Candy corn and pumpkin hats

Yesterday, the high temperature was 48F. It's foggy, drizzly, and all over hot chocolate weather. It makes me really glad I spent a lot of the summer knitting. Although now I'm having regrets about giving my knitted candy corn hat away to Goodwill. It was traffic-cone orange Red Heart yarn, plus I got the stripe order wrong. I swear I've been eating candy corn long enough to know what they look like. I even nibble one stripe at a time! I'll see if I can dig up a photo...

Last Saturday we went to see the Seattle Opera’s production of Rigoletto. It was quite good – Verdi is one of my favorite composers. The performance had a bit of a bumpy start – the supertitles didn’t kick in for about 15 minutes, and one of the performers had laryngitis, so while he acted out the part, another singer sang the part from off stage. That was a little distracting. For the first time that I can remember, they had costumes from the previous production (Lohengrin) on display in the lobby. It was very cool to see the details of the costumes, and makes me wish I had the time to learn how to sew and make myself an Elsa costume before Halloween. Ah well. In any case, the best part of going to the opera is our post-show tradition – late night happy hour at McMenamins pub.

Adapted from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything

2 C pumpkin seeds, rinsed and dried (from about 2 pumpkins)
1 t cayenne pepper
1 t salt
1/2 t sugar
dash cumin
2 T olive oil

Toss the pumpkin seeds with the other ingredients until evenly coated. Spread on a baking sheet and bake at 350 F, stirring every 20 minutes, until toasty brown and crisp. Store leftovers in an airtight container at room temperature.

This year's Jacks

Last year's Jack

We carve our pumpkins today! Woo-hoo! I certainly hope they aren't moldy inside, because we bought them over a week ago, and just the other day I noticed a white velvety mold growing on the stems. Gargh! I washed it off, and then coated the stems with a slightly diluted dishsoap solution. All appears to be well. We shall see what horrors lurk within, Halloween is supposed to be scary, right?

Here's a sneak preview of the projects in the Winter 2004 issue of Interweave Knits. I am drawn to these Nordic mittens. That might be because I've been making a lot of hand accessories lately. Either that, or I enjoy fair isle frustration. My first and only fair isle project is still not done - all its little yarn tails are flapping in the breeze. I should count the tails and see how many there actually are...

...from Interweave Knits Winter 2004

That makes this blue hat look like it's floating above my kitchen counter. It, in fact, is an ethereal hat. I can't remember what the yarn was - I bought it from Smiley's and the color was blueberry ice. 100% acrylic, to be sure. The best part is that it knits up in about 6 hours. When I wore this on the bus last spring, I received a complement from my bus driver. When I proudly said that I made it myself, she replied, "yes, it looks homemade." I still haven't decided if that was a complement. You be the judge.