Knitting Iris

Black Cats! Black Cats! Everywhere!

Black cats seem to be appearing out of nowhere everywhere we look, stray ones hunting in the ditches on the side of our road, others wandering through town, and I've seen several during the past week or so around the blogworld.  R insists that they are actually witches turned into cats.  Our town's high school mascot is a lion and the school colors are black and orange, so during homecoming earlier this month the sidewalks and roads in town and the highway for 10-12 miles out of town were painted with paw prints.  Even the last of the orange violas are sporting whiskers. 

The boys and I made the papier mache cat and pumpkin from an old Martha Stewart issue, October 2001.  The knitted cat I whipped up earlier this month is from this pattern here.

The checkerboard in the top picture R made the other day after reading about Pa Ingalls making one in By the Shores of Silver Lake.  He ran over to the shop and asked for a board from C and then asked for a permanent marker from me.  H didn't ask for help and I didn't have time at the moment to give him any so it ended up with a few extra rows of checkers in there.  :)   It makes for a nice Halloween decoration.

If you can't grow them, then stencil yourself a pair of wings...

...or flippers, or frogs' legs.

I knew I would had to give this stencilling thing a try since I actually had some freezer paper on hand leftover from it's intended purpose:  We butchered half an elk four years ago when C received it in trade for his cabinetry work from some people who had an elk ranch.  It took several evenings to complete, C butchering armed with a sharp knife, a lot of advice from others, and a how-to book close at hand, My job was wrapping everything in two layers of  saran wrap and outer layer of freezer paper.

Enchanted by the post and picture here at Chrysanthemum, and since I have no daughter of my own, I immediately knew that I "needed" a set of wings for myself.  I was going to hold off until Old Gravy had their Perfect Fit tees with long sleeves back in stock.  I was going to wait until I had proper fabric paint.  Suddenly, I couldn't wait any longer.  I pulled out an old tee and acrylic craft paint and went for it.  The design is loosely based on an enlarged version of a clip art butterfly here.   

The butterfly cracked the first time I slipped the shirt over my head and then more when I washed it.  C thinks that's O.K. because, "It has that old-school look right away."  I bought some fabric medium to mix with the acrylic paints for a couple of the boys' shirts and theirs appear to be able to stretch more without cracking.  They requested "a seal" and "a baby frog that's hopping" which I found online also.  I cut out and applied the stencils and they applied most of the paint themselves with small pieces of a kitchen sponge.  Now, C's been online checking out graffiti fonts, trying to figure out what he'd like me to stencil for him next!

Holiday Knick Knackery, Part One

The mushroom- guy ornament, made in Germany, was purchased at Yulefest in Seattle a few years back. The four other similar ones with ladybugs on them are from our recent trip to Mexico where there were a few little shops opening for the season selling only holiday decorations.  There are two knitting mushrooms, one I ordered online, the other I found at the local thriftstore, the very day after I had seen the exact one in the Hearthsong catalog and had set my mind on ordering it someday.  The three attached calico softie ones I purchased at a local holiday craft fair 7 or 8 years ago, at the same fair that I sold the wool felt ornament mushrooms and hearts that I made.  The six red and four brown wooden mushrooms up front are painted wooden drawer knobs (idea blatantly swiped from here).  So, there you have it, my own little fairie ring.