Shawl Progress and Skull Making

    This morning I didn't really feel like knitting, so I went into the patterns for skulls that I found on the internet. I picked one out, a neat one designed by Sandi Marshall. I got out my hook, and started crocheting.


    On the first attempt, I got as far as round three, with no problems. When I started doing round four, the grinning teeth part was being placed next to the first eye, not under the nose. So I frogged it, back to the beginning of row four, and attempted it again. Going slower, and reading more carefully this time.


   Nope, the teeth were still lining up with the first eye. I frogged it again, read the pattern again, and decided just to wing it myself. Here is what it looks like:

    I may have another go at it, I'm not entirely happy with the teeth area. And, ad you can see, I changed my mind about the color, I think black would look better than light gray on the dark gray shawl body.


    When I was babysitting for Miss Malia today, I got quite a bit of work done on the shawl while she napped. I think I did about 6 rows! Then I stopped to take some photos. Here is a photo of how it looks now:

    And here it is with the skull in place:

    The shawl is getting small enough that I could put it on a shorter length needle, but I can't find one. They must all have WIPs on them. Working on a 60" needle is getting  

crazy! It's getting tangled up in itself!  Oh, well, I shall just have to persevere.

Arachno Shawl Update PHOTOS!

   I finally broke down and took the promised photos. I think they came out pretty good, let me know what you think!

   At first I wasn't sure about the dark gray, I didn't think there was enough differentiation between the colors. But as it progresses, I'm thinking it'll be okay. I am even toying with the idea of crocheting a light gray skull and sewing it near the bottom of the body, after it's all done. We will just have to wait and see how I feel about it when I'm actually done.

    I still have the stitch marker on the center stitch, after a couple more rows, I will take it out.

    I thought this shot really shows off how the cobweb looks after the stitches are dropped. When I laid it out on the carpet, I realized that yeah, it's going to be plenty big enough.


    As I unraveled the stitches, I was very glad that I used a size 10 needle to cast on. I don't know how to do the long tail cast on, and don't want to learn. It seems way too complicated. So I thought that maybe using a bigger needle to cast on would make the edge be able to stretch enough. It looks like I was correct. It's nice to be right once in a while. I should mention that I worked the rest of the shawl on a size 8 needle. If you have been reading me for a while, you know that I only use circular needles.


    P.S. If "differentiation" is spelled wrong, I apologise, it seems my spell check isn't working. I wrote a sentence with every word spelled wrong, and it didn't flag one word. Both of my parents were teachers, and spelling is kind of an obsession for me.  My dad taught High School Math, and my mom was a Pre-School teacher.