As I mentioned in that post, the whole setup was inspired by this Halloween Ghost Cat Amigurumi crochet pattern, by Imelda Liputri (@medaami). I think it is truly one of the most adorable things I have EVER seen and it definitely made for a super cute, super spooky setup. I did say that I might give the crochet pattern a try at some point during October and… I did! I made my very own Halloween Ghost Cat Amigurumi, and I thought I would share my experience working with this pattern and making my cat with you today.

A little disclaimer to begin: obviously, this post does NOT include the pattern for the cat. If you want to make your own cat, you will need to buy the original pattern yourself. You can purchase the pattern from Ravelry (which is what I did!) or from Etsy. I purchased this pattern independently for my own, personal use and this post is just me sharing my experience of it and attempting to shine a light on this super-talented creator! 

With that out of the way, let’s get into my cat-making adventure!

Table of Contents

• Materials
  • Yarn
  • Additional Equipment
• The Process
  • Head
  • Body
  • Tail
  • Sheet
  • Ears
  • Arms
  • Pumpkin Bag
• Final Thoughts

Materials

Yarn

I just used odds and ends from my stash for this project- you don’t need very much. For the majority of the yarn, I used Stylecraft Special DK. To the best of my knowledge, I used the following shades:

• Black (1002), for the body and the embroidery on the pumpkin.
• Powder Pink (1843), for the nose and ear details.
• Warm Grey (1805), for the whiskers
• Camel (1420), for the eye details.
• Spice (1711), for the pumpkin bag.
• Walnut (1054), for the handle of the pumpkin bag.

I didn’t have any white acrylic yarn on hand, so I used some cotton yarn instead. I have absolutely no idea what brand it is, but it is a DK weight yarn, just like the Stylecraft.

Additional Equipment

• 3.5mm crochet hook
• Locking stitch marker (I use these ones).
• Tapestry needle
• 2x12mm safety eyes (a little bigger than the ones listed in the pattern, but it’s what I had- I figure bigger eyes can only make amigurumi cuter anyway, right?)
• Scissors
• Stuffing

The Process

For this pattern, like most amigurumi patterns, you make most of the elements separately and sew them all together at the end. It doesn’t really matter what order you make them in, but I did find it helpful to make the head (top left) before I made the sheet (top centre) that goes over the top, so I could ensure it fit (which it did, pretty perfectly, which I was very impressed by- the pattern was so precise!). Along with those two pieces, you have 2x ears, 2x arms, 1x tail, 1x pumpkin basket and 1x body (which includes the two legs- more on this later). For the most part, I just followed the pattern for each body part, but I did make a couple of adaptations, here and there. I’ll talk through those adaptations in a second.

The original pattern suggests using a dark grey yarn for the body of the cat. This works really well, because you can then embroider the facial details on with a black yarn- the whole thing still ends up looking like a black cat, but you get a bit more dimension. I think it looks great! I, unfortunately, did not have a dark grey yarn on hand, so I opted to use black for the whole thing. I do feel I lost a little dimension by doing this, even though I managed to keep the nose/whisker details by replacing the black embroidery with pink/grey embroidery, respectively.

Head

For the construction of the head, I followed the pattern exactly. The pattern makes for a really cute head (that sounds weird, I know, but it’s true!)- the cat has little chubby cheeks that are super easy to make but have a real impact on the finished cat- you might not be able to see it so clearly on my cat, because of the colour, but it’s definitely there!

The only thing I did differently for the head was that I embroidered the face (i.e. the pink nose and the grey whiskers) when I added the safety eyes- just before you finish off the head. I did this just to make the process a little easier for myself- embroidering onto a toy that has already been stuffed is a little trickier than embroidering onto an unstuffed piece of crochet because it’s a little harder to secure the ends. Having said that, the placement of the embroidery is easier to visualise when the head is stuffed, so do whatever you find easiest! I didn’t add a mouth, like the cat in the pattern has, because I thought a pink/grey mouth would look a little… strange? I also didn’t add the optional ‘eyeliner’ because, unless my cat wanted to go full 80s blue with its eye makeup, the little wings wouldn’t have shown up against the black body…

A couple of notes here:

• My whiskers looked super cute at this stage, but, when I put the sheet over the head, it completely covered them! Having looked at the original pattern’s photos, I think this was the case for that cat too- which seems a little pointless to me- I wanted to see the whiskers! I went back later and extended them out a little- they’re still a little obscured, but they are at least visible now. If you want your whiskers to be seen, I recommend taking them much closer to the eye- about a stitch away.
• I am OBSESSED with the technique this pattern used to enhance the safety eyes! It was so simple, but SO effective- genuinely, if you’re looking to up your toy eye game, I would recommend buying this pattern just for that! I’m not sure if it’s an original technique, but I’ve definitely never seen it before.

