HALLOWEEN FUN!

Hello Lovely Crocheters - Emma Here!

It’s Halloween next week and I for one am beside myself with excitement!  I don’t know whether Halloween is a truly Marmite thing (you either love it or hate it), but if it is then I am firmly in the former camp. That is why my postman backed away from me down the path earlier this week when I answered the door in full pirate garb. I admit it might have been a bit of a surprise but I was trying it all on in readiness for the annual excuse to dress up with the kids!  (Incidentally, he was delivering a “never worn, unisex tri-corn hat £6.50” from Vinted)
 
I’ve always loved Halloween. My sister and I first attempted to carve a pumpkin more than 40 years ago (and that’s made me feel a bit like I need to breathe into a paper bag). The thing to understand here is that here in the UK we didn’t really DO Halloween then. Certainly not like we do now anyway and there was not much access to pumpkins as far as I can recall. So we did what we could: diligently taking turns to chip away at the inside of a turnip! Turnips were cheap, readily available and wholly unfit for purpose, boasting an inside hard enough to use as a house brick. I’m not sure our forearms have ever been the same really.

So impressed by these AND by the physical prowess of whoever carved them!

These days we have access to all the Halloween things over here in the UK and while we might not be quite as into it as the US, it’s interesting to know that it’s a tradition that actually began here: in ancient Britain and Ireland as the festival of Samhain, a pagan religious celebration that marked the end of summer and the beginning of winter.
 
The Celts celebrated Samhain on November 1, which marked the beginning of their new year and the dark, cold winter. The Celts believed that on the night of Samhain, the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead became blurred. 
 
During Samhain, people would light bonfires, wear costumes, and sometimes carve faces into turnips* to ward off evil spirits. They also believed that the period was favourable for divination.

*YES TURNIPS!  I genuinely did not know that until this exact moment and so I feel a sense of connection with my ancestors knowing that we – by pure coincidence – continued an ancient tradition!  (wonder if they got cramps in their forearms too?)

While on this subject, can we just have a moment to say that there is SO MUCH you can do with the carved-out bits of a pumpkin.  We found this brilliant blog post which is full of lovely recipes.  

You could also use – just like Jane’s Dad – the seeds to grow your own for another year. We love this little story Jane shared about her Dad's home grown pumpkins:

“When my kids were young, my Dad would carve their names into the flesh when the little pumpkins were only just forming so that they had scarred names in as they grew – it was REALLY cool and he told the kids the fairies had done it!”

Can we talk about decorating because really that’s my second favourite part. My first favourite part is buying all the sweets for the trick or treaters, eating them, and then buying them all again!

There are LOADS of gorgeous Halloween crochet projects out there and still time to make them if you fancy a little seasonal side-hustle from your current big make! 
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Let’s start here, with a Janie Crow adapted project.  We used a traditional Halloween pallet and re-made some of the beaded decorations. Honestly it was a little bit addictive! ​

Adding some black and white baker’s twine really Tim Burton-ed them up and we can now use them on garlands, twig trees or wreaths, depending on where we need to add a bit of classy sparkle!
 
You can find the pattern here.

Our second little experiment is ongoing and we will update you on that next week – here’s a little sneak peak….. we are using the free downloadable spirt of flora plain granny for this. 

​If all goes well, you may well have yourself a little idea for a secret santa/stocking filler project for your crochet group.  If it doesn’t, well we’ll distract you somehow!

​ You can find the free granny square pattern here
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We already know that the first thing we think of when we think of Halloween decoration is pumpkins, and there is no shortage of gorgeous crochet patterns out there – here are links to two of our favourites:
 
This pattern is by Briana K designs and we love the braided/ribbed look of these.  It’s a lovely rustic look and we really like the gentle pallet she’s used here.  You can find all the details by clicking the photo.

Our second pumpkin choice is by Joy Clements and, well if you can incorporate a granny into a pumpkin you can count us in – how absolutely gorgeous are these?
 
Again, you can click the photo for all the info on this one.

We REALLY love this cobweb bunting and again, it’s a free pattern which is wonderfully generous. 

It’s made by Delia creates and there is a full tutorial for you which is fantastic as it’s a really good beginner-friendly project and one that children might like to try. You can find it here

You can lose several hours browsing patterns on Ravelry and we’ve had to rein it in because of actual real life commitments but we couldn’t go without giving special mention to this utterly gorgeous ‘Mesmer Witch Hat’  by Whymsi Row.  You can find details of that one here.

It feels like it’s all of Halloween in one project.  Isn’t it beautiful?  Have we got time this year?  Have we?