Sandy, don't let the door hit you on your way out

Considering our experience with last Halloween's nor'easter, this year's Sandy was a bit of a non-event here in greater Boston. We lost power for about an hour early Monday morning (last year we were without power for four days), no trees hit our house (we had two trees fall in previous storms at our last house), and all we have to do is rake up the yard a bit. And since we hadn't raked leaves before the storm, this is something we have to do anyway.

Yesterday I took the bike out and ventured down the trail.



I was able to get over and under these fallen trees (the one I scooted under looked well jammed into another tree. I moved quickly!)



Unfortunately there was no getting around this mess, but I only had to backtrack a couple yards to connect to a path that brought me around to the local middle school. The detour added only ten minutes to my grocery shopping trip.

Speaking of shopping trips ...



My husband has been urging me to kit up my bike properly if I'm to succeed at my year-without-a-car experiment, so I drove over to Burlington and plopped down beaucoup dollares for this zippered grocery bag. I'm what you might term parsimonious about certain things. I'm generous about spending money on my son or a good friend, and I don't mind spending money on food or yarn (after all, the yarn will make mittens, hats, sweaters ... practical items with a long shelf life!), but it just about kills me to crack open my wallet for an $80 bike bag. I fretted over the cost all afternoon. But I know it will be a good investment and besides, I saved about $80 in gas in the last two weeks by not driving my car so that's how I'm trying to look at it. Still, I'm feeling guilty. Damn Scottish genes!

Tonight is Halloween, my son's favorite holiday. He doesn't care about the candy ... it's all about the costume! He even mentioned not trick-or-treating this year; his friend isn't into candy either, and they were just going to walk around the neighborhood doing their ninja moves. I put a quick stop to that idea, because dammit, if I'm going to walk around in the cold with them, I want some Almond Joys, M&Ms (peanut, please), and Reese's Peanut Butter Cups as a reward.

FO Friday: Cabled hat with pom pom

I was skimming through the Telegraph's fashion pages as I am wont to do and this cute cabled hat caught my eye:

$140, my friends!

Designed by British designer Paul Smith, this pom-pom hat is knit from "lambswool" and has a fold-up ribbed brim. What I really like, though, is the play between the staid dark gray and the silly neon pink pom-pom.

This week I pedaled over to Wild & Woolly in Lexington and bought two skeins of Berroco Ultra Alpaca -- one in a dark gray, the other in hot pink -- and got to work. Two evenings of labor, using a free pattern I found on Ravelry, I got this:

I took this shot before blocking so the stitches aren't as smoothed out as I would like. (My ribbing always looks wonky before blocking.) I also have a small bowl under the hat to give it shape; when the hat's on my head, it's perfectly rounded instead of pointy. Shot of new hat in action TK as soon as my photographer returns home from school.

I do have to say, I like my version better -- my cables pop more and the hat doesn't look felted like the Paul Smith one does. My hat is light and soft, but thanks to the 50% alpaca blend, unbelievably warm ... warmer than just "lambswool," I'd bet. I will begrudgingly give Paul Smith the better pom-pom -- mine's not as full and puffy as his. I need to go back to pom-pom making school. Best of all, my hat cost far less than $140. Each skein of yarn cost $10.50. I used 64 grams of the gray ($6.72) and 10 grams of the pink ($1.05) for a total material cost of $7.77. Now of course there's labor. But I knit this while watching television at night; I start to fidget when I don't have something to do with my hands, so it's knit or bite my nails.

I'll be wearing my new hat on my daily hike through the woods. Next up: hot pink cabled mittens to match.

British media law baffles me

Several weeks ago I mentioned my interest in the Jeremy Forrest case, the British schoolteacher who ran off to France with a 15-year-old student he was tutoring. The student was returned home to her family in England, and a few days later, Forrest was extradited to the UK.

The story disappeared.

I searched the papers online to find out what happened next. Surely The Sun would run with a salacious headline, or at the very least, the Daily Mail's gossip pages would rehash the saga of Forrest's abandoned wife. But there was nothing. It was as if the duo had never run off.

Then yesterday, I spotted a short piece in the Guardian that reported a British court had lifted a ban from the defendant being named in the press, thanks to a challenge from  ten media organizations, including the Guardian and the BBC. Still, there's been very little on the case, except that there's no longer a ban. Great, but what's next? A court date? Probation? Prison time?

