Crocheted Skull and Cross Bones Scarf.

I've finished my skull and crossbones scarf!

I accidentally on purpose made it extra wide, and it took almost six balls of wool to get just about long enough, but it still looked a bit stumpy when I made the final stitch. 

So then I blocked it, which sounds really efficient and technical doesn't it?  It sounds as though you need some special piece of equipment, but it just means giving it a gentle hand wash in luke warm water, shaping it whilst damp and then leaving it to dry (You could use a steamer instead, and I might look into getting one of those, because I hear they are also great for cleaning!)  Actually the moment I took it out of the soapy water I could see that the stitches had all lengthed out slightly so the scarf is a good length now.  I wish I had done a Crazy Aunt Purl style before-and-after photo (She knitted the scarf, used a steamer and it grew a lot longer than mine.  Otherwise, same-same!), but I forgot to.

 As you can see it's a black scarf with an off white skull at one end, a pair of off white crossed bones at the other end and irregular off white stripes in between.

I sort of made this up by using two different patterns from the Stitch and Bitch Crochet book.  The Skull was mostly from from the pot holder pattern, except I made the left eye bigger and the skull shape slightly wonkier. The crossed bones were directly from the skull-and-crossbones sweater; but I didn't use the skull from that pattern because I wanted a more stylised look to it so I didn't want a lower jaw.  The stripes in between were placed randomly when I felt like they might look good.

The reason why I put the skull and bones at opposite ends was so that when you put the scarf on, the bones would hang lower than the skull and voila!  Skull and crossbones!

As I type this I am sitting on my sofa watching the Halloween specials of some of my favourite cartoons and wearing my scarf.  It's not really cold enough to justify the scarf, but I don't care.