October Catch Up

If it's true that time flies when you're having fun, then October was truly fun filled for me.  Holy cow! Did it whip by for you too?!
Where September saw my needle and thread out for most of it, October was mostly about crochet.
  I know I say it every year, but the leaves were simply spectacular this fall and I was inspired by all the beautiful colours like these:

Doesn't it just want to make you go home and crochet a tea cozy?

I think it needs a few more acorns, but other than that I am so happy with it.  I actually had to rip the base out twice, and then make a completely different one on the third try.  Thank goodness I love crochet!

I also made a fall inspired mandala for it to sit on:

I thought it was rather 70's looking with all the browns, but at this time of year it all looks good together I think.  It got Mr. Crafty World's praise so that's worth something!
For the mandala I used part of a pattern from Nata's Nest.  On the sidebar you will see lovely links to free tutorials.  I have my eye on another one of her mandalas, and the crochet snails are just so sweet I think.

While in the craft store I found the prettiest yarn from Red Heart.  It's called Boutique Treasure, and the colourway I fell in love with is called Horizon.  As soon as I saw it I wanted to stitch up a cozy fall infinity scarf.  The colours are very fall like I think, without being all about browns, oranges and reds.

It actually reminded me of days like this:

I have worn it a lot already and still love it so much.  The pattern I used for the scarf can be found HERE.  I made mine a bit less wide because the yarn was a bit chunkier.

I mentioned in my last post about a few other projects I had started:  the scarves are growing bit by bit:

Both are made with Red Heart Boutique Unforgettable , using the linen stitch.

My 'Canadian' blanket is growing too:

This is also stitched with linen stitch and is working up very quickly.  I have to put it away now until after Christmas, but I have completed a third of it so far.

I also started another blanket!

These are left over colours from my Lake Erie blanket, and over the summer I started making up a few squares here and there.  I just decided to go for it and start using up all the left overs to get this out of the yarn cupboard.  I have a goal of about ten squares a week:  I need eighty squares all together and then I am going to attach them together with grey and use any left over blues in the border.

I did finally manage to pin down My Favourite Girl and craft our leafy luminaries:

I love how they turned out and I burn candles in them every night.  The look just gorgeous all lit up in the evening.
We used leaves from the dollar store which had to be individually ironed before we could glue them on, but despite the extra work I think these fabric leaves look much more realistic than the ones we saw in the craft store.

By the middle of the month I knew I wasn't going to get any new cross stitch completed.  I finished off this apple that I had started in September.  I was about half way done when I ran out of floss.  The craft store does not sell individual skeins of DMC 115, so mail order was my only option.  I finished the back with the red and white toile in the photo.  I tried to finish it off into an apple shape, but it's a a little hard to see here.

This little black bird is a project I started last summer and put away.  Every once in a while I get it in my head to stitch over one and it always takes me forever!  This is a design from Danybrod in France.  I finished it with some dyed wool; vintage lace, and a small charm.  The pillow itself is quite tiny, maybe two by three inches all together.

And that brings us to the end of the month!  I have started working on some Christmas gifts so I plan to be a busy bee in November.  Thank you all so much for visiting and your kind remarks on my September projects.  I'll leave you with a few Halloween photos.  Until next time,
Happy Days!
Jenn