Tag: halloween

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Autumn? Autumn!

It’s finally starting to look like my favorite season!! And I’m thrilled to death! Mostly because this is the season that makes the most sense for all the spooky weird things I’ve been gleefully making, all year long. My Halloween decorating has already started, and now I have new bats, to go with all the other bats I have, as well as a new skull or two. And I have so many, many things to offer you all in the gift shop! Staring eyes, and strange jewelry, and interesting paintings and prints galore! Plus I’ll be making new things all the time, like this fun teapot I just finished. It was such a cutie, I think I need to make a few more in different shapes and colors, just for the fun of it. Autumn gives me unlimited inspiration, and I’m more than happy to share it all with you…

I hope you’re doing well, you’re enjoying cooler weather and that the Pumpkin Spice flows freely wherever you are…

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October dreams…

Hello, my lovelies! It’s been a busy time here at the House of Maus, and I’ve been stitching my little fingers off. But it’s been so rewarding! I’ve made large things, little things, itty bitty things, and loads and loads of Guardian Eyes. And this fancy, bold fellow…

These are his pretties and not yours,nope, nope…

I plan to be making more like him very soon, all a touch different, but all based on Canuck the Crow and his bold and sassy ways.

Also, I’m working on a couple of little Mystery boxes to offer soon for the holiday season. What’s in a Mystery box, I hear you ask? Well, sparkly things. A sculpture or two. Tiny paintings. Tiny embroideries. A knitted something or other. All in a handpainted box for you to treasure! I should have a couple out in the shop soon for you to salivate over, once I’m done making the happy innards…

And this week? I’ll be carving pumpkins and decorating the porch and getting ready for another Samhain. I’ve been waiting for Halloween so very, very long, and I’m so happy that it’s finally here! And while I’ll still be making things, I’ll also be taking it easy and enjoying the autumn before it disappears. I hope you all get to do the same!! And thank you, thank you so very much for all of your kindness and support…

 

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The post-Halloween doldrums…

Ah, Halloween…it was lovely, everything I hoped for, and now it’s just a happy memory.

But I did get a fun photo of Shamu the Bunny in a jaunty Steampunk hat…

Shamu in a jaunty hat
Shamu is a dapper little fellow when I put hats on his tiny, rabbity head…

And now it’s the season where everybody realizes they’ve lost their mitts or something’s eaten their scarf and they come running to me. I’ve been plotting and planning new mitts and hats to make, and today I’m just playing with colors, to see what seems to click. So far I’ve got a rose and caramel mix of mohair yarns I like a lot, as well as some black and deep purple sari silk for a Gothly scarf. I have to remind myself to play sometimes; it’s good to make custom stuff to order, but it’s even better to come up with something new…

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Even in the darkest hour, you can always find me…

…Because I just bought some glow-in-the-dark spinning fiber!

It glows!! How cool is that?

I have always played around with glow-thread and it makes for some really fun Halloween yarns…but this looks pleasingly chunky and wonderful to play with. I can hardly wait to get my mitts on it!!
There’s so much opportunity for fun here.

Meanwhile, I’m almost done with a chemo cap for a friend of a friend…and a little more spinning here and there. I’ve been spinning more on breaks at the Mines, just to relax. It’s fun to watch my coworkers when the spindle goes around and around…sometimes I’ll laugh and whisper, “Sleepy…you are getting sleepy…ALL HAIL THE HYPNO-TOAD!!” and we’ll have a good chortle. This weekend I’d like to put up a nice spinning tutorial for beginners, so I’ll play with the camera a bit this afternoon. The last tutorial was so much fun, I want to do more…

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Zombie Love…

People ask me all the time what projects I like to knit. Depending on who asks, I will stick to safe answers like, “Socks, sweaters, you know, knitful things.” But sometimes I’ll tell them the truth.”I love knitting weird things. Squooshy monsters with tentacles and guts inside them, tiny shawls for ghost dollies, cosies for things that don’t need them…You know, like you do. And Zombies!” I keep finding cool patterns for things like Sharktopuses, which I *have* to try. I have to! I want a Sharktopus, and I’m betting you do too!

