Spa Week

September and October are always productive months for me - I think it's that residual back-to-school effect. It's like I'm still trying to impress imaginary teachers who haven't figured out that I'm a slacker yet. So I was particularly disappointed this month when my sewing machine demanded a week at the spa for cleaning and oiling, interrupting all my big plans.

I turned to some no-sew activities like Halloween decorating - this was easy, since I went crazy last year (by "crazy" I mean I bought my own jigsaw and hand-painted my own tombstones and sewed wings for my handmade golden snitches that I'm too tired to even put up this year).  I'm a huge Harry Potter fan, so that's the theme:

And because I hoped if I claimed the acronym first, J would always think it too lame for a tattoo:

My only new additions this year were the perishables:

And this Smash replica that had even HIM confused:

And of course J's costume.  She'll be my little witch and has totally embraced the role:

I was relaxing into no-sew week very nicely and then, on a date with my baby/mama group, my friend Zita showed up in this:

And I was like, "Is that the Hourglass Sweater that's only supposed to take 8 hours to knit, but actually takes 18?  Did you MAKE that?," and sure enough she had.

A little history here: I have attempted only one adult-size sweater in my life, and this was it.  I got sooo close to finishing it three years ago.  But then I had to tear out some rows (apparently "boat neck" in this pattern meant the neck would be as wide as a real boat), twisted the stitches by accident when trying to modify it, and threw the whole thing in a corner in defeat.  After seeing Zita's I dug it out, and this is what it looked like.  Decidedly not as cute as hers:

Part of the problem was that it was totally shapeless and way too short.  Some might even call it 'cropped' ("you can pull it long when you block it," encouraged Zita).  The other problem was the twisted row that had made me cry, back in 2010:

Luckily I have significantly lowered my standards in the last three years and now I can't remember what all the fuss was about.  After some dunking, pulling and blocking, I even got the thing to grow a few inches.  And now I have officially knit a grown-up sweater:

Here we are living the dream: a couple of for-real knitters, hanging out in our hand-knit sweaters.

Ah well, apparently my machine isn't one for long holidays and relaxing because Daley by the Yard got her all cleaned up in less than a week.  Back to the sewing table.