Crazy Eyes

I have discovered the secret to terrifying young children...blue eyelashes!

From Irish Clover

This weekend, Little Clover and I attended his annual school Halloween party. He dressed as Annakin Skywalker (again), and I decided to get a little bit crazy and put on blue eyelashes. The reaction was more than I expected. Little Clover brought all of his friends around to gawk at my eyes. One little friend even exclaimed "Whoa! Those are huge!" Children stared at me in shock as they slowly backed away towards their parents in scary ghostly costumes. Parents I regularly see stopped in mid conversation because they just couldn't talk to me with my crazy eyes. Who knew that a little bit of colored nylon could cause such a stir.

Little Clover did have an awesome time running amok with his friends. He is officially a big kid now. When we attend these school parties and get togethers, he immediately attaches to his pod of friends and they gallavant about as a single unit without parents. They are all very good though with checking in with the parentals throughout the night (generally when they want someone to hold something or to feed them). The freedom to socialize is not just for Little Clover now. I've had the opportunity to get better acquainted with the other moms and dads. We generaly look to the ones with older children on how to get through this new milestone. They smile and tell us that when the kids hit college age, they come back. In the meantime, I'll hold Little Clover's jacket, his water, and hand him a dollar for concessions.

Oh, and I'll knit mittens, which are just as wonderful as handknit socks, but much faster to knit.

From Irish Clover

This is one of a pair of modified Pink Sonata mittens from Vogue Knitting. The are modified because I made a few changes and for a brief day, kept on knitting even though I didn't have the pattern with me.

For starters, the pattern calls for sock yarn knit on US size 2 needles. These pair of mittens are for fishing, so I wanted a denser fabric and knit them on size 0 needles and followed the pattern for the medium mittens. Since my row gauge would now be completely different, I increased for the thumb gussett every 4th row instead of every 3rd row and added a couple of extra rounds of knitting at the bottom and the top. Then, I just winged it when I got to the fingers. I'm curious to see what will happen if I follow the pattern.