Samhain!

I love this time of year-the colours round here are gorgeous and when it's sunny but still with a bite to the air, it feels as though I'm breathing in pure Autumn glory :-)  Samhain (Halloween) is a pretty great time of year for us-not least that it signifies the end of October which is usually a stressful month for me!  It's a time to look back at what we have and decide what we need to take through the winter-and this October has been no exception for me!

I've been making a whole bunch of these guys from this lovely pattern by the very amazing PlanetJune  http://www.planetjune.com/blog/free-crochet-patterns/pumpkin/ and Myf has loved having her own set of pumpkins to play with!  I also made a really big one based on the main pattern for her to cuddle up with so here is some photographic proof that I've managed to make something that wasn't in a square format :-)

I'm an organiser for a local Pagan family friendly group-we hold coffee mornings semi-regularly (we're still getting up and running) and it's a chance for us adults to meet and mingle while being able to bring our kids and share our experiences.  We like to have activities planned for the younger ones with a Pagan theme and this time, I made a whole heap of these little guys for the kids to stick faces onto and take home as Samhain decorations.  It's a wonderfully simple pattern, even I can follow it, although I did find the instructions for making the stalk a little confusing.  The little pumpkins were a huge hit so I'm glad I put the effort in :-)

There's another reason why I made a big pumpkin for Myf- two years ago, while I was in the middle of decorating the living room, we'd bought a pumpkin to carve a Jack O'Lantern and Myf being Myf named it 'Oro' and freaked out at the thought of cutting it up.  So we ended up having to draw a face on it and Myf spent a week after Samhain cuddled up with Oro, watching TV with it, you name it!  She gets very, very attached to things so she was really reluctant to discuss the quickly approaching time that Oro would be leaving...
So Oro got left around for a little while and one day I was working on the prep in the living room, going up and down the ladder filling the cracks.  I'd moved Oro to a safe corner while I worked and was steadily getting it done with a bucket of paste plus a bamboo stirring stick at the side waiting for the day when I'd be ready to paper the room.  Imagine me with my silly red bandana tied round my head up and down, move ladder, up and down...Then I came down the ladder, slipped and stepped backwards to try and catch my balance when I tripped over Oro who I swear was NOT there!  I went over backwards almost into the paste bucket-the sharp stick caught me in the back of the neck and if it hadn't have been for my bandana, it would have gone into the back of my head....
And I swear I'm not exaggerating.
Needless to say, I wasn't too comfortable having Oro in the house anymore so he left PDQ and so we haven't tried again.  This year, Myf and I agreed that Oro probably became homicidal because he'd been denied a proper face so we thought we'd get a pumpkin and carve a face properly this time.  But pumpkin flashback nightmares aside, I know my little girl and that despite her best intentions, she would break her heart sobbing when the time comes to throw the pumpkin out!  So here we have our solution-a permanent pumpkin lovingly made that will never go off and hopefully will never try to kill me...

In other news, the Skull-and-Crossbones blanket has finally made it to its intended home and my friend Fran has been looking here at my current crochet ongoings *waves*  Hi Fran!  The baby blanket is winding me up-I've made all the squares, including the afghan squares, but trying to cross stitch Winnie-The-Pooh pictures is doing my nut in...still got a little time though, baby's due in December!