Happy Halloween!

You know, my biggest beef about trick-or-treating is that it begins when it’s still light outside! What fun is that?!

I had every intention of ignoring the trick-or-treaters tonight, because I won’t get many and because I really should do some craft show stuff. However, it’s nice outside, so I might sit out on my porch and play Morgan and watch them and if anyone notices some spooky music (if I can think of any spooky music to play, that is) they might come down my driveway and I do have candy. And I’m not staying out until 7:30 or whenever it ends.

I wore my costume to work today. One foot was fine in the shoes, the other pinched horribly and had a blister by the end of the day. Obviously, my feet aren’t the same size at all. How come I never noticed?

My costume, after much, much, much, searching through my costume bits and pieces, and also trashing my bedroom, or so it seems:

I don’t think Bekah actually knows what she’s wearing yet. I borrowed the socks from her. The shoes are one of the pairs of 1940s shoes that I got at the rummage sale, and perfect for the costume, I think. The cloak is my very vintage wool cloak. You can’t see my shirt’s nice poufy sleeves, and I’m pulling the skirts up in the picture; they aren’t really that short. I didn’t make the hat, but I did make the overdress/bodice part a while back. It’s been very useful.

Other alternatives was a glamorous witch, wearing my beaded and sequined black and silver dress (but I didn’t have a hat), a general Civil War lady (but after getting home so late today, I didn’t have a chance to make myself a proper bonnet), a Victorian lady wearing the velvet dress Mom made (again, no hat), another vague Victorian-ish lady (no hat; I see a pattern here; maybe I should remedy that?), or a gypsy (I could have managed that one without making a hat.)

I was very tempted to wear the glamorous dress, but it also weighs about 10 pounds (Okay, maybe 5 pounds) and I’m afraid that sitting in it all day long would ruin it, since it’s not meant to be sat in. I have another glamorous dress, but also, no hair piece/hat to go with it. So maybe by next year? We’ll see. One of these years I would like to have a Halloween party.

The tall mug I bought to replace the one that Cleo broke has a crack in it. It’s still usable, but I wouldn’t put it in the microwave or anything (not that I do that often), because the crack will just get worse. So phooey. I’m going to have to find a spare for when it does break/get worse, because my only other spare* has a loose handle.

On my search, I did find a pitcher that (if it were blue) matches my lost favorite mug. One of these days, I keep thinking I’ll find the very same mug again, and then I will be happy.

But hey, look! I found the name for the pattern of china I’ve been collecting in bits and pieces (whenever one shows up at Goodwill, really.) And I might have to bid on this, because it’s cute. I love the little monster.

I’m very tired this afternoon, probably because I didn’t get much sleep last night. I’m going to say that I doubt I’ll get any more hats done this evening, but I plan on working on them again tomorrow afternoon/evening. And I’m going to bed early tonight.

*I should probably say that my only other spare tall mug. I have lots of mugs. I just use the ones that hold a lot of tea. I think the one I’m using holds about 16oz.

EDIT: HA! Obviously my current mug is a bit easier to find than the Haunsenware one. Cool. I do really like this mug. It’s very stable and I love the fact that it holds a lot.

I am bidding on another serger, too; we’ll see if I win this one or not.

The plants are in, I have a bushel of stuff to go through when I get home tomorrow (from the garden, of course), and we had pizza tonight for supper. Yum.

I’m hoping to do one more hat tonight, and then I’m going to write for a bit, since I’m at a good part in Full Moon.

Lots of funny pictures of me wearing hats.

But at least you can see what they look like! I think I’m going to put a brim on the second black and white wool hat. I like how the purple one turned out.

So I decided to look on ebay for a head form to display my hats, and look! An ALIEN!

I have the pieces for 8 hats cut out at the moment; all I have to do is sew them up. (I’m making two of each color if I possibly can; it’s easier just to cut out to circles for the top part than one, so I figured I might as well.)

So far, a vintage 70s lilac, green and teal floral corduroy lined with jersey knit bright grass green (it works, honest!), a black and white plaid wool lined with black flannel, and a floral cotton upholstery fabric lined with dark green cashmere.

I can get really creative with this, I realize. This is not a bad thing. After all, I did want to use my sewing machine more this year…

And what a difference it makes with good scissors! The majority of the scissors I bought in the boxlot of the auction are really expensive scissors. I can’t believe how much of a difference it makes to have good scissors vs. the cheap-o ones I had been using!

Boy, talk about being distracted.

I listened to the local NPR station all day long while in my office (yay for internet radio!) and still only managed to get a few things done. One hat and scarf set, about 15 bracelets, two garlands with scrap fabric and wooden beads (they turned out well); everything that I seemed to start petered out after a bit. I did no dolls, but those *could* wait until next weekend.

And then I got this idea.

See, this year I’ve had this thing about wearing hats. It’s been such a hot summer (and I prefer a hat over sunglasses any day) and my hair’s no longer curly, so I can actually wear hats.

I have one favorite winter hat, which is bright blue and crocheted from the softest angora yarn, but the rest of my winter hats are of the same style, and I really wanted to find something else. So I cobbled together a pattern from a hat I rather like (kind of a bucket hat, I guess) and tried it out.

The resulting wool sweater hat worked, but it’s too big, so I put it in the ’sale’ pile and then found the small piece of neat-o tapestry fabric that I found in one of the boxes I bought at the auction last spring. I’ve been saving this piece of fabric, trying to decide what to do with it, because I really, really like it. It reminds me of the forest.

So, around 9:30pm last night, I made myself a winter hat.

I lined it with a recycled sweater, so it’s really really warm. I love the way it turned out, although it’s a bit disconcerting to see myself in passing in a mirror, since I wasn’t used to seeing tapestry fabric on my head.

After that, I got the idea to make one out of sweaters and lined as well, so I pulled a really fuzzy sweater out of my pile (in a beautiful teal and purple mohair) and lined it with cobalt blue chenille fabric. it’s almost a crown, it’s so pretty.

So today, I’m planning to make more hats. I also have to get into the garden, pick and dig up everything, clean up in the dining room so I can bring in my plants, bring in my plants, and stuff like that. I’m going to be very, very busy today.

My alarm clock decided that it was the time change last night, and I thought I woke up an hour earlier than I actually did this morning. Argh!

Today is Craft Show Day!

Meaning, I have to get going on this stuff or I’ll end up with nothing at my table but notecards! Ack!

I have this weekend and next weekend and that’s it. And next week too, but I really want to get a lot done today. So that is what I will be doing.

Tomorrow, I have to clean in the dining room in preparation for the plants, bring in the plants because it’s supposed to get down to 34 Sunday night, and do stuff like that. Today, craft show stuff.

Wish me luck.

(I managed to fit the first 7 chapters of Full Moon on one CD last night, so I’m going to listen to it this morning and see how it sounds. The story itself is going quite well.)

As a somewhat extra thing this year at the craft shows, I will have sampler audio CDs of various snippets of stories for sale, including excerpts from the beginnings of Heart’s Desire, Full Moon, and Budget Cuts, so far. The Heart’s Desire excerpt will probably be one whole CD–over 70 minutes–since the first section ended up a little over 40 minutes. I’ll probably do the same with Full Moon as well.

They will be unedited (as in, there are definitely a couple of mistakes) and author’s cuts. Limited editions, too!

If anyone here might want one, let me know. I’m thinking that I’ll try selling them for $5 each to start with, which would include shipping for those who would need it.

(I will also do requests, if anyone might have one.)