Happy Hallowe'en!

There's a corpse hanging from a tree a few doors down from us.  Across the street from the corpse, a witch is digging into a treasure box of bits and pieces of children.  Creative, yes, but I prefer my decorations to be a bit cuter.  Excited about our first trick-or-treaters at our new house, here's what 30 minutes of hasty decorating will get you:

...pumpkin lights strung from the hanging planter chain....

...a banner strung up the porch railing...

(...made of foam craft cut-outs from the dollar store strung on to ribbon...)

...a worried little jack-o-lantern carved out of a runty, battered, picked-over pumpkin...

...and a tossed candy salad at the front door waiting for our costumed visitors.

Here come our first trick-or-treaters!

Socks and box.

Forget Hallowe'en crafts,
they're just not my thing.
Let's move on to Christmas,
with a festive stocking.

Finally!  A type of sock that I can ENJOY crocheting!  It doesn't have to fit anyone and I'm not required to make another one that could pass as being somewhat symmetrical.  I fa la la la love it.  I used a pattern I found on Lionbrand.com and the recommended Homespun yarn.  The only real modification I made was to round out the toe with a few extra sc2togs than the pattern specified.

This is hubby's stocking.  Mine is still just a ball of green yarn waiting to meet its destiny.

In other news,  I attended a bridal shower today for a soon-to-be cousin.  The gift didn't involve any crafting, but I managed to have some fun with the wrapping paper.  Take a peek:

This was inspired by something I saw on Pinterest, so I can't take full credit.  We created a wordsearch using a free web tool.  We made a puzzle based on key words about the Happy Couple (names, places, dates, adjectives).  I wrapped the box in Kraft Paper and stuck on the crossword using double sided tape.  The hearts were punched out of some fun paper I found in the basement and the turquoise ribbon was also secured with double-sided tape.

Inspired by the gift-wrap fun, we even stopped at IKEA on the way home from the shower and I grabbed a few rolls of lovely Christmas wrapping paper.  Grey with snowflakes and tiny white polka dots.  Lovely.  Bring on the holidays!

His&Hers Art (No yarn was harmed in the making of this craft.)

This is by far the quickest craft I have made in a while.  We got a new duvet cover which inspired the following his and hers framed set: king and queen chess pieces.  One sits on my night stand, and one on his.  Here they are against the duvet:

These are simply free clip-art printed onto ivory card stock and slipped into 4x6 frames from the dollar store.

Cost:
$2.00 for the frames
$0.02 for the paper (seriously--precut at the dollar store!)
$? for the ink
==========
Under $2.50 total.

While I type, hubby is busy working on the Monday Makeover.  I can hear the brush strokes!  Here is a preview:

We purchased the paint in the spring with good intentions, so it has been sitting for a good, long while.  This sunny, warm Thanksgiving weekend is the perfect weather for painting, but it definitely needed a good stir after all that waiting...

(He stirred it 500 times, to be precise.  I love that he counted and I love that he's game for painting things purple!)

Looking forward to showing off the finished project.

Blanket Donation (...the making of...)

Remember the post about my frustration with working in ends?  Well, the frustration is over...and the blanket is complete!  This undeniably pink baby blanket will be donated to the annual Breast Cancer Fundraiser Luncheon on November 10 in Drayton.

Now, here's the play-by-play of how a blanket like this gets put together:

1. I followed the Double Diamond Blanket pattern on the Bernat website.  I used Patons' Bamboo Baby yarn and a size H hook. Each square is worked individually...

2. It takes 25 squares to make the blanket: 13 in the main colour, 8 in a second colour, and 4 in another colour.  What I should have done was work those ugly tails in at this point so I didn't have to do them all later.

3.  The squares are then sewn together using a darning needle and a whip stitch.

4.  After I added a border of two rows of white sc (AND worked in all the ends!), I soaked the blanket in a bowl of water (with a very small amount of detergent) for a few hours.

5.  I forgot to take a picture of the blanket before it went in the water, but you can see from this photo that even the wet blanket needed more than just a flat spot to dry.  (The problem with patchwork is  that it's bound to be lumpy.  But there is a solution...)

 6.  ....pins!  I  started at the centre and pinned the corners of each square into a foam mat to help give it some shape.  (Looks like tiny hydro poles in magical pink farmland, doesn't it?)

7.  About 3 days later, the blanket was finally dry.  I removed the pins and was pleased to see it was looking much more square...with no ripples in sight.

I'm very pleased with the finished product and honoured to have it featured in the Breast Cancer fundraiser.  (Who knows?  Maybe someone I know will win it...)

Super Simple Scrappy Rose

While there's definitely something rewarding about completing a lengthy project, I really do enjoy the satisfaction that I get from the short, sweet and simple things.  I tried a few different rose patterns before I settled on this one, but it works up in about an hour in front of the TV and I've already started thinking of all the places where I could pin one on: gift bags, winter hats, winter jacket lapels, scarves....pillows(?).  Loving it.

The pattern is free on Ravelry, but you'll need a (free) membership to access it.  The yarn is Vanna's Choice in Charcoal.  I think it takes about 1/3 of a ball to make a good-sized rose (about 4" in diameter).  I'm looking forward to trying this with different types of scraps!

Men's Beanie

After lotsa practice creating baby-sized beanies, I thought I was ready to make something a little bigger and create a man-sized hat. Admittedly, it was nice to have the recipient's head right beside me as we watched a movie last night, so I could shove the cap on his head after every couple of rows of crochet and see if it was going to fit. The pattern was a free one that I found online.

The end result: the beanie seems a bit too tight for a man-sized head and it worked up more "hole-y" than I wanted it to. I do like how the ridges give it a bit of texture and thickness. In the end, it was a good first attempt and I used up some scraps from my stash, so it was an okay experiment.

(What a handsome model!)