Body

For the body, I followed the pattern exactly as it was.

When I first started following amigurumi patterns, I would make one body piece and two leg pieces, all separately. Either I was using the wrong patterns, or the collective hatred of the amigurumi world for darning in ends and sewing things up has inspired a more seamless approach to bodies: an all-in-one method, where the legs are made separately, then worked together into a single body piece. This pattern uses that all-in-one technique! I’ve made a few patterns that utilise this kind of approach and I am completely, utterly IN LOVE. Not only does it mean that there’s less sewing up, but I think it gives a really professional, seamless look. The technique can feel a little awkward when you start out, but the pattern is so clear- just follow the instructions and you’ll get there!

Tail

When I first made the tail, my first thought was: “Tail, why are you so LONG?” Everything else about the pattern seemed so proportional and right, that this tail just felt a little weird. Admittedly, in the photo of all the body parts, it doesn’t even look that long, but it just seemed very long when I was making it, you know? Anyway, having assembled the whole cat, I have since discovered that the long tail is vital to this design. The legs are quite small, so the tail really helps balance the cat so that it can stand up by itself. I often find that my amigurumi makes don’t stand up so well on their own, so the fact that this cat does (and so well!) is a real win for me. Tail, I’m sorry- I misjudged you!

Sheet

Ah, the sheet. Honestly, the sheet was one of the main selling points of this pattern to me- I use a lot of amigurumi patterns, but I was really intrigued by the construction of this sheet- specifically, the hole around the face. It was really interesting to see how this unusual shape was constructed and I was super impressed by how perfectly it fitted over the cat. The problem, however, is that, for someone like me who despises sewing in ends, the technique suggested in this pattern is absolutely hellish. Essentially, to get that hole in the front, you have to leave a gap in your rounds of crochet- the pattern achieves this by cutting the yarn at the end of every row and re-joining it at the beginning. All fun and games, but this goes on for a good number of rows- when every row has 2 ends to sew in, I’m sure you can see why I was so aghast.

I honestly could not bring myself to do that. Instead, I opted to form the rows by crocheting back-and-forth over the area. It takes a little bit of working out, but it is much easier (and much less soul-destroying) than sewing in all those ends- just remember that the shaping is always at the start/end of the row and work out the number of regular stitches from the pattern accordingly. However, you can see a difference in the texture of the stitches. If you look in the photo above, you can see that my crochet is a little more open where I have gone back and forth (around the centre portion) and is slightly more ridged than the crochet worked in rounds. Obviously, the pattern was designed to avoid this- but I just couldn’t face all the ends (I’ve seen a lot of other people who made this pattern who felt the same way!), so I decided that the slightly less neat sheet was the lesser of two evils.

While the sheet did fit very well over the cat’s head, it does have a tendency to slip about a little, making it look a little less like the perfect fit it is! In the end, I decided to use some more of the white yarn to add a few little stitches to keep it in place. I didn’t want to stitch all around the face hole because I thought that might look a bit funny, so I opted to make 8 little stitches, evenly space around the perimeter of the face hole, making sure to make each stitch as invisible as possible. Honestly, I think this made a huge difference- my little cat always looks his best now and the whole thing is much more secure!

Ears

In the original pattern, you crochet the black ears, then you crochet two teeny-tiny triangles of pink, which you then stitch onto the black ears. I won’t lie, it seemed like a lot of effort- sewing in ends on tiny things is the WORST, especially when they really have to look nice and neat. Again, I let my laziness win. Instead of the extra crochet details, I opted to do a little bit of freehand embroidery to add the ear details. I cut a length of pink yarn, threaded it onto my needle and looped it through one side of the black ear piece, over and over, going through the same point near the top of the ear each time, to get a triangle. When I was done, because I was really embracing the whole lazy vibe at this point, I tied the two ends in a double knot and tucked it inside the ear, never to be seen again. Truth be told, I actually… love how this turned out? The embroidery gives the ears a slightly puffy look, which I think makes the cat even cuter!

