So what happens when your husband wants to participate in the whole neighborhood trick-or-treat thing and you feel it’s irresponsible to shovel out mass quantities of refined sugar and corn syrup-laden treats in an area known for an astronomically high occurrence of type 2 diabetes in children?

Simple, you give out party packs of this. The kiddo’s got a kick out of it, running and screaming in excitement to all of their friends down the street. Some of the parent’s seemed kinda weirded out though.

I’m really not a sancti-mommy (or a mommy for that matter). The kids are welcome to the candy they receive from others, but I’d rather give a gift that encourages hours of creativity instead of a brief sugar high and a tummy ache. We’ll just overlook the frightening possibility that dozens of angry mommies are soon to be hunting me down because their little darlings have wedged the stuff into the carpet.

Oh, and about that adorably rotten puppy from the previous post? She decided to go trick-or-treating with the neighbor’s kids- completely without my knowledge. I’m sure she had a blast (regardless of what I thought when I noticed she was missing).

Todd and Molly were having a moment-I can’t resist sharing.

Although I’ve only been knitting for about 3 years, I tend to be fairly adventurous with project selection. No garter stitch scarves for me, my first project was a mohair sweater (albeit still unfinished- I love knitting but not the sewing up). I then proceeded to top down everything (top-down is too a verb.) I then had a love affair with lace, and socks, and hats. It even got to the point where I taught myself to spin with nothing more than a few online tutorials. I also crochet (hate me now because I think it’s easy-peasy).

At this point, I feel that I can safely say that I fear no stitch or technique. I love them all.

That said, I was fascinated by steeking but had yet to venture into the realm of stranded knitting- kind of a prerequisite to steeking. Last week, I decided to remedy the situation. Thus, I proudly present the raven’s very first stranded knitting. Binx kindly offered to model it for me.

A close up of the stitch pattern.

Pattern: Andean-Style Headband

Designer: Kay D. Collins

Materials: Some of my first handspun (the multicolored bit), and Elann Peruvian Quechua (held doubled)

Fiber Source: Dancing Leaf Farm , Elann

Needles: US4 / 3.5 mm

Personal Critique: My gauge wasn’t bad; there wasn’t much of any pulling despite my chronically tight knitting. I do need to remember to learn how to do the fancy-pants jog-less stripes so as to prevent alignment problems in the pattern. In the future, I should also probably make the floats so as to allow the fabric a bit more elasticity (i.e., not everyone has a pin-head like me).

That said, this nifty headband and a bottle of mullein oil are mercifully preventing my current earache from escalating to the point of falling flat on my face (my earaches are always accompanied by extreme vertigo). I also think I’ve found a new obsession outlet for my dye experiments (more on those soon, promise!)