Halloween Traditions

I loved Halloween when I was young.  But then, what kid doesn’t enjoy dressing up as their favorite character and getting free candy?   As a child I loved dressing up and wearing makeup once a year and dumping out my treat bag after a day of trick or treating and counting and categorizing all my goodies into neat piles of bars, coins and the things that went in a bowl for my older brother and sister.  They were 6 and 7 years older than me, so because they didn’t go trick or treating anymore, they sat like vultures hovering over my candy stash waiting for my rejects. 

When I was young, Halloween was a big part of my year, not only because it involved dressing up and scouring the neighborhood for treats, but because it was always tied in with my birthday which happens to be the day before Halloween.   My mom always had my birthday party on Halloween, and all my guests came dressed in costume and after cake and ice cream, we headed out for an afternoon of trick-or- treating.  Back then, our costumes were thrown together with whatever we happened to have lying around the house.  Although the costumes fell a bit short of the wide array of costumes available to buy and rent today, we were very happy concocting our very own creations.  There was something very creative and special about digging through the attic, basement, dresser drawers and jewelry boxes in an  effort to create the best ghost, gypsy, pirate, jailbird, witch or baseball player ever.  True, these were your garden variety costumes, but the creativity involved in putting together those costumes was fun and memorable because we created them ourselves.

But as I grew older, Halloween took on a different dimension.  I saw it through different eyes when I became a mom.  There is something magical about a little one in a pair of feety pajamas with a little makeup painted animal nose and a pair of floppy ears atop a tiny headband that sets my heartstrings in overdrive.  I’m just a sentimental fool for things like that.

 My son as a fish in a barrel

My daughter as a  candy bag

So when my children arrived, I wanted to recreate for them, the magic that I experienced as a child with creating my own costumes.  Not only that, but the artist in me wanted to create something very unique for them.  My daughter arrived on the scene first, so all my creative efforts were concentrated on her.  I started out small, making a bee outfit out of black felt and yellow fake fur with an antennae headband.  Then came a unicorn with pink tights, a pink sweatshirt and a unicorn horn with multicolored yarn for a mane.  Then I really stepped it up.  Our town has a Halloween Parade and contest each year the local elementary school.  When my daughter entered kindergarten, the fun began! She was a cat from “Cats”, then a sandwich with an olive hat, a tree with a hanging swing and bird’s nest hat, a candy bag complete with cellophane wrapped candy and a chocolate kiss hat ( I also won a prize at our local fabric store for that one!) She was a cat in a tuna fish can, a mouse in a piece of cheese and a piece of birthday cake.  Then she grew up and created her own costumes.  The torch was passed.  We won a prize every year and I tried to outdo myself with each passing year.  I don’t know whether she had more fun wearing the costumes or I had more fun creating them.  She loved every minute of wearing those costumes and when I cleaned out my basement and threw them all away, I had to fight back the tears.

Enter my son, seven years later.  He began his first Halloween experience as a lion in Noah’s ark (of course I had to come up with something he could travel in).  He was a bookworm in a fairytale book, a fish in a barrel, and a cup of cocoa.  Although his costumes were also winners, he didn’t seem to enjoy the whole dressing up in Mom’s creations for very long and soon reverted to the pirate, the ghoul, a werewolf, then onto masks and hairy hands.  Maybe it was a boy thing, but however short the creative spurt lasted, I had a wonderful time creating those costumes for him.

My daughter has already hinted that when she has kids, that she wants me to create their costumes and keep the Halloween tradition alive.  My son is not quite in that traditional frame of mind at this time in his life, but maybe someday.  Even if my future grandchildren rummage through a box of old clothes in search of the perfect pirate, princess or monster attire, I can rest assured in the knowledge that Halloween traditions really haven’t changed all that much since I was a kid.  It’s still about dreaming, imagining and pretending, oh, and lest we forget, candy munching, the stuff that childhood is made of!

My son as a lion in Noah's ark

Inspirational Owls

My sample owl

One evening when I took my dogs out one last time before turning in for the night, I heard the distant hooing of an owl perched in one of the trees in the woods behind our house.  The tree branches silhouetted against the October moon creaked eerily as they swayed in the breeze.  The owl hooed softly in the distance, and I got a sort of Halloween feeling.

Inspiration!  That would be the perfect next sewing project.  This will be a sweet Halloween treat for my Sewing Club “ghouls”.  So I immediately checked out the internet and found a few ideas.  I had to sift out some projects because of difficulty, but I came upon this project by sewtara.com that I figured was a good fit for my sewing teens…an adorable felt owl!

