http://www.facebook.com/pages/DoodleBumpkin/256411444396512

Yes, I do actually. I love Rebecca Bessette’s work. She crochets, but she also paints and is basically an all around artist. Her stuff is so amazing, I wish I could crochet like she does. I even love the photos she takes for her shop. She sells so much stuff, I aspire to be like her someday.  Here is her etsy shop: http://www.etsy.com/shop/BessetteArt?ref=pr_shop_more

I absolutely love these two items:

Anyway, I haven’t been posting much, other than my 30 Crochet Challenge Q&A’s that you can check out under the 30 Day Crochet Challenge section of this blog. BUT, there is more to life than crochet. I know, shocking right? :O At least, that’s what my boyfriend keeps telling me.

So, he started dragging me to the state park to “look at some wildlife.” I swear it’s his life’s mission to find a black bear in it’s natural environment. Well, as it turns out I’ve actually been having a great time! We’ve seen tons of deer. Wait, can you measure deer in tons? I suppose you can. Anyway, moving on…We’ve even seen some pretty large bucks. It’s apparently mating season for the deer so they’ve been out getting all frisky. The males have been fighting and bumping horns and stuff. haha

The other day my boyfriend decided he’d try his hand at fishing. Well…I don’t know much about fishing but it’s early November and we’re in Western New York. It’s pretty cold. Needless to say he didn’t catch anything. But, I got some good work done on a scoodie while I was there enjoying nature and what not.

*note* the yarn bag on top of the tackle box. There was so much goose poop I couldn't set it down. :O

Today we went hiking (Not my favorite activity, let’s just say I had a bad experience in the hiking field.) Well, the hill we hiked up was pretty much a 90 degree angle. (It was a great work out for the glutes!) We came across some “loafs” of bear poop. They were honestly shaped like squares and full of berries. I called it a loaf because it sort of resembled my dad’s meatloaf. XD So, we got almost to the top of the hill and realized we’d left the trail. We could still see the car though, so we found our way right back to the trail. After about another half hour of climbing the 90 degree grade we heard something grunting from the woods. I was freaking out! It was at that point that we decided to head back. We were so far in we couldn’t see anything except the woods. I decided that we needed to get out of there ASAP. I am super afraid of being mauled to death by a bear or stomped to death by the stick legs of a deer. :O So…my master plan was to forget the path and descend straight down the steep mountain. There were so many leaves on the ground and it was a bit muddy. The hill was very slick. And I wasn’t really prepared for hiking. (Although, I did have my Northface jacket on to give the illusion of being the hiking type.) I was wearing my slip on Van’s that I got when I was in 10th grade. (in 2006) They have nothing in the way of traction. I might have well have been wearing a pair of those carpet skates out there on this giant 90 degree incline of a mountain, with muddy, slippery leaves under me. At one point I actually had to sit on my butt and scoot down the hill for a while. I swear I saw my life flash before my eyes a few times, between the growling animal hiding in the forest, and the possible 300 foot drop to my death if I stepped in the wrong spot. :O We finally got the car after about an hour and a half ordeal. I hate being lost/stuck in the woods!

My old carpet skates.

So then, we decided we’d take a short walk on the bike path before we went home. (Because an hour and a half trapped in the woods fearing for our lives just wasn’t enough activity for one day.) Near the bike path we found more bear poop, yet no bear. :/ We also found a field of about 15 deer. My boyfriend decided it would be fun to go madly charging at the pack. (They were about 2 football fields away but still!) That action quickly led to me racing to the car cursing under my breath. I never cuss, unless I’m super mad or super scared. I was a little bit of both at the time. I could just imagine the deer racing down the hill and stomping us to death with their stick legs. :O

The view from the bike path.

Finally, on our way out of the park we saw what we thought was a bear. We were so excited! I had my camera ready as we slowly coasted down the road, trying not to scare the animal way. Well, upon further investigation what we had found was someone’s giant black lab, playing with a rope toy.

