Pumpkin Carving - A Personal History

I'm having a hard time getting pumpkin carving out of my head. So until it's time to actually, you know, do it, I guess I'm just going to be babbling about it here. :P So I guess I present A Personal History of Pumpkin Carving


There was apparently a time during our family history in which normal faces were carved. I was too young to remember, but there is a really old video of both me and the next youngest going trick-or-treating at a very young age. And visible in the background are our normal pumpkins.

My earliest pumpkin themed memory is visiting the pumpkin patch in kindergarten. We were allowed to pick one out to take home and everything. While my classmates picked out small, easily carried by a 5 year old pumpkins, I picked the biggest, bestest pumpkin I could find. I could barely lift the thing if I remember correctly. I was very lucky that the bus we rode to the patch was also the same bus that I rode to and from school on. The bus driver was nice enough to let me leave the pumpkin in my seat so I didn't have to take it back into the school building. I was very proud of that pumpkin.

We've carved interesting things for as long as I can remember. We started with those Pumpkin Masters kits that come with carving saws and patterns. I remember when we were little that we'd transfer the patterns to the pumpkins by coloring on the back with a crayon and then tracing it. Back then I'm pretty sure that Dad would help us with the carving - as I've said before, it's totally a family thing.

We used patterns from those kits for years. I think I had progressed to carving all by myself well before we mostly stopped using them. Somewhere we've got a picture of one of the ones I had done that was a skeleton eating a mouse. I still have a fondness for them even if we don't really use their patterns anymore, and sometimes I miss sawing away with those little saws as I haven't cut through a pumpkin in years.

At some point we started looking up patterns on the internet. We collected loads of free patterns over the years, and I definitely remember searching for new ones mid summer even. I'd say internet patterns were our first true trip into what I think of as "three color" patterns - Not cut through, shaved, and cut through, which eventually morphed into Not cut, shaved, and shaved deeper. We had favorite sites and I think this is when I really started loving patterns based on cartoon characters.

I was most definitely carving my own by this point. There's this one year where I was attempting to carve a rather complicated Harry Potter pattern. I was frustrated and taking it out on the rest of the family. Eventually I ended up hiding in the basement with my pumpkin, working through it someplace quiet so I could concentrate. This had to be in the early 2000s as the pattern was based off of one of the US book covers - OotP I believe.

In there we also tried making our own patterns even though we rarely carved anything we made. I've looked through some of my old attempts at making patterns recently. They're...pretty bad. They'd get the point across probably, but they were certainly far from what I'd consider even a decent job now.

And then at some point our favorite site (that we had come to rely on) took down a bunch of their patterns (cartoon based mostly) because of complaints from the people who, you know, actually owned the characters or something like that. Whatever...lol I think this is when my sister decided to start really making her own. She's got a real knack for it, and was nice enough to take requests from the rest of us. I tried myself, but I wasn't as good as she was, so I didn't try very hard...lol Heck, even my pumpkin from 2008 was from one of her patterns I think.

I make them for myself now of course. It's really only been the last few years that I've been consistently carving my own though. I'm still learning the balance between too much detail and not enough. If you leave your lines too thin, for instance, you're not going to be able to carve it easily. But too thick makes things, people especially, look weird. :P

I feel as if I ought to conclude this somehow, though I'm not sure what to say. Umm, pumpkins rock? Haha :P

Tis Fall!

Crunchy leaves, pretty colors, cool nights, and pumpkin guts. I adore this time of year more than any other.

We've bought our pumpkins before the last minute this year. I can't wait to get carving, but unfortunately starting too early means nasty rot before getting to showcase the fun next Monday. My pattern is all set - I'm carving Aladdin and Jasmine this year. My favorites from past years have always been the crazy detailed ones, unfortunate for time but understandable. Why wouldn't I be proudest of the crazy ones? :P

My pumpkins from the last three years, in order:





Patrick was three years ago, and I only sort of remember carving him. Perry is my absolute favorite out the the three even if I didn't get to display him for Trick-or-Treat, and Norm is totally awesome as well. Perry definitely fits the bill for "crazy details", but Norm's got it going on as well. Love love love carving.

