Holidays – Page 3 – The Cynical Woman Website

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

By Cynical Woman December 11, 2015 December 11, 2015 Challenges, Christmas, Crafts, Creative Challenges, Crochet, Holidays, Krampus

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

“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!

By Cynical Woman December 9, 2015 December 9, 2015 Challenges, Christmas, Crafts, Creative Challenges, Crochet, Holidays, Krampus, Pets

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

“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

By Cynical Woman December 8, 2015 December 8, 2015 Challenges, Christmas, Crafts, Creative Challenges, Crochet, Holidays, Krampus, Pets

“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…

By Cynical Woman December 7, 2015 December 7, 2015 Challenges, Christmas, Crafts, Creative Challenges, Crochet, Holidays, Krampus

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

“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!

By Cynical Woman December 6, 2015 December 6, 2015 Challenges, Christmas, Crafts, Creative Challenges, Crochet, Holidays, Krampus, Pets

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

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

By Cynical Woman December 5, 2015 December 5, 2015 Challenges, Christmas, Crafts, Creative Challenges, Crochet, Family, Holidays, Kids, Krampus, Sewing

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 03, This ain’t no partridge!

By Cynical Woman December 3, 2015 December 4, 2015 Challenges, Christmas, Crafts, Creative Challenges, Crochet, Holidays, Krampus

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 🙂

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Krampus Challenge – Day 02, Is it a hexagon? A frying pan?

By Cynical Woman December 2, 2015 December 4, 2015 Challenges, Christmas, Crafts, Creative Challenges, Crochet, Girl Scouts, Holidays, Krampus, Volunteering

I did a little more work on the Krampus challenge piece I started yesterday.

Frying pan? Is that you?

I didn’t get as much done as I wanted to, I’m afriad. Today just ended up being one of those days where I had a lot of OTHER things to do, like some volunteer work for the school and training for the upcoming Girl Scout cookie season. I’m actually excited about cookie season this year. We have a fantastic cookie team at the service unit level (that’s the level above troop level), and the program for this winter looks like it will run more smoothly than previous years. There’s been some nice changes the website for the online database, and a few other things have come up that I’m really looking forward to trying this year 🙂

But back to the Krampus challenge! I have nowhere I have to be tomorrow, so I intend to spend the morning finishing off this piece so I can hang it on my Krampus tree! And then I’m going to take pictures of the ornaments I made last year as well as the one I’m working on now, so you can get an idea of what I want to accomplish this month.

For now though, it’s late and I’m headed to bed. See you tomorrow!

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October Crochet – Post-Mortem

By Cynical Woman November 2, 2015 November 2, 2015 Crafts, Crochet, Girl Scouts, Halloween, Holidays

So this is what I did last month…

October Crochet, in total.

That’s a lotta crochet. At the time, it didn’t seem like I was doing much, but there’s a lot of work in that one picture. This image doesn’t included everything – there’s still one ghost I need to finish. And a few of these projects aren’t quite done. The ghost and the one candy corn need mouths, and I need to finish off the spider web and the Nautilus shawls, weaving in the ends and doing a bit of sewing here and there to polish things off. But otherwise, I did a LOT last month.

You’ll notice, of course, that there are two tiny figures in there that weren’t done this month…

Meet Tom and Enid!

The little pumpkin guy and the little skully girl were made a couple years ago when I first started crocheting. I call them Tom and Enid. They’re probably the first amigurumi I made without a specific pattern to work from. I borrowed a bit here and there from a couple patterns, and then made up a few things on my own. That was the point when I fell head over heels in love with crochet.

One other thing I’m supposed to mention – the missing day from October Crochet. What happened that one day that I couldn’t do even a few stitches? Well, this happened…

This is NOT crochet!

These are props from the Murder Mystery Party we held for our Girl Sout troop. I was very, very, veeeeeeeeeerrrrryyyyyy busy that day, finishing up props, cleaning the house, printing out scripts, and then pretending to be the director of the Rita Wright Museum for Girl Scouts. We had a lot of fun. And then I passed out.

But that’s what kept me so busy I couldn’t get any crochet done that day. So now you know. And honestly, I did crochet 30 out of 31 days last month, so I think I did pretty good!

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October Crochet – Day 31, Double Death Spirals of DOOOOOOM!!!

By Cynical Woman October 31, 2015 October 31, 2015 Crafts, Crochet, Family, Halloween, Holidays, Kids

This month just really spun out of control…

I did it. I finished the second Nautilus shawl. And most of it was done this evening while watching “Manos: Hands of Fate!” Terrible, terrible movie. Perfect for crocheting. Now I just need to sew up the ends a bit and stitch the two shawls together at the shoulder to make them into a PONCHO! Beause I never wear shawls. Unless I can turn them into ponchos.

It’s just after midnight right now. There are 8 girls downstairs in my living room, screaming and giggling and challenging each other to “Truth or Dare.” Before I came upstairs, I told them the truth – I would get really scary if they keep me up all night. And then I dared them to do it. The girls have promised they will quiet down in an hour. If not, I did set up a graveyard in front of the house.

I’m going to come up with a new challenge for November. I’ll announce it tomorrow. And I’ll explain what happened to the missing day of October Crochet. But for now, I’m going to curl up with a collection of Lovecraft stories and read myself to sleep. Or maybe strangulate a bunch of girls. I haven’t decided which yet.

Good night.