Playing Around with Poinsettias

Last November, I wanted to make crochet poinsettias but I couldn't find a pattern that suited my needs.  Yesterday I sat myself down and created a pattern of my own.  I've re-made it in three sizes and I'm ready to make a photo tutorial and share the pattern with all of you... I've got to spend tomorrow working out of town so it'll have to wait a bit 'til I can get back to the task - until then.  Sher

A Little Halloween Tale

Halloween is different when no one in the house is a Trick-or-Treater.  No one in THIS house dressed up, or paraded through the neighborhood.  The days of sewing lots of costumes and rushing around all day to snap costumed kids in school parades have long since passed.

This Halloween, I observed, I enjoyed, I noticed.  It was slow, it was easy.  Here's the way Halloween looks from an ALMOST empty nest...

Running with the wildlife...

Crunching through the leaves...

Gazing up...

Noticing what's nearby...

Delighting in the decorations...

Cruising by the creepy stuff...

Perusing pumpkins on porches...

Seeking out the spider webs...

Grazing by the graveyards...

Following the flowers all bright and happy...

Dallying with the doggies...

Home sweet haunt...

Carving...

By the light of the moon...tricker treaters come soon...

End the night with a little wine!

Happy Halloween!  Hope yours was fun.

More Paint Chips for Halloween

On the blog path today I saw this!



Go here to see the HOW TO.

You may remember that I posted HERE about a rather somber grey paint chip tomb stone bunting a few years ago.



What is it about paint chips and Halloween that excites me?  I would LOVE to make these cute paint chip characters into a bunting and send it off to my niece and nephew who are super into decorating the house for Halloween.  There's certainly still time to make one NOW for you own house this season, but... I'd have to send mine in the mail as my sister's family lives a few hours away.  I've pinned this craft to my Halloween Board so I'll remember it for next year.  Pop on over to pinterest and see what else is there.

Sher

Pitt Coasters - a College Gift

About a month ago, I crocheted some coasters for my son and his friends at the University of Pittsburgh.  Pitt's colors are dark blue and gold.  I had to improvise on some of the coasters with a bit of yellow but I prefer the color scheme of the gold.  The coasters were a request from his friends.  They are reportedly well-used on the coffee table in the dorm room.  Although no step by step pattern is shown here, any basic circle or square shape could be used with a bit of cotton yarn in collegiate colors to create the same sort of gift.  Enjoy the inspiration!  Sher

Sugar Skull Bunting

Ready for Halloween?  How about Autumn?

Every year I like to make a new bit of Halloween/Autumn decor to install around the house.  This past weekend and up until yesterday mid-morning, the weather was freaky warm... hot and humid even.  It was not October.  The skies were grey the leaves were blowing around on the streets but the temperature didn't match the rest of the scene.  After a few wet downpours, the temperature dropped and dropped and now it feels like fall!  Welcome cool and windy weather - LOVE IT!

I've been eyeing up some groovy skull buntings on pinterest and yesterday I sat down and crafted one of my own - can I tell you something?  IT IS AWESOME...just exactly what I wanted and now it's hanging across the mantle just waiting to scare all who enter my living room.

Want to make one of your own?  Well here's how.

I found this cute skull pattern here.  It's from a blog called Kristen's Krazy Knits.  It is crochet however.  I pretty much followed the pattern as written.  I'm not sure if there's an error in the instructions or if I made the same error six times repeated, but when the instructions say," This should get you back to the chain 2 you made to create the nose," I found myself off by two stitches every time.  Nonetheless, I did manage to make it work and I'm happy with my rainbow colored skulls.  I used sugar and cream cotton yarn and an H sized hook to make the skulls.

I also loved the sugar skulls in this crochet bunting from Red Heart.



Red Heart provides an entire pdf with instructions for this bunting.  I could have just used it entirely.  I did look at the photo up close and figure out that the white skull part was a sc circle with a rectangular off one end to place the teeth, but I didn't follow the pattern, just winged it on my own.  I liked the eyes, the teeth and the flower on the forehead - however, I wanted a heart for a nose.  I also winged the teeth.

I used this flower pattern for the eyes.  I had this heart pattern saved in my crochet heart board on pinterest. I added a row of crochet chain stitch to the heart and attached it upside down.  I used this pattern for the forehead flower but winged a set of double leaves to look like the sample.  The forehead flower pattern is in a non-English language and even with translation, I couldn't quite follow.

Most of the sugar skull was made with the same sugar and cream cotton yarn.  Most of it was done with an H crochet hook but I did switch to an F sized hook to make some of the skull face parts a bit smaller.

I stitched the parts to the white background with a weaving-in needle and a bit of knot tying to the back.

The whole thing was assembled into a bunting using the H hook, some black cotton yarn, and a bit of chain stitching.  It looks just like I wanted!

With the drop in temperature I decided it was full time to hang my FAVORITE crochet wreath back on the door... check out my Autumn Wreath Pattern here - one of my most loved crochet creations.