Mr. Bonz revealed

Now that the challenge is over, I can post pictures of Mr. Bonz. I created the skull for my son who wanted me to hook a skeleton for the challenge. Since an entire skeleton was too much for my 10-by-10 inch mat, we settled on a skull.

I have been wanting to try to hook by using values instead of colors, so that is what I did with Mr. Bonz. It was not easy. I took pictures of him a couple of times while I was hooking the skull and converted them to black and white in iphoto so I could see the values better. When I saw a value too dark or too light in the black and white photo, I pulled it out and tried something different until the photo looked correct. I especially worked on the areas around his eyes and his cheeks where many strips appeared too dark.

This is what he looks like now, in color and in black and white.

To finish Mr. Bonz, I prodded mummy gauze on the bottom, and used off-white wool to bind it. I bought a plastic skeleton and sawed off the skull. I hung the skeleton on my wall and Mr. Bonz over the top. Here he is in my living room. Alexander is pleased as punch who picked out a skeleton costume for himself for Halloween. Here he is modeling it.

Autumn challenge mats for Stash Sisters

Just got home from a great guild meeting where we surprised each other with our autumn mats. This challenge was to hook an autumn-themed 10-by-10 inch mat and include strips of wool that we had exchanged during a meeting earlier this year. The hookers each gave me permission to photograph and share their fine mats together on this blog. All are original designs.

Hit-n-Miss pumpkin designed and hooked by Martha Lowry; Fall pumpkin designed and hooked by Pam Herrington.

Blue pumpkin designed and hooked by Sondra Ives; Scarecrow designed and hooked by P.D. Hankamer; Ghost hooked by Annie Ore.

Mr. Bonz designed and hooked by me; Peek-a-boo designed and hooked by Lurie McAdow; Leaf bag designed and hooked by Dixie Cox.

Thank you to the sisters who allowed me to share this guild event on my blog.

Mr. Bonz

The Stash Sisters has a 10 by 10 autumn challenge mat due the first week of October. I have been thinking about what to do for months, and took my inspiration from Alexander's drawings last Halloween of a skeleton. I am calling him, "Mr. Bonz." I will hook the 10 by 10 mat as his skull, and then add to him each year with new hooked bones on different size mats. Eventually we will have a wall of bone mats for Halloween.