In other time of year news, NaNo is coming up once again. This will be my third year and I'm starting to get a tiny bit excited again. I'm going for a lighter story than in past years (no more kidnapping and torture for instance) and hopefully the vague idea I have will deliver. :D

Obvious Word Padding

I'm in the frantic process of getting my NaNo into decent shape before the code for my free proof expires. And as such, I'm finding some really ridiculous word padding.

For starters, my main character who generally doesn't care one whit about clothing is describing them far more than he ought to. Not to mention scene descriptions. Ok, yes it's a very good thing to describe where your characters are. I just happen to suck at it and it always sounds out of place and word-paddy.

Then of course there's the times where I repeat myself. Just how many times do you need to tell us that people worrying about you are overreacting Josh? And I get it, your weapon sucks. Quit telling me!

And then there's my favorite. The slightly snarky Captain Obvious moments and really messed up character dialogue.

The woman handed the baby to her husband, then fetched a tea set from the other room. The tea was already hot and she poured us each a cup, well not the baby. The baby didn’t get a cup because it was a baby.

Oh really? The baby didn't want any? Never would have guessed that. ¬_¬

“How can you throw a child?” I exclaimed in horror.

“It’s easy,” he said. “They’re light.”

Actually, I really love this one. But it's so freaking messed up! XD

And don't worry, those two examples are chapters apart. You know, pretending I used chapters. No one threw that baby, it was a different kid.

Yarn Dyeing - The "I'm really lazy so lets just dump it in a jar" method

I love dyeing. Though it might be amusing to share my lazy bum method of dyeing, which also has the advantage of keeping the smell of warm koolaid to a minimum. :P



This is my awesome Dyeing Jar. It's just a plastic, clamp top jar I got at Walmart a while back for sun dyeing. I love it though because I don't have to worry about it spilling.



Here's my roving all soaking in the sink. I'm a lazy lazy dyer, so I tend to just leave it until most of the water escapes the sink or I get bored of waiting, whichever comes first.




After I was tired of soaking, I got the dye ready. I took one of our larger bowls and filled it with water. 3 minutes in the microwave put it just short of boiling. Dumped that into the jar (carefully!) and mixed in some green koolaid. Lemon lime or something like that...




Then I crammed the roving into the jar as well. I probably could have gotten all of it under, but I wanted more than one color so I didn't. Then I clamped the lid down and set it aside. I left it until I got bored and the water was clear by that point. It doesn't take that long because I had the water so hot. Probably not the best move if you're going for super even color, but where's the fun in that?





Here's the roving out of the dye. Half green, whee!





Did the same with red - Black cherry koolaid this time. Yes, it's looking rather christmassy by this point, but I'd randomly selected the colors. :P



There was still bits of white, and while I'm ok with white I needed something to make it less christmassy. I had an already opened packet of orange in my dye box, so I sprinkled it over the white spots. Then to be sure it was wet enough I splashed some of the water from the red job over it.



Then it got wrapped up like a sausage and stuck in a bowl to catch anything that might leak out. 2 minutes got it quite hot, so stashed it away in the basement to cool out of the way. (At this point I made lunch - grilled cheese, yum!) I actually forgot about it over night.




Here's it dumped out in our white bathroom sink - the best in my opinion for being sure that the rinse is clear.





And here's it squeezed out and then layed out to dry. It'll be dry in a few days and then I can start spinning it. :D

Loom Madness?

I walked into Joann Fabric today planning only to get the single ball of yarn I need to complete the shawl I'm working on. But of course I can never stop there. Today's random purchase was a smaller gauge knitting loom, specifically a knitting board meant for double knitting and flat panels, and a kid's potholder loom.




