Yarn-bombs & Supersuits: what I learned in October

Another month has gone by, and life's education continues. I'm joining, once again, with Emily from Chatting at the Sky to share what I've been learning, both the serious and the silly. This month, it was mainly silly:



Downtown Edmonton has been yarn-bombed. Sometime between my last two city-centre(ish) walks, the community of Oliver has been peppered with knitting: trees, lampposts, sign polls, and bike-racks are all bedecked in the warm, fuzzy, and colourful. Other than cardboard tags marked "commuknitty", I don't know much else about it. My first google search only came up with instagram and twitter hits (I don't have accounts with either so that didn't help me much). This morning, the first page worth was about some yarn store that closed in San Antonio. I guess the internet has moved on. The only other place I've seen anything like it is Warwick, Queenland's Jumpers and Jazz Festival (and by seen, I mean the fabulous pictures on this blog). I don't mind the mystery; it pares nicely with the kitsch. If I ever run out of people to knit for, I might just jumper our front yard tree.

I own too many dark-coloured tops to tend to a snuffly-nosed baby. October was a month of teething and head-colds for my youngest girl. I spent many a night nursing and many days alternatively stalking my rug rat with a kleenex and moaning over the latest smear on my sweater. I was commiserating about such wardrobe malfunctions with another sick-babed mom at choir practice when another lady joked I should switch my blacks for cream - or maybe olive? I'm thinking my best bet would be a shiny, satin cover-all in desert camo; that would cover the snot spectrum and the coffee stains. Thankfully my two-toothed wonder is back to her happy clear-nosed self. For now.

Do-it-yourself costumes can be fun, provided you aim for "close enough".  My eldest daughter is precise, particular, and extremely detail-oriented, so offering to make her a super suit for Halloween felt pretty brave, and more than a little scary. The Incredibles may be just a fabulous now as it was in 2004, but I was pretty sure we weren't going to find Violet on the costume rack at Superstore ten years later (I just did the math on that one too. Allow me a moment to feel old.). So I pitched the idea of taking whatever red and black clothing we had around, adding a mask,  and making a logo to pin on her shirt. I warned her that we wouldn't be able to get it exactly like the movie, but as long as we used the right colours and had the Incredibles' "i", people would get the idea. She took it beautifully - well, she still felt the need to explain that the gloves were red instead of black and her headband was the wrong colour, but she kept the tone upbeat and ended all criticisms with "but that's okay!" Progress. Progress is good. And my no-sew simple solution stretched easily to include a Dash costume when my son decided to join in the super. 


Healey Willan wrote a Christmas Cantata, and it's magnificent. I've known "The Mystery of Bethlehem" existed since I first pulled it out of my choir folder in September, but it's only been in the last couple rehearsals that we've sang it in its entirety, with a piano reduction to give us an idea of the organ and handbell accompaniment we won't get to experience until the dress rehearsal. I'm excited. And if there's a decent recording of Willan's complete works, I want it for Christmas.    

It's okay to tweak your own recipes. The coming of autumn weather had me searching my archives to make crabapple butter and borscht. And then I didn't exactly follow my own instructions. It felt slightly disloyal to my past selves, but this year's substitutions brought both seasonal goodies up a notch. I've since updated the recipes posts to reflect my self-improvement, but still have the originals if your preferences or pantry contents differ from mine.

That's it for this round. Happy November!

Comments

  1. Someone recently told me I should yarn bomb something (crocheter) but I think you need a TEAM for such a thing. :) And honestly, I don't know if any recipe I have ever made has been done exactly the same two times in a row. It's always... interesting,.. that way. :D

    Coming over from Emily's link up.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I did see one yarn-bomb that was merely a baby blanket wrapped around a tree, but a well-planned team effort definitely sounds more fun :) And strangely enough, I'm only squeamish about changing my own recipes. Other peoples' work is fair game to mess with. Silly, I know. Thanks for the visit!

      Delete
  2. Now a yarn-bombed bike rack would be awesome! My poor cruiser has so many scrapes from bike racks. I love the costumes! My Aunt, uncle, and three cousins dressed as the Incredibles this year too. It was pretty funny seeing my 6ft-tall cousin pretending to be baby Jack.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Now I'm seeing an entire city covered knee-high in colourful kitchy bumper pads. I love it!
      I thought about trying to scrounge up Incredible costumes for the other three of us (the baby's even Jack-Jack's age!), but couldn't muster the energy. My youngest wore the adorable giraffe costume she'd already been lent, and we parents went as ourselves. I may just keep a family ensemble in my back pocket for another year though - a full-grown Jack-Jack sounds hilarious :)

      Delete
  3. I'm so glad you like the yarn-bombing pictures. :-) There's something about knitting that just delights me. Cracking up at you feeling disloyal to your past selves by tinkering with your own recipes. :-)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Granted, I usually love all your pictures ;) The love of all things knitted has taken some time, but it's growing on me. Good to see you back :)

      Delete

Post a Comment

Thanks for taking the time to comment. Those little notifications make my day :)

Popular Posts