Wasn't worried, not one bit!

There is something about October... It's probably my favorite of all the months and seems to go by much faster than all of the others. The leaves are glorious; the temperatures are lovely and brisk; the leaf piles are heaping. Our yard plays host to 3 full-sized trees and has a leaf/yard relationship with 3 other full-sized trees belonging to our neighbors (the human kind). Numerous trees means that we usually have plenty of leaves to go around and then some. The trees in back (one of which was claimed by Gnomes) have leaves that turn a lovely yellow and within 3 days of that color change, proceed to fall to the ground. Perfect for a lovely leaf pile. Or so I thought. As soon as the said leaves fell, the weather turned cold, wet, and for some reason, insanely windy last week. I was actually a bit worried that a leaf pile would not happen this Autumn and believe you me, the minions would have been heartbroken. But fear not, we here in Central Iowa are currently experiencing a wee warm up that helped dry out the leaves a bit and the minions and I took advantage of a beautiful Autumn afternoon. Little man started out with the minion-sized rake but little miss soon remedied that.
She was still a little unsure of the whole pile-thing.
Little man dove right in from the start. Come to think of it, he was pouring leaves over his head before I had even set the camera down and started to work on the pile!


Not everyone was as enthusiastic as little man.
She warmed up soon enough though...
It's always best to start in at a bit of a run isn't it?


It also didn't take long for the battles to begin.
Right back at ya! Where there are battles there are casualties. We lost little miss' hat somewhere in the pile.
Fortunately, the hat was saved. I don't think I've blogged about this hat. When my favorite LYS went out of business a while back, they had a sale where I happened to pick up 3 skeins of some rather random cigar-colored worsted weight yarn. It sat in the stash for a while because I had no particular project in mind. I knew I was going to make a few felted bowls this year so I thought I would use one of the skeins as a guinea pig of sorts. A pre-felted bowl makes a pretty good minion hat and they were a bit upset that I "ruined" their latest acquisition by felting it. The yarn looks better un-felted. After a spin in the washing machine the brown splotches fused together to resemble... well, vomit actually... sorry to be so graphic! The vomit-colored bowl is currently in use holding some mini leftover balls of yarn and I used the second of the 3 skeins to create another minion hat which fits little man a bit better than little miss but we can't have little man wearing our hat now can we little miss? This means that I have one more skein left over... anyone want a vomit-colored felted bowl? Let me know :P
She had decided that she was tired and that it was ready to go inside for "a little rest". I think the weather should hold out until the weekend anyway so there will be more time for fun in the leaves I'm sure :)

I've been working on my stealth/Holiday projects for a while now, one being a tad large and I decided in a fit of Startitis that I needed something new, small, and colorful. I had recently received a package from a friend of mine, J, from Florida containing a Hagrid's Pumpkin Patch colorway. I don't know that I will finish this pair of socks before October 31st or not and I'm sure I'll be kicking myself for knitting something that doesn't have a self-imposed deadline... but what are you going to do? Startitis is Startitis and is no laughing matter!
I'm a little bit further than this now and hope to finish it up shortly. I haven't worked with this particular base before and I am curious to see how it feels after a good soaking. I'll also be interested to see how the second knits up -- I had some crazy pooling action happening during my decreases in the leg where the colors spiraled one way and then the other. I'll have better pictures when the sock is finished.

Next post, pictures taken by my SIL K during her recent visit with her hubby M which should be sometime this week!