The embroidery did make it slightly trickier to attach the ears to the cat- it is quite loopy, so it’s not the best for stitching into. However, I found that if I stitched very solidly along the back and sides of the ears, they were secure enough anyway. I also wrapped the black thread once around the base of the ear, at the front, before darning in the end, to add a line of black in-between the pink of the ear and the white of the sheet, which made a HUGE difference in how put-together my little cat looked. Such a simple trick, but so effective.

Arms

I am undecided about the arms on this cat. I think they are very proportional to the cat body, which is great, but I would almost like them to be just a little bit longer (maybe a single row?). I think that would make it easier to position the pumpkin bag on the right-hand one, because I just feel that the bag doesn’t quite have enough room to sit right?

The pattern suggests stuffing the arms lightly, before sewing them to the body. I was a little worried about attaching the arms to the body (you have to attach them through the sheet and onto the body), so I opted to stuff only the paws, then stitch across the opening of the arms so that I had a flat edge to attach to the body. After that, the process really wasn’t as bad as I thought! I sewed the arm fully onto the sheet, then attached it to the body underneath with a stitch on each end- that way, it was secure and gave the cat some dimension, but the sheet wasn’t so cinched in that it looked weird. I do wonder if stuffing the whole arm and leaving the opening as it was would have given the ams a bit more structure and length though, so maybe that was on me!

Pumpkin Bag

I feel like the pumpkin bag is the thing that really makes this cat. It’s just so cute! I opted to embroider the face on, using black yarn, as opposed to the felt used in the original pattern (again, it just seemed like sooooo much work to find the felt, cut the felt, stick it on etc.). I embroidered two little upside down V’s for the eyes, then made a loose straight stitch for the mouth, which I curved into a smile by securing it at the bottom with a tiny stitch.

For the handle, the pattern suggests making a chain, sewing in the ends and glueing it to the pumpkin part. I just crocheted the chain directly onto the pumpkin and sewed in the ends afterwards- it was very quick, neat and effective.

I didn’t fill mine with scrap yarn to look like sweets, as the pattern suggests, because I figured they’d just fall out. Sorry, cat.

One final note on the pumpkin basket: the pattern suggests that you just hook the pumpkin bucket over the arm, which I felt was just an accident waiting to happen, so I decided to secure it with a single stitch, in the centre. That way, it can still be manoeuvred a little bit, but it’s not about to go missing (or be eaten by a misguided dog) anytime soon!

Final Thoughts

I’m pretty used to the techniques used in most amigurumi patterns, so I was pretty confident going into this one, which is listed as an intermediate-level pattern. Honestly, I think this rating is spot on- I didn’t struggle with it by any means, but I feel if I had less experience with amigurumi, it definitely would have been challenging in places- specifically the body piece and the sheet. Having said that, I feel like it looks a lot more challenging than it actually is (which can only be a good thing because I apparently live to impress).

I made a few little changes throughout, here and there, just to suit the pattern/finished cat to my individual needs, but the pattern itself is incredibly clear and thorough, so none of my changes were really necessary.

I still would have loved to have made this cat in a dark grey yarn, so I could really get the detail/dimension of the original pattern, but I’m still really happy with my black cat. It’s so cute and it really didn’t take me too long to make at all!

I hope you’ve enjoyed this post! Let me know if you’re crocheting anything spooky this October!

Gemma

xxx

I am… undecided on how I feel about Halloween. I LOVE a wholesome, pumpkin pie, crafty, trick-or-treating Halloween. A copious-amounts-of-chocolate Halloween. However, I do NOT vibe with things that are actually scary- I have watched a grand total of one horror film in my lifetime and, honestly, that was one too many. So, while I like some aspects of Halloween, I’m definitely not a hardcore, spooky Halloween-lover. Nevertheless, I love an occasion and I will take any opportunity for some themed creativity, so, here we are.

