Crochet Pumpkins

I worked on these pumpkins for awhile, but I think one could make them fairly quickly with no interruptions.  I found the instructions for creating the smallest pumpkin on twj1963's you tube page. She has amazing tutorials. I appreciate so much what she has done. I am an extreamly visual learner and cannot read the code books for crochet. I simply increased the stitch instructions she gave to create the larger pumpkins. I really wanted a set and one with a face. I have tons of old buttons that I wouldn't dare put on something like clothing or purses. This was a great usage for a few. Teresa's other tutorials show a pumpkin with crocheted eyes and mouth. I didn't have any black yarn, I didn't want to buy it just for the details. I actually like my choice of the buttons better. 

  I enjoyed the spider web in the window in the photo with the flowers hubby brought home Friday.

To make the pumpkin basically chain a multiple of 4, I wouldn't go smaller than 16 (smallest pumpkin). For example: chain 24 (middle sized pumpkin); single stitch 4 , double stitch 16, single stitch 4 repeat until you get image above (folded over). It depends on how fat you want your pumpkin to be depends on how long. The ends are sewn together with a running stitched and pulled tight and knotted every few stitches. The stems are simple single stitched and skip stitches as you go up. They are stuffed with poly-fill or strips of leftover batting. Thanks to Teresa for the idea. This project cost me nothing to make. It was from what I had at home! Yeah for crafting, I LOVE using up stuff that just lays around.

Halloween Stitching

I love Halloween! Have I mentioned that? I am not into the spook and gore, just the funny, silly part. It also means that I am allowed to buy copious amounts of candy and eat it! I like the crafty part of Halloween too. I have made many a costume for myself and friends. Like a shark (friend was victim), deviled egg, spelling bee, flower....Oh! so much fun! This year I am too old to party and have to work late so, I am compensating. I have many crafty ideas including the embroidery that I did earlier this week. Hubby watches too much football, this is what I get accomplished. Both the hoops were very old and rusty so glad to find a use for them. Hope that it wont mess up the material later on.(Just thought of that!) I really enjoyed creating the "Happy Halloween" one. So, started off with wanting to put an owl in a tree. First I researched; owls, owls in trees, embroidered owls, owl cartoon, scary owls. I stitched the tree and put owl in hole. Then I wanted a spider web, so I researched; spider webs, webs in trees, spiders in webs, cartoons of spider webs, spiders..... Well this is pretty much how the whole scene went. I saw some really amazing pictures especially naturalist who put their images on flicker. Check out some bat images, really creepy, yet some how, still, really cute!