Boo! Wheelchair Spoke Covers

If you know me, you know I just had to do it.

As I said in the narrative of my earlier project for the first set of wheelchair spoke covers I made, having a set of these in Boo! by Marsha Glassner is an absolute MUST for Halloween, because if you know me, you know that I ADORE Halloween. (The cutesy-creepy Halloween stuff, that is, not so much the gory-horrific stuff.)

Finished set

Boo! is designed to be an adorable doily crocheted with No. 10 crochet thread. To make the same design large enough to work as a set of wheelchair spoke covers, it's necessary to use heavier yarn (both for size and durability) and a larger hook. I used Red Heart Super Saver in the colorway Soft White and a 4 mm hook.

I had seen pictures and videos where other crocheters had made these sized as wheelchair spoke covers, but I wasn't able to find where anyone blogged about how they did it, so I basically had to start my project from scratch and use the trial-and-error method to figure out how to make it work.

The first set of wheelchair spoke covers I made previously was done with Red Heart yarn and a 5 mm hook, and those covers were the right size to fit my wheelchair's wheels after crocheting 16 rounds. The pattern for Boo! is 23 rounds to the top of the ghosts' heads, so I knew I was going to have to make some adjustments to be able to get the design to fit the wheels of my wheelchair.

First attempt overlaid a previously made working spoke cover

I am not including all the details here of how I made the flexible hoops for the spoke covers, which is how they are mounted inside the wheels' hand rails, because you can find that info by viewing my previous spoke cover project. I used the same process for this set.

1st attempt (L), 2nd attempt started (R)

For my first attempt here, I decided to use a 4 mm hook to crochet the pattern as written (I found it easier to follow the chart rather than the written instructions) just to see the size it would make that way, and then use that to figure out how much I was going to need to change it to fit. I stopped on round 22 (which eliminated the last round at the top of the ghosts' heads). You can see in my photo of the first attempt overlaid on one of my previously made spoke covers that it was going to need to be smaller by at least three rounds. 

2nd attempt attached to hoop

For my second attempt, knowing that I needed to make the design at least three rounds shorter, I decided to try skipping rounds 2, 4, and 6. Doing that meant that I had to change the increases on rounds 3, 5, and 7 to keep the stitch counts the same. And, again, I stopped the pattern after crocheting round 22. Making the pattern that way eliminated three rounds, but you can see in my photo of the second attempt after I attached it to the hoop frame that the fit was still too loose, so I knew that for my third attempt I was either going to have to eliminate more rounds from the pattern or else come up with a different solution.

2nd attempt (L), 3rd attempt (R)

I was feeling somewhat stumped at this point, because I was worried that eliminating more rounds from the pattern would be detrimental to the ghosts' appearance. I was clicking around, still trying to come up with a better solution, when I came across this video of a livestream by TheCraftyCub on YouTube of them crocheting Boo! on camera. Near the beginning of the video, where they are describing the pattern for their followers, they talk about the stitches used in the design, and they mentioned half-double crochets. I had already crocheted the pattern twice by the time I watched this video, and (I intend no offense to TheCraftyCub, but) I was pretty sure that there were no half-double crochet stitches anywhere in the Boo! chart.

Third attempt

But then the lightbulb went on over my head. 💡

I paused the video to think: What if I tried crocheting Boo! using half-double crochet stitches everywhere the pattern used double crochets?

Well, I didn't know for sure how it would turn out, but I decided to try crocheting the pattern that way for my third attempt. And, as you can see in my photos of the finished spoke covers, using half-double crochets throughout worked and resulted in the perfect size I needed for my wheels, AND I was able to follow the pattern chart all the way through round 23, so my ghosties are fully complete (according to the pattern).

To store the wheelchair spoke covers, I'm using a cable keychain loop that can open/close, similar to these found on Amazon. It's easy to thread one of these kechain loops inside the flexible hoops of a set of wheelchair spoke covers, and then hang the keychain loop from a hanger in the closet. The spoke covers take up very little room stored that way, and they are easy to access whenever I want to switch out the spoke covers on my wheelchair.

Teacup Chihuahua Costumes Ladybug and Bumblebee

My next-door neighbor, Lori, has two teacup Chihuahuas. Like most little dogs, these tiny boys have oversized attitudes and think they are the guard dogs of the neighborhood. 😂

Anyway, Lori likes to dress her boys up in costume whenever possible, so I thought I would gift them a set of these Ladybug and Bumblebee outfits.

Designer Abbey Jackson wrote the Ladybug pattern to fit her fluffy 10-pound cat, and the Bumblebee pattern was written to fit her other cat, who was a 4-pound kitten at the time. 

Lori's dogs, being the micro teacup variety of Chihuahua, are almost certainly less than 5 pounds each. I didn't actually weigh or measure them before starting this project, so it probably would have been a lot smarter of me to have measured them first! Ha!

I used leftover yarn scraps to crochet these, mostly bits of Red Heart and/or Caron Simply Soft, I'm guessing. Initially, I crocheted one of each of the costumes based on the 10-pound pet size pattern, just to get a sense of the sizes. Then, I followed those up with one of each in a significantly smaller size, which I hope will fit Lori's dogs. Fingers crossed!

I deviated from the written pattern by starting the neckline with a 5.5 mm hook and doing a row of foundation DC. IMO, the foundation stitch lets the neckline stretch more easily than with a row of chains followed by a row of DCs.

After joining to work in the round, I worked a round of alternating FPDC/BPDC, still using the 5.5 mm hook, to give the neckline a ribbed effect. Then I switched to the 5 mm hook to work the next round in FPDC/BPDC, and the following two rows in FPDC/BPDC. I used the 5 mm hook for the rest of the costume.

I worked the body rows/rounds in DC as specified in the pattern, but I deviated from the pattern by making fewer stitches and fewer rows to size the costumes down to fit Lori's boys.

Fingers crossed that they like these! 😊

Update: Lori said that these fit her boys perfectly, but they didn't like her trying to put their front legs through the space between the neckline and the chest strap. So I'm going to fix that problem by making the chest strap open on one end and attaching it with a button. That way, the boys don't have to fret about squeezing their front legs through the small opening. I think that will fix the issue. 🤞