All this to say- my October 2023 bullet journal has a Halloween theme. Specifically, it has a cute & gentle Halloween theme, to match my preferred Halloween vibe. This month’s theme is… Trick-Or-Treating Cats, because what is more wholesome than a cartoon cat in a costume? I, for one, can’t think of anything.

This setup is very straightforward- it’s really just a lot of cat doodles and freehand lines. I coloured all my doodles in with colouring pencils, to make it feel even more playful & childlike (read: even less spooky). Honestly, I had so much fun making this setup- it’s not my usual style (I was very inspired by the more doodle-y style of AmandaRachLee!), so I was surprised at how much I enjoyed the process.

Anyway, enough chit-chat. Let’s get into the setup.

Table of Contents

• Inspiration
• Equipment
• Cover Page
• Monthly Calendar
• Blog Planning + Daily Sunshine
• Weeklies
  • Weekly 1
  • Weekly 2
  • Weekly 3
  • Weekly 4
• October Review
• Final Thoughts

Inspiration

The cat on my cover page was inspired by a crochet pattern I came across on Pinterest, by Medaami. You can find the pattern here (you can also check out my Pinterest here!). If I have time over the course of this month, I might give the crochet pattern a try, because it’s SO cute! When it came to dreaming up a theme for my October bullet journal, I just couldn’t shake the image from my head. I figured it would be pretty easy to doodle, even with my (very limited) doodling abilities, so I went for it. I’m so happy I did! I think this theme turned out so well- it’s very Halloween-y and it’s super adorable, so it ticks all my boxes for this month.

Equipment

For this setup, I used the following equipment:

• Muji 0.38mm pen, black.
• Uni-ball Eye Fine UB-157 pen, black.
• Tombow ABT Dual Brush Pens: N15 (black) and N89 (warm grey 1).
• Colouring pencils.
• Sakura Gelly Roll, 10 Bold, white.
• Black paper.
• Glue stick.
• Scissors.
• Ruler.
• Pencil.
• Eraser.

Cover Page

The right-hand side of my Cover Page for this month is super simple- it’s just a doodle of the inspiration cat (which is just a cat in a ghost costume with a pumpkin bag) and the ‘October’ heading. I drew the outline of the cat with my Muji 0.38mm black pen, then coloured it in with colouring pencils. For the heading, I used my black Uni-ball pen (which has a thicker nib than the Muji pen) and a simple, lowercase font.

On the left-hand page, I opted to include a Taylor Swift quote (because, obviously). I drew some bunting along the top, which I coloured in with the 4 main colours that will be used throughout this theme: orange, green, purple and yellow (very Halloween-y colours, no?), before writing the letters of ‘karma‘ on top with my Uni-ball pen. I found the Muji pen did not write very well on top of coloured pencils, but the Uni-ball pen worked perfectly, so I used that. I drew another cat (dressed up as a witch this time) and tried to make it look like the cat was casting a spell with the final word of the quote. It looks a little bit smudged here because I made the mistake of trying to erase my pencil sketchings after I added the coloured pencils. Don’t be like me. Erase the pencil first.

At the bottom of the left-hand page, I added some black paper, decorated with some, what I have fondly coined, cat-fetti. I used this decorated paper throughout the setup and it was very easy to make- I just took my white Sakura Gelly Roll pen and drew an assortment of confetti doodles all over a piece of black paper. To make it into cat-fetti, I added some tiny, cat-shaped confetti pieces, which were basically just large dots with two little pointy ears. Super simple, but I think it really elevated the setup!

Monthly Calendar

I think this Monthly Calendar might be my favourite spread in this whole setup- just LOOK at those little cat pumpkins :’). Again, this was a super simple spread to make- I just used the fine tip of my black Tombow to draw a grid of 6×6 boxes, rounding off the outer corners. Then, I outlined the cat pumpkins with my Muji pen, before colouring them in. I used the same 4 colours as the bunting on the previous page to draw little dots in the grid for the dates, which I wrote in with my Uni-ball pen. I used the same Uni-ball pen to write in the ‘October’ heading, then stuck in some more cat-fetti paper to fill in the space on the left-hand side.

