Happy Halloween

This is our pumpkin. I carved it according to Elf Son's wishes and scraped enough of the flesh to make a delicious pumpkin pie. In search of recipes on the net I noticed that all the recipes were calling for canned pumpkin, even the American ones! I could not believe it- we tend to make a pilgrimage to the supermarkets after the Halloween to buy some cheap pumpkins, because they disappear from the shelves as soon as the afore mentioned day is over. People don't obviously use pumpkin any more.

We made these bats as well. I cut a whole lot for our kitchen wall and Elf Son cut the ones for his room.  I got the idea from Dana and like her I am not much of a fan of coffins and plastic Halloween decorations. The bats on the other hand look rather nice and were good fun to make with Elf Son. I was pleased that he wanted to cut bats for his bedroom as scissor work and the required fine motor skills are challenging for him.

Yesterday evening I went out of my kitchen door and was about to get a heart attack. There was a ghostly Nessie in my carport. I had parked my plants from my polytunnel under the carport and wrapped them in horticultural fleece. There was a stiff wind flapping the fleece in a wormy manner and the car park lights were casting an eerie orange light on this monster. It was one of those split second moments when I almost screamed, but realised very quickly what I was seeing. Here is a hazy picture of my monster.

Believe me, it was far more scary in person as it was the movement which actually tricked me. Have a Happy Halloween!

Red and Polka Dots

I absolutely love the autumnal red of the rose hips and the strong green of the stems together with the turquoise glass vase. I have been revelling in reds lately. Our dining table have been decked in this:

It is not there anymore as it was not intended to be used as a table cloth. It is wax cloth from IKEA and I bought it for protecting the table when Elf Son gets crafty with glue etc. I had to try it and could not resist letting it be for a while as our round table resembled a toad stool!

For a while ago I had a stall at a health fair and as they also had crafters there I took some of my things with me. I wanted to do something new and it needed to be quick to produce, so I made a box full of Suffolk Puff pins. I love them myself and as I didn't really sell them, I might as well use them myself. My poor friends and the family are bound to be gifted with them in the coming season.

Otherwise I have not been very crafty, just sewn some costume bits for Elf Son's upcoming theatre performance. He is doing the Disney Musical "Cinderella" at the local Theatre and is casted as the King. Otherwise I think he has chorus parts along all the others, so there is need for all sorts of "basics" such as brown trousers, black leggings, white collarless shirt etc. The bits I have needed to sew or adjust from thrift finds are not exciting enough to show.

On the home front I got my act together to hang up this picture by Mandy Pattullo, which I have blogged about here and framing my blog picture to accompany it.

Here is rather a bad picture of the wall.

Can you see the little wooden clown on the other side of Mandy's picture? It continues my polka dot theme nicely:

I love its worn looks. I originally bought it in a thrift shop in order to give it as a baby gift, but decided that I could not part with it!

Autumn Dress

My crafting can be in a very small place at the moment, but I did manage to liberate a Sunday afternoon to sew this dress. I have been using it a lot. It reaches just under the knee and can be used as a dress or a tunic. I used a pattern from Ottobre Autumn/Winter 2008. The sleeves have been adjusted from gathered and short to straight and longer. The armhole and the sleeve needed to be made bigger as well, it feels as if the pattern has not been enlarged in this area going up the sizes. I can attest that size 6 arm hole is very different from size16. Although I might just have really fatty over arms. Even when I was a skinny minny, the armholes seemed to be a an issue.

I like the pleats on the front

and the yoke in the back with the centre seam

Now this is a little competition to my family: Can you identify the fabric? (Don't look down yet!)

Yes, that is the curtain which was in front of the coats and shoes in my Grandma's flat. I always liked it and grabbed it, when nobody else wanted it! I get quite a kick about this fact, especially when people are paying compliments to me about my dress. ; )