Author: Cynical Woman

Cartoonist, Artist, Geek, Evil Crafter, Girl Scout Troop Leader and Writer. Also, a zombie. I haven't slept in I don't know how long.
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Krampus Challenge – Day 11, Shrunken Elf Head Ornament

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I finished the cowl today, but I haven’t been able to take a decent photo of it yet, so I’m sharing this tonight instead. 

Shrunken Elf Head!

How’s this for a Krampus ornament?!

 

Hubster and I are going to a party tomorrow, and we were told to bring a gift that cost no more than $5 for a “fun holiday game.” Yeah, right. I hate Secret Santa. Unless, of course, I’m giving the gift of shriveled up body parts }:D

This took me about 2 hours to make, while watching TV. The hat measures longer than my hand from finger tips to wrist. I’m considering crocheting up a couple of elfie ears to stick on it, if I have time. We’ll see. This actually looks pretty good by itself, though. Just nees a hook to hang it from the tree 😀

I’m sure this will be very popular at Secret Santa tomorrow night.

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Krampus Challenge – Day 10, When will this Krampus Cowl end?!

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I meant to post this last night, but I went to bed instead. Imagine that, a normal bedtime…

 

Still not finished!

“It’s HUGE! And it’s STILL NOT DONE!”

 
Honestly, when I came up with the idea for the Krampus Challenge, I hadn’t really planned on working on this cowl for most of it. But I like how it’s turning out, and I’ll be damned if I get dragged to church again this year wearing something boring and appropriate for the holiday season. I mean, I’m not going to go nuts and dress up all in red and green leather, but I think I deserve to be allowed to let my Goth side show.

I have to tear out two rows because I’m off a stitch, but there’s only 10 rows left to stitch, so it should be done by tonight. THEN I can get back to work on ornaments, which was really what I wanted to focus on this holiday season anyway!

But I gotta admit, the purple and black stripes on this cowl? Totally worth the effort!

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Krampus Challenge – Day 09, I’ll show you some progress!

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Finally, a Krampus Kat approves of my progress on the Krampus Kowl.

 

Krampus Kat approves!

“Yes, human. I will accept this paltry offering as a blanket.

 
Well, maybe that look on Marmie’s face isn’t exactly approval, but it ain’t rejection either! I spent most of today bouncing between crochet and doing laundry, the result being I am now 2/3 the way through both tasks. I have a couple more loads of laundry to do, and another 24 rows to crochet on the cowl. I want this damned thing done! I like it, and I love how it’s turning out, but I do have other things I want to make this month! Like another Krampus Raven! And this really cook idea I have for an ornament to give away to all those deserving of the Krampus spirit! You know who you are! And yer gettin’whatcha deserve!

We’ll see if I can get this cowl finished by tomorrow, or maybe by the end of the day Friday. I have Girl Scouts coming over this weekend to spend a day cooking, so I know I won’t have a lot of time to craft then, but we’ll see what I can make happen. Until tomorrow then, good night!

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Krampus Challenge – Day 08, Krampus Kat judges me

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Krampus Kat makes me cry!

“Get this thing off me! I refuse to pose with your half-assed attempts at crochet!”

 
It’s official. Kats are THE animal of Krampus time. Hiccup said some very not-so-nice things to me when I tried to get him to pose with my Krampus Kowl, even though I did make a lot of progress on it today. Apparently he is dsappointed that I did not get anything else done today. Like feed him lots of treats. Now he’s threatening to leave something very unpleasant in my stocking this Christmas. Very, very unpleasant…

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Krampus Challenge – Day 07, Progress is sloooooooow…

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I only managed to do another row and a half on the Krampus cowl, but at least I did something.

 

Krampus Cowl

“Pathetic mortal. Your lack of progress displeases me…”

 
I’m thinking that I’m going to spend tomorrow morning just working on the cowl. Then I think I’ll take Wednesday to make up some very neat Krampus ornaments I’ve thought of. Hopefully, I’ll be able to pick up the pace soon!

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Krampus Challenge – Day 06, Look! Up in the sky!

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Is it a bird?! Is it a plane?! Why, no! It’s….

Krampus Kitty

SUPER GOTH KITTY OF DOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!!11!!!!1!

I know Krampus is part goat, but I think the official animal of Krampus time should be a cat. Just saying.

And no, still haven’t started on the second bird yet. I got waylaid by holiday planninand shopping this evening. Ugh!

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Krampus Challenge – Day 05, Krampus Cowl in progress

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Krampus Cowl!

We are a little further along!