Student owl in progress

I usually email the girls a reminder of our weekly meeting and tell them what we will be doing for the next few meetings to keep their interest.  When they heard we were going to make owls, they were very excited.  Thank goodness for that, because sometimes I don’t know how my inspirations will be received by the girls, but I think after all these years of teaching art, I have a pretty good idea what will work and what won’t.

Sewing Club meets every Thursday after school and, last week, I think we had the best turn-out ever!   This week we had a conflict and we met today instead. I have several new members who just seemed to ease right into what we were doing the week before.  The challenge of having a club like this is often its inconsistencies.   Students don’t come every week for one reason or another, or come late, so they have to catch up on what they missed, or wind up not finishing a project because we have moved onto something else.  Right now, we are finishing up the Scrap-Buster Fall Pillow project, so girls are in various stages of completion.  Several of them came the day after last week's meeting in their unscheduled time to finish up the pillows in preparation for next project.  But we put the pillows aside for this week, so the girls could all start the owls together and branch off next week to machine sewing their pillows or working on their hand stitched owls.

Student work

Since November is swiftly approaching, the owl will be the one of the last in the series of fall projects.  We will be working on a simple tote bag and then the drawstring bag that I referenced in an earlier post, come November. So here we go with another fall fling!

Now that my club is fairly large, I need to make sure I have enough materials for them each week.   I have been crafting for many years.  I have made lots of different things and have amassed a huge amount of materials like scrapbooking paper, fake fur, ribbons, embroidery floss, all sorts of fabric, felt and wood pieces.  After the hurricane a few months ago, our basement flooded and it became apparent that many of the things I had stashed away in the basement had to be thrown away, sadly.  But my interests have changed over the years, so it was time to move on anyway.

Student owls in progress

Saturday is usually my day to scout out materials for the next week.  After doing a little shopping at the mall and going to the grocery store this Saturday, I didn’t have too much time or energy left to get the felt I needed for this week’s owls.  I remembered that from the days of making felt ornaments and things of that sort, I had a wide assortment of felt in the closet in our computer room.  As I said, I don’t really use too much of that anymore, so I am going to donate it to our club.  So I didn't have to make a trip to the thrift shop or the fabric store and I am clearing out my closet (for which my husband will be eternally grateful!)

So we forged ahead to hand stitched stuffed owls, which, I might add, are turning out be be a lot cuter and much less scary than the one perched in a tree hooing softly in the woods in my backyard!  I can't wait to see how they all turn out.

Student owl almost ready to be stitched

Falling Fabric Leaves

Fall is just full of inspiration!  One of the most vividly colorful seasons, an artist or crafter would be hard pressed not to find something to inspire them.  Multi hued leaves, orange pumpkins, bales of hay and slightly weathered burlap faced scarecrows offer a variety of colors, shapes and textures just begging to be transformed into a work of art.

After last week’s Sewing Club’s hand stitched pumpkin pincushion project, which, I might add was a big success, I thought I would keep the autumn theme going with another fall inspired project.  The girls are itching to use the sewing machines, so I guess I have to finally pull the machines out of the closet and set them up.  Machine sewing is an exciting prospect, especially to teenage girls.  They are getting pretty good at threading needles and simple hand stitching, so I suppose they are ready for a simple machine sewn project.  Since I only have 4 sewing machines, we are going to have to alternate time on the sewing machines.  One group will work on a hand sewing project while 4 will work on the sewing machine.

Student adaptation of Scrap-Buster Fall Pillow by Cluck Cluck Sew

I actually saw this project last year from Cluck Cluck Sew and loved the variety of patterns and colors and its simple yet striking design.  When I was searching for an easy machine sewn project last week, I came across it again, and knew immediately I just had to try this out with the Sewing Club girls.  I simplified it a little bit due to time constraints and the girls’ lack of sewing experience. 

I pre-ironed the Heat Bond on various fabric pieces, cut some trunk and leaf templates, let the girls rummage through the fabric pieces and had them trace and cut the leaf and tree trunk shapes from the backed fabric.  I eliminated the stitching on the leaves and the envelope stitched back.  The girls will just iron on the pieces, and stitch and stuff the pillow instead of inserting a pillow form.  Two or three of the girls had time to iron on their trunk and leaf appliqués onto their pre-cut solid pillow backgrounds and will be ready next meeting to stitch their pillows on the sewing machine.  Many of the girls still have to finish cutting and ironing which is really a blessing in disguise because of my limited number of sewing machines.

Student adaptation of PurlBee's Very Easy Pincushions

I totally enjoy moderating this club.  The girls are so proud of their creations and one girl, who is always the first one in the room at dismissal, said that Thursday is her favorite day of the week because of Sewing Club.  She even passed on the Gelato Sale sponsored by the World Language Club so she could pay her Sewing Club dues!   

