I was still working on Pearl’s scarf on Halloween afternoon (by far the most time-consuming part of my crafting, I am the slowest knitter on earth), but I finally finished it, a half-hour after we were supposed to meet up with Andrew downtown for a little-kid costume party (oops). We made it fashionably late and she was a very cute and cooperative little Harry Potter, right down to sighting the Golden Snitch and diving for it, broomstick and all!

This was a fun set of mini-projects! I cut and sewed an old black v-neck t-shirt to convert it into her robe (with a felt-and-corduroy emblem); sewed up a long felt tube and stuffed it for the broomstick, along with a flurry of yarn for the bristles (I added an elastic loop to keep it on her wrist so I wouldn’t have to pick it up off the floor six or seven hundred times); and for the scarf, I cast on 12 stitches on size 8 needles, knitted endlessly, and changed colors from scarlet to gold every 18 rows. Confession: when time got tight I decided to invest my last precious late-for-the-party minutes in fringing instead of weaving the ends in, so embracing my inner bad knitter and snipping them off took all of 30 satisfying seconds.

The only thing I didn’t make myself is her beautiful Hedwig, who was crocheted by the lovely and talented Jenny Ryan!

Pearl was a sweet thing for the rest of the night and seemed to enjoy carving the pumpkin, trick-or-treating around our block, and helping us give candy away to our visitors. Then we watched the Blazers beat the Spurs (woo hoo!) for the perfect end to the evening!