in Spring:



These two skeins are the ones for Miss Marple's Shawl, which I described below. The shawl, square but lightwieght, is part of an indulgent set I'm making for myself that includes, in addition to this 1930's shawl, a silk and merino undervest from the 1930's, and a pair of merino sleeping socks of my own design. All this is in aid of those times when I'm ill and have to stay on the couch feeling sickeningly sorry for myself. These comforts will be perfect for resting in this cold old house!

More Marine Silk, this time in My Blue Heaven, Winter Solstice, and Lenore:



I have no plans for these skeins, but wish I had ordered more of the Winter Solstice. It's winter-sky silver really appeals to me right now!

And finally, because Marine Silk comes in three different weights, here is Lenore in the Lace weight. It is beautifully silky and shiny:



This skein is actually not mine, but is part of a trade with my friend Nad in Germany. She is a fearless knitter and doesn't hesitate to use the micron-thin lace weight yarns! Here is a close-up of how the blood-red blends with the raven black on the end of the skein:



Don't you just love Blue Moon?

Stepping Westward
~ Denise Levertov

What is green in me
darkens, muscadine.
If woman is inconstant,
good, I am faithful to
ebb and flow, I fall
in season and now
is a time of ripening.
If her part
is to be true,
a north star,
good, I hold steady
in the black sky
and vanish by day,
yet burn there
in blue or above
quilts of cloud.
There is no savor
more sweet, more salt
than to be glad to be
what, woman,
and who, myself,
I am, a shadow
that grows longer as the sun
moves, drawn out
on a thread of wonder.
If I bear burdens
they begin to be remembered
as gifts, goods, a basket
of bread that hurts
my shoulders but closes me
in fragrance. I can
eat as I go.

The Art of Knitting

Strange things happen around my old New England farmhouse sometimes. Things disappear. Sometimes I think that I am living with The Borrowers, or that the field mice are lining their winter nests with my knitting! The most recent things to go missing are all my fingerless mitts (I would call them gloves, except they don't have fingers). I've had a couple of pairs of my own Koigu Gloves pattern - one was my favorite green Broccoli mitts - and use them every fall before the weather gets cold enough for really serious gloves. But when I cleaned out and organized the coats, jackets, and accessories they were nowhere to be found - nowhere! Borrowers, indeed.

So...here are my quickly knitted replacements: Veyla, from Ysolda.



I can't say enough about this pattern. The finished gloves are so lovely and with their lace and details they look like a complicated knitting project - but they're not. The pattern is clear and very fast. I made this pair in three days, just working on them in the evenings while watching Rubicon.

My yarn is the wonderful MacKintosh Yarns in the Iona Fingering, which is a merino-cashmere blend, with a little nylon for durability. It's so soft and her colours are stunning in person. This colourway is a deep blend of dark teal blue and black - very "ocean-depths" coloured!



The buttons are antique faceted and silvered black glass. They were a gift from a friend and, I wanted to use them on something where I would see them often. I have enough for a sweater, though, so if I make something else that they would be good with, I might switch these up and use smaller ones on the Veylas.

These mitts fit perfectly and I'll use them on those early frosty Fall mornings we are having. (like today - 39 degrees Fahrenheit right now, although later today, it will be closer to 70!) I see more pairs of Veylas in my future!



The book in these photos is a precious antique volume of The Art of Knitting, 1902, published by The Butterick Publishing Co [Limited], London and New York, Price: fifty-cents or two shillings.



This incredible original came to me as a gift from my friend Marky in Australia - its a real treasure! This was obviously a well-used volume over the past 110 years, as the pages are filled with faded photographs of mysterious people, patterns cut out of other magazines of the day, and hints on cleaning felted hats and pressing silk sash ribbons between muslin... This photo is the beautiful "Maggie" holding a garland in her lap and perhaps dressed for a wedding with her deep V-necked gown and dainty button-up shoes.



The frontispiece is a very familiar one - a scene that I've found in several of my old knitting and crochet volumes from the mid and late 1800s, that of a grandmother teaching her granddaughter to knit, and leads me to believe that in a publication from 1902, at least some of the patterns have their origin in an earlier century. Perhaps this picture is meant to indicate that the patterns span generations?



The patterns are quaint, like this simple and quick pattern for sleeping socks:



Its heelless design and openwork pattern would make it a very easy pattern to work up in a bit of leftover wool or silk.

I particularly like this pattern for a cuff, with it's scalloped design and think I might make a pair to peek out from the slightly-too-short sleeves of my brown jacket:



And, of course, these beautiful mittens will have to find their way into my wardrobe this year. I don't really wear mittens much, so I'll probably re-design these to have open fingers.





On the very last page of this fragile booklet, the previous owner has pasted a pattern article from a 1915 newspaper - the WWI years. It is "A Cap Comforter for Tommy" - a hat and neck-cowl combination for a soldier in winter. With it's ingenious design and historical significance, I think it deserves it's own post, so plan to put that up in the future.

Miss Sophia Marple

Today dawned with a definite sharp crispness (I lighted a fire in the fireplace!), and it reminded me that I hadn't finished preparing for winter. I do have balaclavas made for everyone now (you wouldn't believe the storms we get here) and here is the baby one:



I used a most wonderful vintage pattern that shapes the headpiece so perfectly with no piecing or sewing. Everything is made in one piece. Easy. The yarn is Blue Moon's lightweight fingering STR in "Manly, But I Like it Too." Babies are always overheated, so the lightweight will be perfect.

Now I am on to another vintage pattern, this one from the recent Sept/Oct Piecework magazine:



This magazine was so unique in that it explored the handwork, mostly knits, in classic literature. Miss Marple mysteries by Agatha Christie had their own feature and a project alluded to in one of the stories was the central pattern. In many Miss Marple mysteries, she is described as discreetly knitting on a shawl or on baby things while suspects spill the beans around her. I think it is The Caribbean Mystery where she is knitting a pink shawl.



The shawl chosen by Piecework is from the same era, 1930, and was donated by the fabulous Iva Rose who rescues vintage and antique patterns and preserves them for the rest of us and for historians. The pattern is printed in its original form, but only the pattern - definitions of the vintage stitches aren't included.



In the Interweave Piecework group on Ravelry, a few of us have banded together to knit up this pattern and figure out the needle size and yarn requirements. (Come visit us if you want to knit along!). So far, it seems that a fingering weight yarn with size 6 US needles are the favoured choices. There has also been a lot of discussion about which stitch to use for increases: kf&f, bar lift, or backwards loop cast on. In the original, the increases are almost invisible so this will influence my choice. There is also an obscure mention of knitting into the back of stitches, without specifying which stitches so this might refer to the increases, in which case probably the lifted bar increase was used. The original pattern was for a square shawl, though some are halving this to make the lighter triangle.

My own yarn will be Blue Moon Fiber Arts Marine Silk (merino, silk, and sea cell) fingering in the Lodestone colourway. I ordered two skeins just in case, since I plan to make the original square shape in full.

This is what Marine Silk looks like (this is the Quilla colourway; it will be a while before my Losestone arrives):



and this is what the Lodestone colourway looks like - a subtle very light green (it didn't photograph well, but you can get the idea):



I'm really looking forward to this project! I think it will be fast and relaxing to knit a simple square shawl in the cold weather.

One more cold-weather knit for myself is part of my plans (I really need to get back to knitting for others!), also from this same Piecework magazine - these gorgeous gloves:



I'll use the leftover dove grey cashmere yarn that I used for my own balaclava. I know, they won't wear well, but maybe I'll save them for special winter occasions!