The October 2018 HaldeCrate: Day of the Dead

The October 2018 HaldeCrate: Day of the Dead

The theme of the October HaldeCrate, which shipped today, is Día de Muertos.

Día de Muertos – Day of the Dead – is a Mexican holiday that while celebrated around the same time as Halloween here in the United States, is not a spooky holiday – not centered around scares and frights. It is a celebration that spans days, during which family and friends gather to celebrate loved ones who have passed, and to help the spirits on their journey. It is a time to honor the dead, to remember those who may have gone, but not left our hearts, and a time to celebrate our memories of them.

If you like ceramics, this HaldeCrate has two choices – a small, richly painted Sugar Skull ornament, and/or a mug that may look familiar as the design (although painted differently) was the Mug of the Month in 2017. It will be brought back in a limited style for this crate, and is painted in colors to match the ornament (and yarn).

If you like soap there is a set of soap, hand lotion, and lip balm. The soap is scented as pan de muerto, which is also called bread of the dead and is a decorated type of sweetbread. The hand lotion is scented with Cactus Flower (and I would love, love, love feedback on this because I am utterly enchanted with this fragrance and considering bringing it in as something regular). The lip balm is flavored as calabaza en tacha, which is a candied pumpkin treat made from winter squash and (typically) brown sugar (some recipes also add orange and/or cinnamon).

If you like yarn, the Día de Muertos colorway also ties into the colors of both the mug and the ornament, and is available in seven base yarns. Original six yarns Andre, Joy, Lynn, Tepper, Tiptree, and Yolen are now joined by new base yarn Nagata (a sock yarn with multicolored neps that looks heathery). As I type this up, Lynn has already sold out, but there is at least one available of all the other base yarns.

What exactly is a HaldeCrate, in general? Are you familiar with themed crates, like BarkBox, or LootCrate, or Hello Fresh? This is like that, but with my spin on it.

For a long time HaldeCraft has offered a yarn club, wherein you could pre-order if you liked the theme that was planned; I would tell you the theme but not show off the yarn until after pre-orders were closed club was ready to start shipping.

HaldeCrate is a different type of club… in fact, it’s more like a one-time box, every other month, with a different theme and listing page each time. Not only do I tell you the theme at the beginning but throughout the time that pre-orders are available, I show off more and more pictures of what’s being offered. Not only is there the ability to order yarn, but also soap and ceramics – or, also the ability to NOT order anything you don’t want. It’s much more either/or, and while people who were in yarn club aren’t losing anything, people who would also like a ceramic club, or a soap club, now have options as well.

For example, if you just want the yarn, you only pre-order the yarn. If you only want the ceramics, you only pre-order the ceramics. If you only want the soap set, you only pre-order the soap set. It’s all the same listing, it’s all called HaldeCrate, but you put together your individual crate from the offered options. You can see all the current and previous Crates here.


My original plan had been to do these every other month; however, September and October had some events that caused me to re-evaluate this. I was almost late with this box, and I don't like it when you don't get the best of me. So instead of planning a December box, I'm going to bump it back to February - and then in 2019 other boxes will appear in May, August, and November. I feel that spacing them out a little more will give you a better quality product. Having said that, I have a great idea for the next box, and here's a hint.....

.... preorders for the February 2019 HaldeCrate, "Whooooo's Ready for Winter to be Over" will run from December 1st through January 31st, and they will ship on February 8th. Usually the target date for mailing is the 15th, but I hear there's some holiday in February, somewhere around the 14th, that some people might like to receive a gift for....?

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