Knowing how to sew is such a valuable tool!  I can’t tell you have much it has helped me through the years.  Besides making my own clothes throughout high school, and making my daughter’s outfits when she was young, I made countless Halloween costumes and crafts projects including fabric pumpkins, dolls and Christmas ornaments.  I have come full circle and now sew ring bearer pillows, wedding hair bands, and fabric flower bouquets.  Although I teach art, sewing offers me a little change of pace from the pencil and paintbrush.  I just love to create, period.  I can’t wait to try things out with lots of different mediums.    

As a teacher, my job is to inspire my students to appreciate, to learn, to develop their own passions about art, about sewing, about life.  If they can leave my room on Thursday afternoons with a newly sewn creation in their hands and a smile on their face, I know I have done my job!

Autumn Treasure Hunting

As I mentioned in my last post, my daughter and I make our annual excursion to the fall rummage sale held each year by the Visiting Nurses’ Association in the beginning of October.  It is a huge event held rain or shine, at fairgrounds about 25 minutes from my house.  I have to say that most times we went it rained.  But we always dressed for the occasion, rain boots, umbrellas and hooded sweatshirts, and virtually nothing could come between us and our quest for bargains.

We have walked away with some interesting finds the over the years ranging from fireplace tools, books, picture frames and candy jars to acrylic paints, note cards and, of course, fabric! 

My daughter lives in Maryland, so our yearly pilgrimages now have to be carefully planned between work for both of us, and other things happening in our lives.  But this weekend, she made a special trip for a brief visit and a jaunt to our favorite spot.

I have to admit, we couldn’t have asked for better fall weather.  The sun was shining, the air was crisp and cool, so we didn’t have to lug around umbrellas and try to balance them while carrying a bag full of treasures and digging through goody-laden boxes!  But we are troopers in the face of adversity!

This year’s beautiful weather drew a seemingly larger crowd than usual, if that is even possible, so we decided to play it smart and rather than wait in traffic and park in the main lot on the fairgrounds where the tents are set up on one section of the grounds, we opted for an additional parking venue down the street and around the corner.  It was about an 8 minute walk, but we figured it was a nice day, and we were excited at the prospect of bargain hunting, so that walk was welcome exercise at 9:30 AM. 

When we arrived at the entrance and noticed there really wasn’t too much traffic and there were still lots of parking spaces on the grounds, we sort of wished we had parked closer, but rationalized the 8 minute walk was good exercise on a perfect day.

Since we were there early, the lines had already started forming outside the tents.  Due to the fact that the volunteers only let a few people in at a time so as not to overcrowd the tents, we had to wait five or ten minutes tops outside the more crowded tents.  But we used that time to chit chat about the family, and what has been going on in our lives.  The first tent we visited was the dry goods tent.  This always seems to be the most crowded, but obviously, my favorite.  Since it is crowded, you have to be an acrobat to hold everything and work your way from one box to another while batting away aprons hung over the fabric boxes.  Quick decisions had to be made, but since my projects for my Sewing Club and my online shop were set in my mind, I knew what I was looking for.  I got some great buys for $20.00. 

We visited a few more tents and got some spontaneous buys, but the catch of the day was definitely a very heavy silver reindeer centerpiece with cups for votive candles in its antlers, that my daughter snagged for a mere $10.00.  A bit tarnished, we decided a little silver polish would perk it up, and even if that didn’t work, it looked kind of cool and “antiquey” with the little touch of tarnish on it.  But, what we soon realized was that it weighed a lot, as did the $20.00 worth of fabric in my canvas tote bag!  We sort of carefully picked through the other tents’ contents searching for items that didn’t weigh too much.

Since my daughter had to go to a wedding rehearsal in Delaware in the evening, we had to cut our trip rather short, and hike with our items back to the car in the lot around the corner and down the street.  The 8 minute trip back to the car with everything slung over our shoulders now seemed like a 40 minute walk with several stops along the way to rearrange the bags and rest every few feet! 
It was a wonderful day well spent with my daughter.  The drive back home found us talking about days gone by and the fact that we both have always loved the fall with its beautiful colors and welcoming fall decorations.  It’s just a homey sort of feeling that stirs up lots of fond memories when our family was young.

Tired and happy, we arrived back home with our treasures.  I said farewell to my daughter and wished her well as she drove out of my world for another few months.  As she left my driveway, I looked ahead to days when we will share this tradition with my future grandchildren.  It’s always a fun-filled day, rain or shine, to browse, buy, and best of all spend some time with one of my most precious treasures and her slightly tarnished reindeer centerpiece.

