Two of my friends love Halloween.
It wouldn’t be going too far out on a limb to claim that Alissa has more Halloween decorations than decorations for Christmas. She is fond of the skeleton aesthetic. During COVID times, my daughters stayed in her house for a short vacation. They were surprised to find a skeleton in the kitchen, reaching out to open the fridge.
My friend Peggy likes witches. She pieced together and embellished a collection of stunning Halloween-themed quilts featuring witches. When I say she pieced together a collection of quilts, I mean she got out fabric, cut it up, and pieced it back together to form quilt tops.
Last year I crocheted a Halloween gift for each of them. The skeleton doily is “Postmortem” by Ann Wanamaker. It’s so gruesome and surprisingly delicate-looking, I couldn’t stop with just one. Now we have a Postmortem doily at our house, too. Ann has lots of skull and skeleton crochet designs, which you can see on her designer page on Ravelry.
The witch is from the pattern “Ms. Mum Crinoline Girl Doily” by Cylinda Mathews. Cylinda designed a different crinoline lady for each month of the year. I changed the colors and altered the Ms. Mum pattern here and there to fit my vision of a crinoline-style witch.
Both doilies were fun to make, especially because I knew Alissa and Peggy would appreciate them. Postmortem arrived at Alissa’s in time to be displayed during a tour of homes. The witchy Crinoline Girl features in the newest addition to Peggy’s witchy quilt collection. Its title is History Repeated, pieced and embellished by Peggy DeLaVergne, quilted by Claire McConn.