So, I’m sure tomorrow the quest to find a black bear will continue. Until then, I changed my theme. XD Purple is my favie right now!

Those stick legs...*shudders*

The steepness can't be fully expressed via photo.

"Hello, I am Mr. Lady Bug. Welcome to "nature." I will be your tour guide today.

I really don’t use patterns because I not patient enough. If something is so hard to make that I have to refer to a pattern then I don’t wanna mess with it. When I create an item I usually write down some notes to remember how I made it, but it’s not usually a pattern. I only have true patterns for a few items I make. The patterns are listed under the patterns section of this blog.

My favorite type of yarn is Lion Brand Homespun. It is so soft, it almost feels silky, and it’s chunky. I love thick, chunky yarn. It is perfect for making warm scoodies and hats. I also really like cotton yarn. It doesn’t stretch as much as acrylic so it’s really nice for making bags and purses.

My most challenging project was my Granny Square scoodie. It took forever to make all those little granny squares. Plus I’m not very good at math, which is a skill you should definitely  have when designing clothes to fit properly. It took me forever to figure out how big the hood pieces had to be to properly cover one’s head. Then, I had to sew all the little squares together. Don’t even get me started on how terrible my hand sewing skills are. It seems like I can never hand sew anything without a big bulky seem and knot showing. So, I spent forever carefully sewing up the squares and making sure no seems or knots showed. When I found a seem I was unhappy with I undid the whole thing and started over. And that, my friends, is the reason why I will only be making one granny sqaure scoodie. She is a one of a kind, unless of course I get a custom order. I always come through on custom order requests.

This is a picture of the leaves up at the park.

After that we went up to Pumpkinville. It is this awesome little pumpkin patch in my hometown. Here’s their facebook if you wanna check them out: http://www.facebook.com/pumpkinville There is this really cool corn maze up there that we walked through. It took us like an hour to find our way out, and it was super cold. XD They also have a little “Spooky Barn” up there that is a shed filled with animatronic scary zombies and stuff that jumps out at you. It’s really dark in there and it scared me cuz I’m a baby. :O

Here I am in the corn maze.

Here's my boyfriend in the corn maze.

After we left Pumpkinville we went to “The Haunted Dudley.”  It’s this hotel in my hometown that is allegedly haunted. They were doing a spooky walk through thing in the basement. It was super good. We waited like 45 minutes to get in. It was sooooo scary! There was this huge clown guy sitting in a rocking chair. It was so big I thought it was fake, like made from paper mache but then all of a sudden he was behind me! I hate clowns >:O

This is what the big clown guy looked like!

When we got home from the Haunted Dudley we carved pumpkins. We got the biggest pumpkins I’ve ever carved. They were soooo heavy! I tried to make mine look like a happy pumpkin with a mustache and a bow tie. But….it looked better in my head than it did when I actually carved it. :/

After we did our pumpkins we watched Halloween, it’s always a classic. How did you spend your Halloween, what are you going to dress up as? Share your pics!

Our happy little pumpkin family.

PS: I did this makeup for a contest on my friend's facebook but I think I might make it my Halloween costume also.

My least favorite project is a hat that I made for one of my friends. I hadn’t learned how to read patterns yet and didn’t know how to make a hat at all. I started at the brim of the hat and worked my way up. I essentially made a really long and wide tube. Then I tried to stitch it together at the top by skipping stitches. It was a holy mess by the time I got done with it. My friend still acted super excited to get it and said she loved it. I have the greatest friends.

Hmmm, this one is a toughie. Right now my favorite piece is probably my purple beanie. I love purple, it’s my favorite right now.

However, my favorite piece of all time has got to be my football scoodie. My boyfriend actually helped me come up with the idea and pattern. I was looking for something that guys would like. It turned out to be a big hit. It was even featured in the “Etsy Finds” email last year during the Super Bowl. I got over 1000 views that day.