Crochet Shawl

It's crunch time again people.  The time of year where we are all frantically trying to finish all the Christmas or Hanukkah gifts that we've been working on over the last few months in order to get them shipped in time for the holidays.

I spent all last night finishing this crochet shawl for my cousin's wife.  Hanukkah is early this year, and I'm furiously trying to get everything together for my cousin's gift box so that it gets there sometime during the eight days of Hanukkah. Thankfully, I still have time to finish gifts for the Christmas celebrating side of my family or I'd be in real trouble!

I've made this same shawl before and I love the pattern.  It's super simple and works up in a few days if you work on it a few hours a day.  You can get the pattern here from ravelry.  The original instructions are in French, but a kind soul translated them into English too.

The coolest part of this project for me was getting to finally use the 11 balls of Bollicine Lampedusa yarn that my mom found on super clearance a few years ago.  I hated that yarn.  The color was a yellowed grey and since it is a wool, alpaca, acrylic blend it looks like it had dog fur in it.  I named it the dirty dog blanket yarn, and I've been avoiding it in my stash forever until a few days ago.

When I was looking in my stash for a yarn to use in this shawl, those 11 balls of yarn started staring at me in a very accusing way.  They had the "why not use us" look on their little labels, and I realized that the only thing putting me off this great quality yarn was the color.  So, I decided to make the whole shawl and then dye it with Rit dye in teal.  I was worried about dying it, but I was really careful not to overwork the yarn in the dye bath (I didn't want any felting to occur), and it turned out much better than I imagined.

The color is actually much nicer in person than it looks in these photos.  I had just enough yarn to finish the shawl, and make this flower pin so my cousin can keep her shawl in place.

I just made up a big rolled flower and hot glued a piece of felt on the back to stabilize the large pin.



I think the pin is a nice finishing touch, and it looks great on my beautiful model :)  

  

Last Minute Halloween

This years Halloween was a bit more last minute than usual.  If I'm honest, many of my projects are done in a hurry between taking care of the kids, the house, and my own school work.  This year was a bit more last minute than in years past because my husband has been gone these last few months and I'm trying to do everything myself.  But, I still managed to crank out some costumes for the kiddos and a last minute Halloween Wreath.

I was actually going to skip the Halloween wreath this year, but my oldest son was not pleased with this idea.  So, I whipped this wreath up using the cheese cloth that I used to cover the couches at my Halloween Bunco Party, and added a spider that I found laying around the house.  Fast, easy, and my son was happy.  All good things.

I was also running a bit behind with costumes, but between reworking old clothes, thrift store finds, and some new accessories I managed to outfit the whole Boo Crew with their desired costumes.



This year, they all wanted to be monsters or witches.  I can't believe that I actually got these all done in time!  I really loved doing the witch costume with my little girl.  She just adored the tulle tutu and the feather witch hat, but I have to admit that I really really love my little son's skeleton costume.  My oldest was the easiest.  He decided that he wanted to be a zombie, and thank goodness his idea of a zombie resembles the old black and white movie versions and not some of the newer zombie movies from today.  I'm not ready for any kind of gory costumes yet.



I love how the costumes turned out and I love that the kids were the ones who told me what they wanted this year.  I'm putting this Halloween in the win pile and looking forward to the next holiday.