Actually, I had hoped to have another 3-4 stripes done on this cowl, but I discovered I’d made a mistake… About 3-4 rows after I had made it. So I ended up tearing out an hour’s worth of work and starting over again for the day.

But that’s okay! Mistakes happen, things have to be torn out, and we all have to start all over again from time to time. At least that’s the lesson I try to teach Pixie and Princess whenever they work on a project. And we’ve been starting a lot of new projects lately, especially Pixie. She got a set of knitting looms two weeks ago and has been learning to use those. Then this week she got a new sewing machine! Not a kid’s sewing machine that uses glue or string to put fabric together, but an actual Singer sewing machine that uses actual thread, and has a bobbin and real needle. We set it up today and I watched while Pixie sewed a very basic pillow first and then started work on something a little more complicated. That’s probably about the time I made my mistake on the Krampus Cowl, but that’s okay. I got to watch my youngest figure out how to thread her sewing machine and set up the bobbin, figure out how to pin fabric and run it through the machine. There’s nothing like watching a kid catch fire over a new hobby.

But if she breaks into my yarn or fabric stashes, I will squish her like a bug. Just between you and me.

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Krampus Challenge – Day 04, I made stripes!

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Okay, I lied. I did not start another Krampus Raven today. Instead, I started something just for me!

Stripes!

Oooooh! Stripes

I realize this doesn’t look like much, but it’s the start of a Krampus Cowl (or should that be Krampus Kowl?). Why am I making myself a cowl, you ask? Because every Christmas Eve, the Hubster and kids celebrate what we call “Drag Your Buddhist to Church” night. Yes, Christmas Eve is one of the three times of the year where I am obligated to show up at church. The other two are Easter Sunday and Scout Sunday. Scout Sunday is actually pretty funny, because I’m the one who has to organize the event for all the Catholic Girl Scouts at the girls’ school, and I’m the one who ends up standing with the priest as he blesses all the scouts. Yeah, funny.

Anyway, every Christmas Eve, I run into the same problem. I have nothing appropriate to wear. I don’t go out to a lot of fancy events, see, so I don’t have a big stock of nice clothes. Oh, I have tons of t-shirts and jeans! In fact, I think I may have a t-shirt for just about every occasion you can imagine! Zombie apocalypse? Check. Zombie invasion? Check. Zombie slumber party? Check and double-check!

Okay, so I mostly have t-shirts about zombies. And kawaii food. Which is kind of like zombies if you really, really think about it after having a few glasses of wine. Work with me here, people.

But back to the cowl. This year I have decided that I will have an outfit to wear for Christmas Eve. And because it’s always so bloody cold on Christmas Eve, that outfit is going to be something that will keep me warm. So I’m making this cowl. It will be alternating stripes of purple and black (the OFFICIAL colors of Krampus as declared by me) and run from the top of my neck to halfway down my arms. The pattern is from the December 2012 issue of Crochet World and it is made of nothing more than single crochet, half-double crochet, and double crochet stitches. I have tweaked the pattern a bit by making it in alternating stripes rather than one solid color. I like stripes. I especially like purple and black stripes.

To make this cowl truly Krampus-ish (Krampus-like? Krampus-ian?), I plan to crochet a small skull applique to stitch on the front. I may add crossed holly leaves or crossed bones. I haven’t decided yet.

But this is what I got done today. I will be doing more on it tomorrow, and hopefully, I will also get the other Krampus Raven going. Good night for now!

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I Love Drawing Comics!

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Hubster pencils!

Hubster is sooooo cute!

I have slowly learned over time that when I am sloppy drawing pencils, I actually get the penciling done faster, and better, than when I agonize over the details. There was actually another layer of VERY sloppy sketching with this snippet, but I accidentally deleted it once I had the pencil lines I actually wanted. Oh well! Maybe when I do more penciling tomorrow, I’ll be able to show it then!

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Krampus Challenge – Day 03, This ain’t no partridge!

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Krampus Raven!

What a pretty bird!

So this is what the black hexagon eventually became! This is the Krampus Raven, my idea of a Christmas bird. I used the bower bird pattern by Attic 24, but chose appropriately gloomy colors and used black and red monster eyes. He’s a little too big for my small Krampus tree, so I plan to put him on our usual Christmas tree and make a second, smaller version for my smaller tree.

But for today, I’ve posed him with a zombie cupcake I made last year, so he can peck at the oozing frosting brains. Mmmmmmmm… I LOVE braaaaaaaaaaaaaaaains!

I’ll get started on the smaller bird to tomorrow, and hopefully have it done by the end of the weekend 🙂