I'm rather pleased with this star square I made following the instructions my new knitting board came with. I mean, sure it's a little wonky, but it's freaking double sided!

As for the potholder loom, I'm not taking pictures of that. I must say, I'm slightly disappointed that it didn't come with enough loops of each color to make the cool, two colored potholder that's on the box. Fortunately, I mostly want to use the loom to try weaving with yarn. You know, once I get the chance to figure it out...lol In the meantime, it's kinda neat to weave and unweave the loops. Not that it really makes a potholder of my thickness preferences.

Roller Coaster Tycoon

Click to view pics...



Dunno why, but had a random urge to go play one of my old favorites - Roller Coaster Tycoon. It's rather old, but it's still fun. It's just lucky that it runs (with proper compatibility settings) on my laptop as I haven't had much luck installing the expansions. Also lucky that the original was always the most fun. :P

If you've never played this game and get a chance to, I highly recommend it, especially if you are a fan of simulators. The main goal is complete the various scenarios in the parks the game gives you (such as "Have 200 guests and a park rating of 600 by October 31 Year 1") but it's also a lot of fun for just building roller coasters and watching the little people be morons - a bit like Sims in that regard.

And yes, the people in this game are quite stupid. One thing you should make sure to remember is to never make paths that are more that one square wide. Why? Because people will get lost on them. Seriously. They just wander around in circles. But it's quite funny to do on purpose even if a bunch of lost guests is horrible for your park rating.

Another thing to keep in mind is to never let your Handymen mow the grass. Yes, your employees are just as stupid as your guests and if you let them mow the grass THAT IS ALL THEY WILL EVER DO. Of course, this doesn't apply in parks without grass, but that's a small minority. Sad thing is, I've never even found a use for mowing the grass. Fortunately, handymen are the only employees with such a problem.




Here's a fun screenie. Though under normal circumstances your guests will object to paying $12 for anything, when it rains they WILL pay that much for an umbrella. Sure it's mean, but it's a pretty easy way to get that starting loan payed off. :P

It's that December time of year!

Let there be snow

We've got our first real snowfall out of the way. Nature had great timing this year. It started snowing on December 1. How's that for awesome? It didn't really accumulate until a few days later (ground too warm I bet) and now it's wonderfully snowy when I look out the window. The video clip I linked to is how I've been feeling the last few days (when I'm not sniffling, darn head cold...). It's from an old Christmas movie called "Frosty Returns", which has pretty much nothing in common with the original Frosty movie, but the song tends to get stuck in my head from time to time. :P

If you've seen the counter on the right side column, you'll see I beat NaNo once again! I'm quite impressed with myself this year. I wrote more than half of it by hand, though that took me until pretty much the beginning of week 4. And when I realized that I'd need to rush like crazy? I managed like 20k over the course of 4 days. Including the last day where I wrote over 7k! Can't you believe that? I still can't. I've still got a bit of story to go of course, which means I'll have to find some energy to actually pound out a conclusion. I want that free proof copy this year.

Only downside to hitting December is that it means I really need to start focusing on any Christmas knitting I want to get done. I have one item that I have to get done because the recipient knows about it. This person is rather picky, so it was just safer to ask about colors and patterns. Of course, that was months ago and there's not a lot that's been done on it since then. Thank goodness it's technically being worked on by two people, but I've done the most. Then again, the amount of work done total is rather pitiful so I guess it doesn't count. Other than that, I'm probably going to stick with small things for everyone. My hands actually still ache a bit from my 20k sprint, not to mention like 3 weeks of writing with a pen when I'm so not used to that.

I've also decided to start an "Obnoxious Christmas Sweater" for myself. There's been a few threads on Ravelry that were talking about them, and I just couldn't get it out of my head. I'm not going to stress about finishing it in time, but it would be cool to wear the thing to Christmas breakfast with the family. I'm not following a pattern, just basing it off a store bought sweater I love.