Blog Planning + Daily Sunshine

On the left-hand page of this double-page spread, I have a space for planning my blog content. Last month, I tried out this layout of 4 boxes- 1 per blog post, in which I can write down specific to-do lists for each post. I found it very useful last month, so I’m using it again! I drew each box using my black Tombow pen, then coloured in the bars across the top, following my colour scheme. This page’s cat is dressed as a bat (a bat cat?), so I gave it bat wings and pointy fangs.

On the right-hand page, I have my Daily Sunshine page, where I write down one positive thing that happened each day. Again, I drew the box with my black Tombow pen, then drew little dots with my colouring pencils for the dates, which I wrote in using my Uni-ball pen. I also highlighted every other row with my N89 Tombow pen, just because the box felt a little empty. This page’s cat has a pumpkin hat on- I like to think it is the baby of the group.

Weeklies

Because of how October falls this year, I decided to merge the dates a little within my weeklies (so, I suppose, they aren’t even technically Weeklies…), so I wouldn’t have to set up whole spreads for weeks that just had one or two days of October in them. As always, I used tabs to separate out my weeklies. This month, I coloured in the tabs using the coloured pencils (following the colour scheme, of course), and stuck some more cat-fetti paper on the left-hand side of my first weekly and the right-hand side of my October review page, to make the tabs really stand out.

I kept the style of each weekly very consistent- the only real differences between the 4 spreads is the costume of the cat doodle and the layout of the boxes- otherwise, I drew all of the boxes using the fine tip of my black Tombow pen (just like the rest of the setup), coloured in the header bars in the colour scheme and wrote the days of the week/dates over the top, using my Uni-ball pen. As always, each weekly spread has spaces for my daily to-do lists, a master task list and some notes.

Weekly 1

My first weekly spread spans 1st-8th October. I used two square grids for my daily to-do lists, then put the boxes for notes and tasks in the top right. This weekly’s cat is dressed like a vampire, so it has a red-lined cape and, like the bat cat, some pointy fangs.

Weekly 2

The second weekly is actually a weekly because it spans 7 days: 9th-15th October. For this weekly, I placed the header across the middle of the spread and put the daily to-do list boxes along the top and bottom. I also merged my tasks and notes boxes on this spread. This weekly’s cat is a Franken-Cat (Frankenstein’s Feline Monster?), which has some green face paint, drawn-on scars and a neck bolt.

Weekly 3

For the third weekly, I went for one of my favourite layouts- 8 vertical boxes, with a horizontal space for notes at the top. This week’s cat is a Devil-cat- he has horns, a pointy tail and a pitchfork, ready for all of his devilish endeavours.

Weekly 4

The final ‘weekly’ spans 23rd-31st October- a week plus two days. I also made a little space for the first 5 days of November, which fall in the same calendar week as the last two days of October, just so I can keep better track of my dates. This weekly’s cat is an Anti-Hero-inspired Ghost Cat, with the iconic sunglasses. Unfortunately, this cat is kind of giving… chihuahua? Sigh. It’s not my favourite.

October Review

For the first time in FOREVER, I have decided to switch up the left-hand page of my October Review! I just felt like my favourites section was getting a bit stale and I was finding it particularly hard to choose just one song to write down every month. I’ve replaced the old favourites section with a larger ‘October Playlist’, with spaces for 6 of my favourite songs. I’m really looking forward to filling this in! Other than that, the three other sections: WTA Top 10, ATP Top 10 and #1 Memory, have all remained the same.

Another thing I have kept the same is the space for a polaroid on the right-hand page. This month, instead of a typical frame, I opted for another magical cat casting a spell (except here the cat is a wizard, not a witch). This time, I remembered to erase my pencil sketchings before I went in with the coloured pencils, so it was a lot neater and less smudgy!

Final Thoughts

I wasn’t sure how I would feel about this setup- it was very much a last-minute (as you can probably tell from the fact that we are already into October when I’m posting this!), quick and easy setup- much simpler than my usual themes and very different style! However, having started using it already, I really love it! I think the cats are SO cute, the colours give me such Halloween vibes and I think the functionality of the spreads will be really helpful for the month ahead. Making this setup has really put me in a Halloween-y mood, so I’m really looking forward to the rest of the month!

I’d love to hear what you think of this theme- let me know in the comments below!

Gemma

xxx