October sock knitting and more stitching

 October went out and November arrived, and both days were lovely and sunny and bright - a welcome change from all the wind and rain we've had recently.

I didn't decorate for Halloween and we didn't get any trick or treaters, I saw some of the kids going out but it seems to be an unwritten rule that they only call on houses with visible decorations.  There are only a couple of families with school age children in our street and think they all get together and do their trick or treating further into the estate.

I suppose that makes me sound like a miserable so-and-so, lol, but celebrating Halloween is a relatively recent thing here in the UK.  We never did it when I was growing up; we tended to celebrate Bonfire Night instead.  

I remember how much fun I had making a Guy Fawkes with my friends.  We'd use old clothes and stuff them with newspaper, then make a head using a balloon with a pair of tights pulled over. lol.  Once our creation was finished, we'd take it down to the local paper shop and sit outside with our Guy Fawkes and asked everyone who passed by, "Penny for the Guy?"

The money we collected, and we always did quite well because we timed it for when people would be coming home from work, would go towards buying fireworks.  We'd also spend weeks gathering bits of wood, ready to build a bonfire on the spare ground at the end of the road to light on, or as close as possible to Bonfire Night on 5th November.

A Health & Safety nightmare now of course, both building and having a bonfire and children sitting outside a shop asking "Penny for the Guy"  Oh how did we survive, lol.

On Bonfire Night for some reason we always had jacket potatoes and groaty pudding, (or groaty dick as it was more comonally called), to eat around the bonfire.  

I think I much prefer how we used celebrated Bonfire Night in the UK rather than the adopted Halloween which is just too commercialised now.

Anyway, I went off on a bit of a tanget there. I came here to share my October socks and a stitching update.

I managed to complete two pairs of socks last month.  

This pair for Mark in the Starling colourway from West Yorkshire Spinners

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And this pair for me using, Opal yarn, but unfortunatly I've lost the ball band for this on so I can't tell you the colourway.

Although I prefer knitting with Opal sock yarn over WYS I really do like the Starling colourway I knitted for Mark, I sort of wish I'd done those for myself, lol.  But, there may be enough left over to make myself a shorty pair perhaps, watch this space.

I've been keeping my stitching bag by the sofa thinking that It might encourage me to stitch a bit more, and It has and I've been enjoying working on North Pole again.

I'm glad to have found my stitching mojo again as I want to make Freddie his first Christmas ornament in the next few weeks.

Hope are all well and are all set to enjoy November

-X-