Krampus Challenge – Day 17, Krampus Kitty in a Hat!

 

Krampus Kitten!

“I will have my revenge for this, human.”

 
I’m almost finished with another shrunken elf head. I had hoped to be further along, but today turned out to be a busy day. Among other thing, I had 7 loads of laundry to get folded. I have decided that laundry is probably the ultimate Krampus present. It’s that gift that never stops giving, unfortunately.

I plan to finish off this elf head and the second Krampus raven tomorrow. Aftert that, we’ll see what I get done next!

Krampus Challenge – Day 16, Krampus Ornaments in Progress

 

Krampus Ornaments in Progress!

My Krampus projects are all in pieces right now.

 
These are two very different ornaments in progress right now – a shrunken elf head and a Krampus raven. I thought I had picked a dark red for the elf hat, but then I put it next to the raven’s wings and saw that it wasn’t really all that dark after all.

Hopefully, I’ll get one of these finished tomorrow. I’m also working on a Christmas gift for a family member. That needs to be done this week too. Oh, and did I mention I now have to bathe our cats on a regular basis? They have fleas, and I’m going to be cleaning them up for a while. Cats really are the creatures of Krampus, especially when they’re being bathed.

Krampus Challenge – Day 15, Creepy Eyeballs!

Look! I made a pretty holiday picture!

He sees you when you're sleeping...

Doesn’t this make you feel festive?!

I obviously still need to do a little cleaning up on this, because the strings for the two smaller ornaments are peeking up through the lettering on the top, but that’s for tomorrow. I’m going to hunt down Zazzle’s latest greeting card template and put this on there. I know it’s very late to set up holiday cards for Christmas, but hey, some of us don’t get our Christmas cards out until July!

Technical info – this graphic was made with Assembly for the iPad, with text and gradients handled in Corel Draw on my Surface Pro.

I’m going to bed now. Sleep tight! And don’t let the sugar plum fairies bite!

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

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!

Krampus Challenge – Day 08, Krampus Kat judges me

 

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…

Krampus Challenge – Day 07, Progress is sloooooooow…

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!

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

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!

Krampus Challenge – Day 05, Krampus Cowl in progress

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.

Krampus Challenge – Day 04, I made stripes!

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!

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

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 🙂