Here in the U.S. it would be highly unusual -- if not unheard of -- for a media organization to be banned from naming a defendant in a court case, especially in a case that has already drawn media attention. The exception I can think of would be if the defendant were under age 18, and even then, it would be extremely rare.

So I ask my British readers: why the ban? I also notice that British newspapers often turn off commenting features on online stories involving a crime "for legal restrictions." Any insight?

Knitting bounty

Last week I mentioned I couldn't wait to share some of the goodies I'd acquired in the past few weeks.

I won three skeins of Springtree Road Navarre sock yarn by leaving a comment on Knitty's blog. How cool is that? I rarely win anything, but that may be because I only enter contests when I truly love what's being offered. And when I saw these colors (all gorgeous shades of green and teal), I was a goner. The colors from left to right are Corinth, Tanis, and Leafy Seadragon. What lovely names. Each skein is a generous 460 yards and is a blend of superwash Bluefaced Leicester and 25% nylon for strength. While I think these colors would look great in a shawl, I think I'd get better use of the wool as socks. I have some patterns in my Ravelry queue that would work quite nicely.

So thank you Knitty and Springtree Road -- I will be putting these lovely skeins of wool to good use in the coming months.

On another front ... for a couple years now, I've been looking for this one Candide knitting pattern, the Lightweight Classic Raglan Cardigan:

I've also been on the hunt for the Candide Aran pullover and cardigan pattern. These patterns do pop up on eBay ever so often, but I always seem to just miss them. Anyway, one day I was searching on Craigslist and I saw that someone was selling a box of Candide patterns. The only problem was that they were down in Maryland and I was up in Boston. Long-distance purchases through Craigslist can be dicey, but I decided to give it a try. The woman who was selling them quickly got back to me and agreed to a long-distance transaction. Not only that, she said she'd include dozens of Penny Straker knitting patterns. I love Straker patterns ... they're as classic New England as you can get.

The large box of patterns hit my doorstep a few days later.

A nice array ... unfortunately, the cardigan pattern I wanted wasn't here. Boo hoo!

But look at all these Penny Straker patterns:

I just love this New England-y looking guy. Can't see my husband wearing this anytime soon, though. (Sad to say, my husband wouldn't wear anything made of wool.)

I have a lot of duplicate patterns, so I'll probably sell the extras through Etsy or maybe eBay, we'll see. I'll continue my search for the cardigan pattern, and in the meantime, start my planning for the aran sweater. So excited!

Honey cowl #2

I finished my second Honey Cowl yesterday. Today I had good weather and a willing photographer. I love it when my son photographs me. He gets artistic shots and says nice things like, "Mom, you're so pretty." Awwww. (He totally knows he gets extra time on the computer for flattery.)

I used Malabrigo Arroyo again in the colorway Volcan. I told my neighbor it looks like autumn in a ball. Such a pleasure to knit with, too. Usually Malabrigo yarns pill terribly, but this yarn remains pill free ... and it's superwash, too.

Ravelry details here.

Hey ladies ...

Just read an interview in today's Telegraph with actor Brendan Coyle, who plays Mr. Bates in Downton Abbey, and he's single and available. He says, "I'm going to be 50 soon. I'm single, I'm looking for something meaningful. By the time you've been single for quite a long time, you can get quite specific about what you can and can't put up with." Link follows, but warning: the interview includes a major spoiler for North American audiences. Read more here.

Who knew Mr. Bates had such a female fan base?

Images from a rainy Sunday

The fall dreariness continues. Today I had to get out of the house and away from my desk, which is blanketed by financial paperwork for my taxes. The whoop of joy you hear tomorrow will be me, thrilled that the monstrous task is finished and in the mail. And then I can get back to blogging. I can't wait to show off what I won last week and the long-sought-for Aran knitting pattern I found on Craigslist (of all places).

The woodland paths were sodden and mucky, but they didn't stop me. Bonus: I had the trails to myself so I could wander in peace. Even in the gray, pretty flashes of color lightened my step.

ETA: Tonight's the season 3 premiere of The Walking Dead on AMC. O and I will be cuddled up around a bowl of popcorn to watch. A journalist friend who does television reviewing has seen the first three episodes and tells me they're action-packed -- O's hoping that means zombie action! Normally I don't like blood and gore, but for some reason I don't mind seeing a creative zombie kill, although both O and I hope Rick's wife Lori gets torn apart soon -- she's so annoying. BTW, did you know that Andrew Lincoln, who plays Rick, is British? I didn't until a few weeks ago -- he sure had me fooled.