Halloween

Well I'm currently half way through my 4th choice of Halloween outfit- my first choice was Florence from The Magic Roundabout but it would have cost me about £50 to buy the dress, cardigan, tights, shoes, and bow necessary.  Then I floundering and grasped at a pumpkin but when shopping for orange fabric I found some yellow and black striped fabric and hit upon a bumble bee costume.  But then I went to work where my manager was putting together cardboard boxes to make beer gift pack and was left with small pieces of card that were shaped like gravestones.  She suggested I go as  graveyard!!!

So I have painted the card grey to make gravestones, that I now have to attach to my black outfit.  As you can see I still don't have a table in my room so my bed is my new work space and that's where I set up my painting, although I apparently don't have any white paint so I coloured over the black paint with white oil pastel which looks a bit funny but whatevs...

Last night I went out to Buns and Roses which is a younger and craftier branch of the Women's Institute and I needed a craft project to take along.  I also needed a bag to add to my Halloween outfit as I decided a cow print bag wouldn't go brilliantly with my graveyard image.  Initially I was going to make a ghost bag (because they hang out in graveyards) or a square bag with a ghost stuck to the front but once again I was lead astray by fancy fabric. 

I saw some lacey black with gold spider's webs on it (they also had it in all black, red, white, and silver) and I decided that would probably by an easier and more attractive option.  So I used that as the outer fabric and some plain black as the lining for the bag, also picked up some black velvety ribbon for the strap.  I took all this along and hand-sewed a little bag reasonably successfully.  But hand-sewing totally confused me and I constructed the bag differently form how I should have done leaving a messy interior to the bag (normally all the seams are hidden in between the lining and the outer fabric rather than in side the bag.  But on reflection it would have taken me much longer to do it correctly *and* the seams and mess would have been visible through the outer fabric which is lace.  So I inadvertently did it the best way. :)

Hound Skirt

I bought some cheap hounds tooth fabric from the market (hence the blog post name if you were wondering) and decided a winter skirt could be made from it to look rather snazzy/snuggly.  By the time I'd moved house, got my internet sorted (who can sew without episodes of The Big Bang Theory playing in the bkgd?), and actually made the skirt we had moved into some unprecedented hot spell (precedented I suppose in the sense that the weather and climate has been loopy for the past few years owing to climate change, but I find out-of-season weather to be most disconcerting), and my skirt is slightly unwearable.  As are most of my clothes actually because I took pains to bring my winter warmers when I moved, sigh...

Anyway, I used a home-made pattern, the only one I've been able to make myself, for a pencil skirt (high waisted).  The finished product is probably slightly too small as I've put on weight since making the patter, but I've starting taking bums, legs, and tums classes at my local gym (sooo painful) so this will soon be rectified.  Also I made find the fabric a little prickly without a lining (didn't think to put one in, as I've moved I have less space to sew and no table in my room so I sewed the skirt first on my bedroom floor, then on my bed so I think I did fairly well), but when the weather gets colder I can wear tights.  :)