Last year about this time I knitted up a zombie version of my sweetie. He sits on his shelf, with a detachable head, arms and legs, with his guts squishing out of his torso…

Zombie Sweetheart.
This fella’s got a really big heart. It’s just behind all those squishy guts…

It’s actually not a bad likeness, except for the green skin and detachable head and loose intestines. If I made him a tiny fuzzy sweater, he would look an awful lot like Robert Smith with glasses. But would that invoke The Dreaded Sweater Curse? Or maybe, since it would be small, the curse would also be tiny–maybe we’d just have a grumpy morning with burned toast instead. Anybody who’s made tiny sweaters for undead significant others please feel free to give advice…I realize that may be a very small advice pool.

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My favorite month! At last!!!

It’s cooling off…the sky is darkening…the leaves are falling…and I love every second of it!!
Finally, the month I’ve been waiting for!! Delicious, wonderful October!

So to celebrate I’ve been spinning a cheerful Halloween yarn or two. Look at these happy, happy skulls!

Skully yarn!
A promising start to some happy, happy skully yarn!

While I love my spinning wheels to distraction, sometimes a spindle is ideal when you’re adding on loads of bulky things like beads or cocoons or scraps of silk and whatnot. I’ve also been using a cool trick for adding the beads: Stringing them into small bits of the roving with a needle-threader, then fluffing out the roving so it grabs on to the rest of the yarn. It doesn’t ladder like a thread can do with a heavy bead, and is remarkably stable!

Meanwhile, last night I just got back from visiting a friend who has an art studio at the Northrup King building in Northeast. I love those spaces, full of color and light. I kind of covet them, to be truthful. Studio spaces are so great. I never really used one myself, though. Why? Welllll, when you really get down to it; creatively I can be a bit lazy. When inspiration hits, the last thing I want to do is haul myself down through the cold, windry weather to where I put all my tools, paints, wool, etcetera. I’d just rather hop out of bed, have a wash, run downstairs or upstairs to the wool-bins and start mixing the fluff. These days I’m awfully lucky to have enough space at home where this is doable. If I was doing this sort of thing full-time, a space would make more sense,but I’m grateful at the moment I don’t need it. There are times though, when the paying job gets stressful and I think about starting a small yarn shop. There’s a bit of a yarn-shop gap in my neighborhood, and maybe , just maybe…

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Oddments and Ends…

September already? I’m always so happy to see September roll up. Because October is right behind it. Also, retailers have been pushing loads of Halloween decorating things, so I can get all the skull goblets and and bat tablecloths I can carry. Usually I do a big hit right after Halloween and snap things up on sale, but sometimes I’m just not that patient. Because of my scrabbling around,last year I needed a much bigger Gothmas tree for all my jacked-up, weirdo ornaments. Hopefully this one will last a few years until I need a bigger one still…

Meanwhile, that blue angora hood I made could use some friends, so I’ve been knitting up wristwarmers. I have enough yarn left to make some plain blue ones, perhaps with matching snowflakes, but I couldn’t help making something entirely different with purple and blue fair-isle. I was knitting up a tummy for a gut-monster, and everybody who saw it seemed a little disappointed that it wasn’t a thing they could wear…

Half of a mitt
Fuzzy! Blue! Purple! And also fuzzy!

It’s kind of refreshing to make something that eye-catching out of fun leftover yarns from other projects. The blue and purple yarns were for making zombie dolls, and the blue angora was yarn I had frogged from a sweater a friend found at a thrift store. It was someone’s project that they never quite finished–there was a front and a back, and one-half a sleeve, as well as a little lace in a blue cotton that was too heavy for all that angora. I wonder sometimes what happened with the original owner of that almost-sweater. Did they get frustrated and give up on their project? Or did they die and leave their not-quite-a-sweater behind? I’ll never know. But I’m happy I’ve managed to do some nice recycling and make a few fun things here and there. And maybe when I grudgingly go to my own eventual grave, some fun knitter will go through my own stash and go, “Hey, look at that half-a scarf! I bet I could make something really cool with that!” I’d like to think so. So maybe the first owner won’t mind much.

(I also made a ridiculously fluffy blue nightie with some of the angora. I’m ummmm…not showing it to you. Or possibly anybody. It’s that over-the-top.)