Magic Loop Magick I

Halloween is over, but my pumpkins live on. One looks like it had a rough night and the other looks happy and perky. Hmm.... wonder what they were up to last night.

Fall is upon us. This weekend the clocks turn back one hour. Wheeee! Means we gain back that hour we lost in the spring, yeah right. If you believe that, I've got some prime farmland for sale in the bayou.


The fall colors are just about over. Soon the wind will blow everything away and then we have that cold, bone chilling season known as winter! I want to hibernate Waaaaahhh

Walking around town, I noticed that this building reminds me a lot of the building from the original Ghostbusters movie.

Kind of creepy looking with the grey clouds scudding along behind it. I could just picture all the ghosts and apparitions flying around the top of it. Since it's located downtown, I see it every time I'm down there which is pretty often. Halloween was quiet in our neighborhood. Very few houses had the lights on. We didn't see a single trick or treater.

Magic Loop magick

Wow! If anyone had told me that it was this simple knitting using the magic loop way I would have switched to doing that a long time ago. DPNs are great, but magic looping is a prayer answered by the goddess of knitting herself. As I like to say "Desperation is the mother of all inventions" and someone must have been desperate!

I wanted to do up some quick Halloween decorations and decided to go for the Curly Purly Pumpkins that I featured in the Hallowe'en Fun post. I started digging around trying to find dpns of the right size and came across my one and only circular needle made of plastic. A few days ago while browsing Ravelry posts about magic loop, I followed a link to Knittinghelp.com where you can view teaching videos on just about any knitting subject from casting on, to binding off and everything in between including magic loop. After viewing the video via a mirror (I'm a left handed knitter) I decided to give it a shot.

Whatever it was that I thought would be too difficult to learn this method is beyond my understanding now. But WoW! no more ladders from knitting with dpns, no more dropped stitches, no more fussing with casting on and moving stitches to this needle and that needle.
I see the possibilities now. Imagine doing patterns and not having to move stitches from one needle to the other just to keep the pattern straight!


Here is one of the finished pumpkins. Going to do a few more until I run out of orange yarn. In the meantime, get your kitties close to the monitor so they can view some gratuitous posing by Mr. Gambit in all his glory, reclining on my unmade bed. Sometimes I wish I was him!

Hallowe'en Fun

Such a lovely time of year. Ghosts, witches, goblins, Britney, Elves, Paris, Devils, Orcs, The Hulk, and many more walk about unfettered on this night. What are you going to dress your little ones in this year?

Why not knit a costume? I went looking and these patterns were available free of charge.

The Darling Devil Set available free from Lion Brand makes for a quick knit of horns and tail for any age.

If you're looking for a quick fix to not finding a cool costume and it's Halloween day itself. Take out your knitting needles and sink them into this pattern. Flying Spaghetti Monster According to the pattern, it only takes 4 hours to make this costume and gauge is not an issue! No swatching involved.

Now for something retro. How about a Hallowig? Knitty offers a cool pattern for a knitted wig, but better start it today or you may not have it done in time.

Another option offered by Knitty is the Jackyll & Hide hat. If you live where it gets cold by the end of October as in snow flying and wind blowing up your breeches, this would be a great mask. It does double duty as a hat and scares the living tar out of kids when you pull it down.

You can also get the book Charmed Knits by Alison Hansel.

The book contains patterns for wizardly items such as: a wizard hat, robes, scarf, Errol the owl and more. If your little ones want to walk around looking like Harry or Hermione, this is the book for you.

Fans of "Nightmare Before Christmas" will adore this cute pattern for Zero the Ghostly Dog from Knitted Toy Box .

For fans of Futurama, the Brain Slug from Mychawd, Knitting SAMurai 's blog will be a sure hit.

For home decorating or gift giving, this knitted pumpkin pattern is adorable! You can make it any size you want, just change needle size.

Have fun on Halloween and remember to walk safely, carry a light and get home not too late after dark.