Showing posts with label bistitchual. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bistitchual. Show all posts

Tuesday, October 7, 2025

Sally Stitches Pumpkin

Many years ago, as I was first learning about how to work with circular knitting machines, I used a small scrap of Red Heart Ombre yarn in the True Blue colorway to make a quick, single-layer pumpkin.

After finishing it, I decided later that circular-knitted pumpkins definitely look better when they're made double-layered. But I had this single-layer blue pumpkin sitting there wondering how it might fit into my seasonal decorating for one of my favorite holidays: Halloween.

Inspo photo from Disney's Emoji Blitz game

My poor blue pumpkin actually sat for a long, long time (more than five years!) waiting for its chance to become something more. I didn't want to just rip it apart and start over, using the materials for something else.


I would pull it out of a yarn bin every so often and ponder it. I'm not sure exactly when it finally occurred to me that the light blue yarn kind of resembled the skin tone of Sally from The Nightmare Before Christmas. But once I got that idea in my head, I was determined to transform my blue pumpkin into a Sally character pumpkin.

Another inspo photo found online

Sally's most distinctive features are her blue skin, her cherry-red hair, her big white eyes with little black pupils, and, of course, the black stitches all over her skin. (Her colorful patchwork dress is also distinctive, but for this project, I was going to focus just on Sally's face.)

Another inspo photo found online

For the eyes, I followed this tutorial by Harriet's Crochet on YouTube. I made the eyes with fingering weight cotton yarn in black and white and a 2.25 mm crochet hook. I used white instead of the iris color shown in the tutorial, and also added an extra round of white to get them to the finished size I wanted.

Top view after adding hair and eyes

For the hair, using the cherry-red yarn and a 5 mm hook, I crocheted a foundation SC chain until it was long enough to reach vertically from pole to pole on the pumpkin, which ended up being 28 stitches long. The remaining rows are worked in YOslst in the back loop to give a texture that resembles her strands of hair. The finished rectangle is about 14 inches long and covers about 2/3 of the pumpkin (leaving the other 1/3 of the pumpkin open for her face). I gathered the top and bottom edges and wrapped them around the pumpkin and tied everything together to secure.


Then I crocheted a vine-like stem similar to the one I added to my crocheted Little Rustic Pumpkin back in 2019. To make the vine, I crocheted 6 SC in a magic circle, then kept crocheting the 6 stitches in a continuous spiral until the length was long enough to cover a 12-inch pipe cleaner. (I actually twisted together two pipe cleaners.) After inserting the pipe cleaners, I started increasing each round of SC until the circle had 42 stitches (to provide a secure base for the vine, and to cover the "bald spot" at the top of Sally's head where I wasn't able to cinch the top of her red hair any tighter).

Bottom view


Sewing on her eyes was probably the scariest step for me, because I didn't want to have them end up looking wonky. But I just worked slowly and carefully, and they ended up looking pretty good. 😊 I intentionally did NOT stitch her eyes down tightly where they cross the creases between the pumpkin segments. 


Using the fingering-weight black yarn, I embroidered a kind of stem stitch to line the top edge of her eyes and then continued sewing her eyelashes in little V's back across the line across the top of her eyes.

Then, in black, I embroidered Sally's distinctive slash that crosses her face near her right eye. And then I embroidered the stitches that extend across her cheeks on either side of her lips.


The final touch was to embroider her lips using a sort of puffy satin stitch using a bit of the same yarn as her hair. You can find more info about the yarns I used on my Ravelry project page.

I think my Sally Stitches Pumpkin turned out great, and she looks so happy sitting there on my hearth beside her "Jack Skellington."

Feet up to relax after a job well done


I love Sally's character, and I have even dressed up as her for my friend Kim's Halloween party!

Sally's Song

I sense there's something in the windThat feels like tragedy's at handAnd though I'd like to stand by himCan't shake this feeling that I haveThe worst is just around the bendAnd does he notice my feelings for him?And will he see how much he means to me?I think it's not to be
 
What will become of my dear friend?Where will his actions lead us then?Although I'd like to join the crowdIn their enthusiastic cloudTry as I may, it doesn't lastAnd will we ever end up together?No, I think not, it's never to becomeFor I am not the one


 

Thursday, January 27, 2022

Luna Triangle Cowl

I really like pullover triangle cowls. They look amazing, they are so easy to wear, and they keep your neck, shoulders, and chest nice and cozy. So when I saw the super cute Luna Triangle Cowl paid pattern by Deni Sharpe, I knew I wanted to make one for myself.

I deviated from the pattern in a few ways. First, the pattern is written for bulky (size 5) yarn using an 8mm hook, but I made mine in aran weight (since that's what I had in my stash) with a 6.5mm hook. I also opted to hand knit the ribbed top of the cowl instead of working it in crochet.


The knitted part I did in a lofty and reversible fisherman's rib worked in the round over 80 stitches. I followed the tutorial for this technique at this link. Then I picked up the stitches for the first row of crochet to begin the triangle portion of the cowl. Since I was starting with a different number of stitches for the bottom part of the cowl than was listed in the pattern, I had to adjust the stitch counts for the triangle part of the work.




Saturday, September 12, 2020

Sparkle Pumpkin

The Taylor Lynn YouTube tutorial at this link suggests 45 rows for pumpkins made on the Sentro 40, but I made this one 52 rows tall because that was how many rows it took to use up the small hank of this yarn I had on hand. I mean, after all, real pumpkins come in all shapes and sizes, so why not add a few extra rows to this one? 😉

I wasn't sure how this metallic yarn would work in my machine (wasn't sure if the metallic filament would get separated/tangled in the needles, etc.), but the yarn ran through perfectly smoothly. In fact, I'm used to having to constantly monitor the stitches on my machine to make sure none has dropped (because my machine ALWAYS drops at least one stitch during every project), but this yarn ran through without one single stitch dropping. Amazing!

Finished it off with half of a cinnamon stick for a stem. I think the green color will make a nice contrast to more traditional color pumpkins in my fall display.


Update 10/20/2022: Two years later and I'm still tinkering with this pumpkin. 😊 I decided to crochet a stem to replace the cinnamon stick, figuring that the crocheted stem would fit the scale of the pumpkin better and also be child-friendly. The stem is made with a small amount of Big Twist yarn in the Taupe colorway. And then I went on and added some curly vines, one in Taupe, one in Red Heart Super Saver in Saffron, and one in a double strand of Fixler Brothers Quick Knit Sport in 018 (yellow). How you like me NOW?!? 😂