October Crochet – Day 13, Scrambling For Time Today

 

Yarn Bag

My day was just like this bag… a MESS!

 
I think the month of October is going to kill me. Princess has Cross Country 4 days a week, including one race each week. In the next 10 days, I have 3 Girl Scout events to prepare for and run. And on top of all this, I still need to make 3 costumes for my two children. Since Pixie is in fourth grade, this year she is participating in the “All Saints’ Day” event at school. She is going to be Mother Teresa for the event. The next day, on Halloween, she wants to be a Sith Lord, because we simply can’t go to one extreme without visiting the other.

Anyway, during all the madness today, I only managed to steal about 15 minutes to sit and crochet. I’m hoping I will be able to steal a full hour tomorrow and make some serious progress on this shawl. And for those that asked, there is a knitting version of this pattern. I will look it up tomorrow or the next day and post the link here.

October Crochet – Day 12, More Nautilus Shawl

Nautilus Shawl

The Nautilus Shawl, sans kitties

 
No kitties in my lap tonight, so for once, you get to see how this shawl turns in a spiral. It’s coming along slowly, partly because I have a ton of other Halloween stuff to get done this week and next. I spent most of today working on the murder mystery party for our Girl Scout troop. I have everything planned out, and now need to make all the props. I started work on the gravestones today. I’ll post pictures of that soon.

Meanwhile, here’s what my so-called work space looks like. My work space is actually the living room couch and coffee table, and it frequently gets over-run with yarn and projects, like it is now.

  

October Crochet – Day 11, More Nautilus Shawl

 

Jelly Bean!

It’s Jelly Bean’s turn to model!

 
This is a real quick post. I got another couple rounds done on the Nautilus shawl today. I ran into a knot in the yarn and had to figure out how to join this kind of yarn. I’m slowly spiraling my way back around to the join, so we’ll see tomorrow how well I did.

Jelly Bean is our Halloween cat and danged if she doesn’t look like a Sears Portrait Studio model in this photo. She’s a mix of grey and orange tabby, a coloration that’s called a torbie or patched tabby because her colors switch back and forth like a calico’s patches. I love how her little orange mask just fades into browngirl  and then grey and black stripes.

I’ve got a lot going on with Girl Scouts this week and next, and I’m going to be very busy preparing for our troop’s Murder Mystery Party. Last year, the girls killed me. This year, we’re killing the Hubster. Fun times.

October Crochet – Day 10, Halloween Nautilus Shawl

 

Nautilus Shawl

My trusty model Marmie, wearing the Nautilus shawl in progress

 
This is the other project I wanted to get done for me this month. My mother sent me this netted yarn a couple years ago and I could never figure out what I wanted to do with it. This week, I finally decided to hunt down a pattern for it and I found Amy Shelton’s Nautilus shawl on Ravelry. I don’t normally wear shawls, but this one looked interesting enough, I thought I might try it. It definitely shows off the colors of the yarn!

For those of you wondering, yes, Marmie spends a lot of time in my lap. Apparently, she doesn’t mind being covered in yarn… or books… or my laptop… or anything else I might want to put in my lap if she wasn’t there. Marmie is more than just a lap kitten. She actually IS my lap.

I’ll be alternating back and forth between the shawl and the spider web poncho for at least the next week. I may sneak a quick amigurumi in there while I’m at it. But this year, I am determined to make something nice for myself.

October Crochet – Day 09, Spider Web

 

crochet spider web

Marmie models a crochet spider web in progress.

 
I volunteered all day today and did more driving around than any mom should. I have a skull-splitting headache.

However, I did get some crochet done today. I’m making this pattern up as I go. Hopefully, I’ll make two big spider webs and stitch them together to make a poncho for myself.

Going to rest now, and maybe crochet myself a new skull since my old one is killing me.

October Crochet – Day 08, Wool Pumpkin

Huzzah! Another crocheted pumpkin!

Wool Pumpkin

Marmalade models a lovely crocheted wool pumpkin!

 
TThis is another leftoever from last month that I decided to finish tonight. I was going to work on a scarf, but I need to look at a few tutorials before I tackle this one. The yarn for the scarf is one of those netted  ribbon yarns, and the pattern I chose is actually a sort of shawl, so I need to do a little research first before I get started on crocheting it. It is not as straightforward as I would have thought.

But it is a Halloween yarn! It’s black, orange, green, purple and grey, and I think it will look lovely when it’s done. So long as I understand the tutorials I’ve found….

October Crochet – Day 07, The Finished Skull!

 

Finished crochet skull

Ta-daaaaa! My amazing crocheted Day of the Dead skull!

 
I just put the finishing touches on this! Though small, those flowers actually do take a bit of time to complete, especially since I have to hide the ends and stitch them into place on the skull.  But those were the last details to be added, so now I can say this project is done!

Since October 1, I have crocheted a gloomy corn, a pumpkin, and done all the detail work for this skull. If I count the work I did last month, I’ve crocheted a total of 2 skulls, 9 pumpkins, 3 candy corn and 2 gloomy corn. And I still have no idea what I’m going to do with all these crocheted oddities.

Tomorrow, I think I will crochet myself a quick Halloween scarf. After that, who knows! But I will keep posting as I work on these items 🙂 

October Crochet – Day 06, A Pale Pumpkin

Marmalade came and sat on me before I could grab the yarn I wanted to work with to finish the Day of the Dead skull I’ve been working on, so I grabbed the yarn that was in reach and make something else instead.

 

October Crochet 06

Jelly Bean poses with a pale pumpkin

 
I’ve made about a dozen pumpkins so far this season, but this is the first white one I’ve done this year. Somewhere in my yarn stash there are a dozen other white pumkins just like this one, attached to pale green bodies, just waiting for me to add button eyes and embroidered mouths. Maybe I’ll dig them out this week and finish them up for this month’s crochet frenzy. Then I’ll pose them with all the other pumpkins I’ve made along with the candy corns, gloomy corns and Day of the Dead skulls, and I’ll do a photo shoot! Because I honestly have no clue what else to do with these damn things. Seriously, I just started crocheting Halloween stuff last month and I can’t seem to stop.

I think I have a problem.

October Crochet – Day 04, Eyes and Nose Finished

 

Crochet Skull and Kitties!

Ta-Daa! Eyes and nose are finished!

 
I spent most of today working on the webcomic and sewing the Mother Teresa costume for Pixie, so I only got a little crochet work done today, but I’m very happy with what I got done. I decided to go for soft colors on this project, so not black or primary colors for the stitching.

The teeth are the next thing I need to make, and then maybe one or two more decorations. After that, I’m going back to finish up a couple other items I started last month. Then we’ll see what I do next!