Pumpkins and Pincushions

Pumpkins….don’ t you just love them?  A definite harbinger of fall, these plump little veggies can spark just about anyone’s imagination.  Whether they are transformed into jack-o-lanterns, fall displays, centerpieces, costumes, or pies, these orange favorites are a never-ending source of autumn inspiration!

My Sewing Club is meeting at the end of the week and it’s time to start another project.  They spent the last 2 meetings playing with yo-yo’s , so now it’s time for the girls to step up their hand sewing skills just a bit before we move on to the machine.

So, in my weekly quest for new and exciting projects that would appeal to both me and the students, I came upon this very cute idea.  Now that it’s October and the leaves are changing color, the scarecrows and pumpkins are appearing on porches everywhere, I thought I would choose this seasonal twist on a sewing room staple- the pin cushion.

I loved the idea of the traditional tomato turned into the not-so-traditional pumpkin.  The best part of the whole project is that is basically is, what else?  A larger and stuffed version of the yo-yo, something they are quite familiar with at this point.

I really enjoy having the girls create all these projects, because, I don’t know about you, but buying fabric is, to me, one of life’s greatest pleasures.  To walk into a fabric store, especially as an artist, and see all the gorgeous patterns, colors and textures all lined up in beautifully neat rows, is truly a breathtaking experience for me.  Since I am a bargain hunter and try to keep costs down for the girls, I often seek out thrift shops and rummage sales for unique fabric treasures as well.  Although the fabric is far from being stacked neatly and color coordinated in these venues, the thrill of the hunt mentality takes over and I find myself actually enjoying the challenge of finally finding the perfect fabric for the projects at just the right price!  The problem is, I either have to figure out my projects ahead of time, or think on my feet of future project ideas, which, over the years, I have become somewhat of an expert at.  For at these one day sales, you know that either you buy the fabric now, or it’s back to the fabric store to pay full price. 

It has become a fall tradition for my daughter and me to spend some quality time visiting a local rummage sale every October.  Fortunately, we share a love for bargain hunting and great finds, and since she is a graphic designer, she also enjoys finding vintage items she can use in her house, in her work, or just for inspiration.  The acorn doesn’t fall far from the tree!

Since the rummage sale will occur after my next Sewing Club meeting, the fabric for my pumpkin pincushion project will have to come from the fabric store with its bolts of beautiful colors, gorgeous patterns and rich textures at full price. Sometimes, we all have to make a sacrifice!

Is There Life After Yo-Yos?

Well, I have decided that I love the look of sheer fabric yo-yos, but I promised myself I would try not to obsess about them anymore.  Now that I know what they look like in my desired fabric, I’m on to incorporating them into a new project.

I met with my Sewing Club students at the end of the week and they were supposed to bring in something to sew their yo-yos onto from last week, like a pillow case, or a canvas bag. Some of them did bring something in, but, as I guessed, most of them did not.  Having taught for more years than I’d like to admit to, I know that Plan B is a teacher’s best friend, therefore, I had fabric pieces ready.  I put out a large, yet slightly jumbled, box of embroidery floss and some embroidery hoops and needles.

 I found a great way for the girls to use the yo-yos while learning some simple embroidery stitches.  I had them stitch the yo-yo to their desired item and then I showed them a few embroidery stitches so they could add some stitched accents to their yo-yos.  This example I found on the internet used the yo-yos as flowers with a stem, but I showed them how to do a split stitch and French knot instead of the stitches shown, and the rest was up to them. They could do whatever they were comfortable with.  Only 2 of them finished, a few left their masterpieces for next week and a couple took them home to finish.  I’m glad I picked the stitches I did to show them, simply because they were very doable for their skill level and for the short amount of time I have to meet with them. 

That brings me to my next inspiration.  After looking up some ideas I can do with Sewing Club, I found this cute drawstring bag.  I actually tried it out by hand during a free period at school, partly because I still had my sewing machines packed away, but mostly because I always have to try things out immediately.   I didn’t want to waste any time!  I have to admit, the bag came out pretty well, even by hand, and it was very easy to make.  It was even something that my students, I feel, would be able to handle at some point.  But I always have an ulterior motive to everything I make.  Sewing Club seems to be my venue for testing out projects for my shop on ArtFire.  Enter my obsession with those darn yo-yos!  My vision is to try one of these bags in a white or ivory satin type fabric and to add a yo-yo or two, maybe with embroidered detail in white or ivory. 

The weekend is here!  I have a few orders to fill first, but then it’s my time to play!  I can’t wait to dig through the white and ivory fabric stash I have been stockpiling.  It’s the perfect opportunity to try out that drawstring bag with yo-yos. 

Keep an eye on my shop.  You may spot my new latest obsession very shortly!