Catching Up, Halloween, and Crochet Mitts

Hallo! :)
I have a few things for you today.  While we were outside trying to get the yard ready for winter, I noticed this flower was just now blooming.  Do you happen to know what it is?  I don't think I've seen it before.  It's very pretty, and I do hope it grows more next year ... it's kind of spindly right now.  If I know more about it, then perhaps I could do something to help it grow.

We had Halloween/Beggar's Night this past Sunday.  Where we lived in Iowa, we lived on a street that did not get many (say zero) trick-or-treaters.  So this year, we had no idea what to expect, but figured we'd buy some candy and see if anyone came.  We did make sure to buy what we liked, however! :)  Just in case ya know! Some of the candy is in these pumpkins....If I remember right, my sister, S, made them a long time ago.

So we handed out candy, rather Rob & I did, the boys were busy on the computers ...

You can see it's still light out.  We got home from getting our pictures taken and shopping at Walmart at 4:05 pm ... Beggar's Night was from 4-7 .. so we hurried to get the cold stuff put away, and get the bags of candy opened... and we were open for business!  We saw lot's of hobos and ninja's and princesses .. a Darth Vador and a Luke ... a cute pumpkin, a couple of cowboys, the grim reaper even came for a visit .. but was very nice about it! lol Must have been the chocolate they went away with!... It was a nice night.  By 6 is was mostly done, and by then it had started to rain .. only a few kids braved the rain from 6-7 .. so that was good.  I think Rob and I both had fun.

Last week on my internet meanderings, I found this blog post showing a pattern for crocheted fingerless mitts using sock yarn.  I thought they were neat, and I have some sock yarn that is just sitting in a drawer, so I decided to try them out.  Here's a couple of pics for you.

Overall I liked the pattern.  Crocheting at that small of a gauge does take a while though! lol.  I finished the second one last night.   As you can see I used Bernat Sox yarn in a camo variegation.  I used 40 rows of ribbing, which translates to 40 sc around the wrist and up through the hands.  After the thumb, I decreased to 38 sc around, and did 13 rows of sc above the thumb.  I also adjusted the thumb a bit by doing two decreases on each of rows 3 and 5.  Seemed to work well for me.

The main body of the mitt is nice and snug, and it even works well on my dh and ds1 and they have smaller hands than I do.  I like my mitts snug though, so I think that's OK.  Not sure if they would like snugger mitts or not.  They are also nice in that with the sock yarn they are thinner, which means you can wear them inside by themselves, or you can put them on underneath other gloves to go outside and shovel snow.  I almost always double-glove when spending quantities of time outside in the winter. Especially while shoveling. 

The one thing I'm not sure I like is that the ribbing is quite loose.  As you can see it easily flipped up over my wrist, which isn't a bad look, but doesn't keep your forearm warm.  If I was to do these again, I would decrease the ribbing rows, but keep the 40sc around the main body.  But I do recommend this pattern .. and the blog site!  She has lots of great ideas!  Thanks Cindy!

Today I think I'm going to bite the bullet and order some basket making reed.  Here's hoping! :)