Vintage Inspired Halloween Cat

I love Halloween. LOVE it. It’s my absolute, favorite holiday. Sorry Christmas, you will just have to settle for second. I typically get in the Halloween spirit months in advance. In fact my door has been all sorts of ‘BOO-tiful’ since mid August. (I’ll share that craft another time) So it’s no surprise after experimenting with my shelf sitting Santa gnomes last year I was going to take the idea to Halloween.

Fast forward to this year and vintage Halloween designs are EVERYWHERE! And I love it. There is just something about the designs from the early years of commercialized American Halloween that has so much character and life! It’s both unsettling and creepy and adorable at the same time. What could be better?

So this year I took inspiration from these vintage designs and started by creating my own Halloween cat. I wanted to keep him simple in form so as not to distract from his face and frills. The ruffled collars added the perfect dimensions to his figure to complement the vintage face. And oh that face! That was by far the hardest part of his design to nail down.

Cats in vintage Halloween decor have very distinct features. Their eyes are very ornate and their mouths are wide and have an almost flat dimension to them. They really are quite unsettling if you stare at them for too long.

I spent quite a while deciding on buttons or pom poms. So long, in fact, I ended up throwing out the question to the crochet community on a couple of my favorite Facebook groups. Shout out ladies! Y’all are awesome! With an overwhelming response it was buttons for the win.

All in all I am so happy with how this guy turned out. Some of my favorite feedback had to be a few saying he looked like a toy that could’ve been made in the Nightmare Before Christmas. What high praise!

Next I am working on a buddy or two for the cat. I’m thinking pumpkins!

The Vintage Inspired Halloween Cat pattern is currently available HERE in my Ravelry store.