halloween sheep cookies!

I made these sugar cookies last week - not until today did I get around to blogging about them. The icing on them is my first attempt at making homemade cookie icing, so all things concidered, they turned out pretty awesome!

In case it's hard to tell: the top 3 are just regular sheep with bloody bites missing, the two black ones are bloodthirsty sheep (there's blood coming from their mouths!), a jack o lantern sheep, a candy corn sheep, and the three on the right are zombie sheep! :D

The bites were simply made using the scalloped edges of the sheep cutter, and I bought the candy eyes from Bulk Barn.

dual purpose cozy

As it turns out, the carboy cozy I designed for my husband's beer making has a dual purpose, it works well for a large-pumpkin-cozy too:

Can't wait to carve this thing tonight! Woo hoo!

~ My 200th Post! ~

I'm in the midst of knitting a wa-na-na-na-na-na-na-na bat shawl from the current issue of theanticraft; I've got a Halloween themed Buck n Doe to go to in 2 months, I hope to have it done by then! I just got my yarn in the mail a couple days ago, so I'm elated to get it started!
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I just finished the first bat chart though, as you can see, and have already found a very minor problem with it - I'm supposed to have 75 sts across at this point, but only have 73. I wasn't about to frog it, because I've already done it once before yesterday, and it's too tedious to undo.
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So, naturally, I adjusted the pattern slightly. For row 77, which is the row that follows the first bat pattern, I've added an extra yo + k2tog stitch over each point of the bat's wings. That way, the yo increase at each end of the shawl can still be made, and now I'm at 75 sts across w/o increasing the number of rows to the shawl.
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Since I have to pick up sts at the end to add a border, I can't risk having so many extra rows.
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Just goes to show you - once again, I can't avoid adjusting patterns. :P
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Oh, and I've had the brilliant idea of hanging a cloths pin to the end of my shawl, to weigh it down. I've noticed on a few shawl projects that, if it's worked from the bottom up, the bottom ends up curling up on me, which is frustrating while knitting. This way, it's held down w/o stretching the fabric!

My cousin and her fiance are getting married in November, and are having their Buck & Doe party the weekend before Halloween, therefore having a Halloween themed costume party for it. It's no secret that Halloween is my favourite holiday of the year, so I'm rather excited to put their Buck & Doe gift together for them.

Traditionally, wedding and Buck & Doe gifts tend to be housewares, and DH & Iwill likely gift them a gift certificate somewhere for the such (since they already live together and have pretty much everything they need, a gift certificate can help get something they want) - but I couldn't resist knitting something. And the most appropriate thing I could think of is Halloween themed dishcloths. Homely indeed, with all the fun of the spook of the season.

The 5 patterns I used were a bat (purple), ghost (white), kitty (black), jack o' lantern (orange) and skull (yellow) - a great way to eat up a lot of miscellanious dishcloth cotton I had laying around the house. I found some printable cotton-twill label paper at Wal-Mart, which is excellent for customizable labels, where I was able to print the care info, fiber content, and names for the dishcloths as well.

The great pumpkin-shaped and bat-shaped ribbon I found at Michael's; and a while ago I found a great price for gift bags at Zellers (13 for 4.95!) to which, in that collection, is yellow gift bag with a bit of an antique yellow Victorianesque print to it, which is vintage enough looking to be holiday appropriate for the gift.

ghosty dishcloth

I was also unable to cut-and-paste the graphed version of the pattern into my blog, so I printed it, photographed it, and inserted it for anyone who prefers to follow a graph. I've done my best to write out this pattern, but if are any mistakes, please post it to my blog and I'll make the proper corrections! (Although I'm sure it's ok!)


Materials needed:
34 grams (1.25oz) Bernat Handicrafter Cotton, in Off White
1 pair 4.5mm (US 7) needles

Instructions:
CO 40 sts.
Seed stitch 4 rows. (k1, p1 across 1st row; every row afterwards, knit the purled stitches and purl the knit stitches)
For the next 42 rows, seed stitch the 1st and last 4 stitches of each row in pattern. Knit the middle 32 stitches as follows:
Row 1: knit across
Row 2: purl across
Row 3: knit across
Row 4: p2, k3, p6, k2 p6, k2, p6, k3, p2
Row 5: k2, p4, k4, p4 k4, p4, k4, p4, k2
Row 6: p2, k5, p2, k6 p2, k6, p2, k5, p2
Row 7: k2, p28, k2
Row 8: p2, k28, p2
Row 9: k3, p26, k3
Row 10: p3, k26, p3
Row 11: k4, p24, k4
Row 12: p4, k24, p4
Row 13: k4, p10, k2, p10, k4
Row 14: p4, k9, p4, k9, p4
Row 15: k4, p8, k6, p8, k4
Row 16: p4, k8, p6, k8, p4
Row 17: k4, p8, k6, p8, k4
Row 18: p4, k8, p6, k8, p4
Row 19: k3, p11, k4, p11, k3
Row 20: p3, k12, p2, k12, p3
Row 21: k3, p26, k3
Row 22: p2, k28, p2
Row 23: k2, p28, k2
Row 24: p2, k6, p4, k8, p4, k6, p2
Row 25: k2, p5, k6, p6, k6, p5, k2
Row 26: p2, k5, p2, k2, p3, k4, p3, k2, p2, k5, p2
Row 27: k2, p5, k2, p3, k2, p4, k2, p3, k2, p5, k2
Row 28: p2, k5, p2, k2, p3, k4, p3, k2, p2, k5, p2
Row 29: k4, p4, k6, p4, k6, p4, k4
Row 30: p4, k5, p4, k6, p4, k5, p4
Row 31: k5, p22, k5
Row 32: p6, k20, p6
Row 33: k7, p18, k7
Row 34: p8, k16, p8
Row 35: k9, p14, k9
Row 36: p10, k12, p10
Row 37: k11, p10, k11
Row 38: p12, k8, p12
Row 39: k14, p4, k14
Row 40: knit across
Row 41: purl across
Row 42: knit across
Seed stitch 4 more rows, then cast off in pattern.

© 2008 by Sabrina Thompson - original design and pictures. Please do not sell pattern or materials made thereof, or copy my pictures. Pattern cannot be distributed for sale, or as a 'free pattern' promotional tool for selling yarn or knitting supplies. If posting Finished Items on personal blogs, please link back to this blog and pattern, thanks. :D

bones indeed

There's something about Halloween I just love. Don't know why. But I've always thought Halloween to be my favourite time of the year. There's something fantastic about dressing up, collecting candy, staying up past your bedtime and getting a sugar high, and being scared out of your bones that's simly fantastic. It wasn't until I read up on becoming Wiccan at 17 that I found out that Halloween - or Samhain - is reveared as the main holiday since it's the Wiccan (and for the most part, Pagan) new year. Maybe that had something to do with why I was drawn to this holiday so much?

Today on the anticraft's blog, announced their Samhain theme: Broken Bones. Brilliant indeed. :) A few issues of the anticraft had recently been - I dunno - somewhat off the wall, although still tie in to an anti-craft theme, as in not what you'd normally think of making. But to have issues going back to the somewhat darker underground of the anticraft's roots is what I like best. A while back I submitted a craft pattern for some skeletons - I won't say made of what just yet - but I wonder if they'll be in this issue? I hope so!

My cousin and her fiancee are also planning on getting married this November, and are having their Buck & Doe party (instead of having separate bachelor and bachelorette parties) on October 24th, and it's a whole Halloween-dress-up-in-costumes sort of theme, which is brilliant. It's been a good long while since I've been to a costume party. I've that to look forward to as well!