Honeycomb Lattice Button Cowl Pattern

Honeycomb Lattice Button Cowl

Although this is not a beginner pattern, once you get the hang of the lattice stitches, it is not too difficult ; )

 Stitches used:

Single Crochet (sc), Double Crochet (dc), Front Post Double Crochet (fpdc), Lattice Treble Cluster (LTC), and Half Lattice Treble Cluster (HLTC).

Materials:

Approximately 500 yards of worsted weight yarn (I used one ball of Sensations Rainbow Classic); H 8/5.00 crochet hook; Two buttons (about 1” in diameter, although you could use slightly larger buttons); Large eye needle (or something to use for attaching buttons).

Special Stitches:

There is a super awesome hat and visual tutorial (mad props for the visual tutorial using different colored yarn) of the Lattice Treble Crochet (LTC) stitch at Rheatheylia.com

LTC: YO twice (3 loops on hook); insert hook under LTC two rows down*; YO and pull through (4 loops on hook); YO and pull through 2 loops (3 loops on hook); YO and pull through 2 loops (2 loops on hook); YO twice (4 loops on hook); insert hook under LTC in front of hook two rows down; YO and pull through (5 loops on hook); YO and pull through 2 loops (4 loops on hook); YO and pull through 2 loops (3 loops on hook); YO pull through all 3 loops.

* For rows beginning with 2 sc the first LTC you insert hook under will be slightly behind your hook and two rows down. For rows beginning with 3 sc, the first LTC you insert hook under will be directly below (or just slightly in front of) your hook and two rows down. The second LTC you insert into will always be in front of hook.

HLTC: YO twice (3 loops on hook); insert hook under LTC two rows down**; YO and pull through (4 loops on hook); YO and pull through 2 loops (3 loops on hook); YO and pull through 2 loops (2 loops on hook); YO and pull through remaining 2 loops.

** For HLTC the LTC you will insert hook under will be more obvious than with the LTC stitch because it will either be the first or last LTC of the row two rows down.

Pattern continues after the jump...

Pumpkins for a video game obsessed household.

This was the first Halloween where we lived in a place that had a chance for trick-or-treaters so we obviously needed pumpkins. For weeks we had been contemplating what to carve our pumpkins as and we had settled on a Pac-Man theme. When I went to purchase squash and pumpkins, I ran across this awesome, scary, ready for Halloween Turban squash. This squash needed no carving, it already looked like the birth of an alien. Out went the plans for Pac-Man, I just picked up an array of pumpkins and squashes and figured we would see it all when the squash was sitting at home.

Even though the turban squash could have just sat out on the porch without any changes, it needed to be painted for the theme. First it was painted white, making it look like a gigantic garlic.Then it was painted to resemble a one-up mushroom. It reminds me of an aqua teen hunger force interpretation of a one up mushroom.



Of course, all of the pieces for the Pac-Man theme pumpkins were easily converted into a chain chomp.

And finally, the cutest pumpkin, the Bob-omb pumpkin, complete with eye cut-outs used as feet and a tinfoil covered tube as a fuse (the tinfoil had holes in it and when it was dark, the candle light shown through like sparks).

Here is the whole porch scene (including a very curious cat). Unfortunately it was hard to get good pictures at night when everything was lit up. Lots of kids really like the black pumpkins, "mommy, i never seen black pumpkins," "those are cool" unfortunately, it was only a few grown ups who recognized the scene.