Pumpkins, in life and art

The last two days here have featured all the things you associate with your dream autumn:

Just-cool-enough-for-wool temperatures

Richly blue skies

Brilliant sun

Equally brilliant leaves, in some cases still on the trees

And, in my case, pumpkins.

Yep, the annual pumpkin hunt happened Sunday and was its usual success, right down to the butter pecan tarts ingested by me and the locally-produced honey that will be, by way of tea.

The local United Church also held its Awesome Fall Sale (not to be confused with its Awesome Spring Sale). I was pleased to find that whoever baked the toffee cookies for the Spring Sale was back again for Fall.

I scored some vintage knitting things in the back corner of the housewares room:

And - you knew this was coming, right? - a big New Wool sweater to felt:


This thing is huge, with a 44" chest that looks bigger, to me. And for some reason it didn't shrink when it felted; could it be superwash wool? I hope not. I hope it just magically retained its shape after both the hot water wash and the dryer and will not fall apart when I cut into it.

I've been avoiding the unexciting colours of my own wardrobe in feltable sweaters lately, thinking I had more than enough of them for all the houseware/accessory projects I prefer, but then last month I looked at a previously felted sweater upside down, saw some light dawning, and cut it to get this:

aka a very wide waistband to which a long strip of pieced-together bits could be sewn.

You will note I am not showing more pictures of how the resulting skirt turned out. Let's just say the concept needs some fine-tuning, shall we?

Getting back to the argyle-esque sweater - it's very matchy with the rest of my wardrobe, and it's so ridiculously large I could cut it off at the armpits, turn it upside down, gather up the waistband a bit, and have a warm quirky knee-length skirt in the time it takes me to do a blanket stitch hem. And... I can't believe I'm saying this, but...

it's also perfect just as it is, worn Boyfriend Sweater-like over a pair of tights.

I am so far from being twenty years old and able to get away with Boyfriend Sweaters it's pitiful, but I'm gonna wear it that way today anyway; it can be a whole pumpkin for now, and if/when I get sick of it, I'll wave the ol' magic wand and transform it into something dressy-uppy. Or what passes for it in this house.