A scary one and a cheerful one.

We had thirty-eight trick-or-treaters this year. Thirty-eight! And I thought we were well prepared, with Ingrid having bought enough candy for about twenty kids, based on last year’s outcome. Halfway through she went out and bought more. And still there were more kids coming, sometimes in groups of eight and even ten. In the end I was handing out vanilla-flavoured wafers of some sort that I dug out from the bottom of a cupboard. There is just no predicting this.

I had a chance to go visit the Sortera facility in Rosersberg, while users there were trialling a new feature in one of the apps our team is working on.

Piles and piles of garbage. And loud, clanking machinery.

High-viz clothing, steel-toed puncture-proof boots, and safety helmets.

Self-portrait in woolly sweater.

Mostly this October has been unseasonably warm, but today was actually a bit chilly, so I got to wear my latest, thickest sweater.

I also notice that I am looking more and more like my grandmother. I only had the one, my father’s mother; I never knew any of my relatives on my mother’s side. I remember her round cheeks and the distinct creases between her cheeks and mouth. Now I have the same.

The last two embroidery exercises for the “black, white and a colour” course.

First: “Make a design with five squares/rectangles (four-cornered shapes), four circles, and three triangles.” I struggled but in the end made something that I rather liked. The deadline for that exercise was during a very busy week for me, so I fell back on appliqué as a quick way to make shapes.

Apparently it wasn’t just me – appliqué seems to have been the instinctive choice for this exercise for all of us in the group. Hence the follow-up exercise for all of us: realize the same design but without using appliqué at all, only stitches.

This weekend wasn’t less busy. I sat with this embroidery during the Thursday embroidery club session, which I’ve normally set aside for the Stockholm embroidery, and I still ended up working until almost midnight yesterday.

I couched the black quadrilaterals with super-thick wool yarn. I wanted them to be proper black, and I also felt like doing something slightly crazy, and once the idea had struck me, I also just wanted to see what the outcome would look and feel like. I guess “interesting” is a word for it. I’m not in love with them, but I also don’t hate them, and they are definitely attention-grabbing.

We went shopping for Halloween pumpkins. In the past I’ve just bought whatever was available in the supermarkets closest to us, but this year Ingrid drove us to Coop Bromma Blocks to practise driving. They had an entire giant pumpkin section. The section was giant, and so were the pumpkins they had there.

(Image from Dansens Hus, (c) unclear.)

Sharon Eyal is just the best. Awesome. Fascinating. Spell-binding. I don’t have enough superlatives. As an added bonus, this performance took place at Elverket, a small scene, and we had front row seats, so it felt even more immersive than usual.

Into the Hairy had familiar elements, the bits that I have loved in her previous works, but still felt new. Although, to be fair, even if there was nothing new, I could watch this over and over again. Maybe not daily, but once a month? Absolutely.

There was the group, moving together but not in sync, moving similarly but not identically, always having someone deviate somehow. Constant development and mutation in what is happening, even though much of it is told with minimal means. Small gestures, the angle of a wrist, the twist of a shoulder.

There were the precise movements that are elegant but also alien and inhuman. Stepping on the sole of one foot but just the toes of the other, to always be off balance. Especially one of the dancers was like… I don’t know what. An eel. A snake. An octopus. A space alien. Not boneless but just not quite human. Almost uncanny valley.

There were the lacy bodysuits that enhance each movement. A smooth costume smooths out movements, whereas a subtle pattern draws attention to them. I have never been as aware of the flex of each thigh muscle, the undulation of a pair of shoulders, the twitch of a buttock.

Here’s a brief 30-second trailer of Into the Hairy.

Leaving the house to give space to Ingrid and her friends for her birthday party, I went to the semi-annual crafts fair. Not intending to buy much, but I absolutely needed to visit Apmezga’s stand. For the last sweater I made with their yarn, I used three skeins of yarn and didn’t even wind the fourth one. I recklessly only brought three skeins for the current one. I’m almost at the end of the third skein and the sweater definitely isn’t finished. Unless I want a crop top. Which I don’t.

Apart from that, I bought a bag of wool felt scraps and some other assorted fabric off cuts. I don’t know what I’ll do with them, but they were pretty and cheap so why not.

And of course I always photograph interesting knitwear, for inspiration for future projects. Right know I’m thinking of knitting a sweater or cardigan with a round yoke. I’ve done seamed set-in sleeves, contiguous shoulders of two kinds, raglan sleeves both top-down and bottom-up, but not a round yoke, so I’m curious to try it out.

Ready for Ingrid’s eighteenth birthday festive brunch. Ingrid did all the creative work yesterday – baking and decorating the cake, making the panna cotta, preparing the filling for the devilled eggs. All that was left for this morning was plating and such, plus some slicing of veggie sticks and cheeses.

Devilled eggs is one of her favourite party foods, and now she wants to introduce her friends to the concept. Several of them are generally sceptical about new foods, but the bacon on top of these should convince them.

Fresh fruit, to go with yoghurt and granola, for those who want a lighter meal.

Crostini with burrata, a lemon and olive oil drizzle, and raspberries.

Panna cotta with raspberry jam and a mint sprig.

And now everything is ready for the guests, and it’s time for the parents to make themselves scarce. Ingrid herself was perfectly fine with having us here for the duration, but we all agreed that her friends wouldn’t feel as comfortable with us in the house.

We had Ingrid’s actual eighteenth birthday, and the party for the extended family. Now it’s time for her party with her friends. This one will be a festive brunch, tomorrow.

This is not the first fancy meal that Ingrid invites her friends to, but it will be on a different level. She has been collecting ideas, and then tableware and decorations, for months. The theme for the decorations is sort of romantic in pink and light green, with flower-patterned vintage plates and champagne flutes and candlesticks and slender, elegant vases.

Yesterday, after she finalized the menu, we went shopping for groceries and flowers. Then we cleared most other furniture out of the living/dining room, so that Ingrid could decorate the room and set the table. Ingrid has no school on Fridays this year, so she planned for a full day of baking and food prep today.

I hope her friends have the sense to appreciate the effort that’s going into this!

The last assignment for the “black, white and a colour” embroidery course. Deadline this weekend. I had an idea, and I tried it out, and it didn’t work out at all, so I ripped up an hour and a half of embroidery. That just means I get to do more embroidery, right? But with a bit more time pressure.