In The Spirit

My inner crafter (I call her Sabrina) woke me up at 5:30 am on Halloween morning.  I tried to shut it up so I could get some more sleep, but it would not be ignored.  You see, the night before I had been at Walmart, browsing the craft clearance, and had picked up a bag of random fabric pieces. Once I got home, I found that deep in this bag was a 6 inch wide strip of gray cotton, covered in skulls.  I knew I should use it for Halloween, but was too tired to come up with something.  Apparently, Sabrina had been hard at work while I was sleeping, because I had a picture of this in my head when I woke up.

I couldn't get a very good picture of it, for some reason, but there is a cute little floret on the top left corner.  In the picture it just looks like a blurry spot.  Anyway, here are directions if you have a little piece of extra fabric and would like to make one yourself.  In keeping with the Halloween theme, I used a piece of chain that used to hang paper lanterns from my ceiling as the strap.  You could use another piece of fabric or pick up some store-bought purse handles.

These are the pieces for the outside, which I cut from the skull fabric:
2 - 11"x 6" (front and back pieces)
2 - 4"x 8 3/4" (top for front and back pieces)
2 - 2" x 3 1/2" (to make loops for the strap)

Lining:
2 - 8" x 8 3/4" (inside front and back)
2 - 6" x 4" (inside pockets - optional)

There was also the chain for the strap and a little button that I had on hand.

1. I folded the top outside pieces in half lengthwise and ironed them.  Then I folded their edges under and ironed that, too.
2. I hemmed the inside pockets, then sewed them onto the inside front and back pieces.
3. I did a basting stitch across the top of the bigger front and back outside pieces, then gathered them slightly, so that they would match up with the tops that I cut. Instructions here.

4. I placed the gathered edge in between the folded edges of the top piece that I previously ironed, and sewed them together.  I did the same for both front and back.
5. With right sides together, I stitched the front and back pieces, doing the sides first and starting at the top edge, because when I start at the bottom, I always end up with uneven top edges.

6.  Before sewing the inside and putting it in, turn what you have right-side-out and check to see that the seams are all strong.  I got a little too close to the edge when I sewed the top on the front and had to fix it by hand, because I didn't notice until I had put the whole thing together.
7.  With right sides together, I sewed together the inside front and back.  I then put the inside into the outside and pinned the bottom to keep it in place while I got the top ready.  I folded the edge of the lining down, toward the outside, and pinned it in place.
8.  The 2" strips were folded in fourths, with the cut edges folded under, and I just did a zigzag stitch down the middle of each one.  I then folded them in half and stuck the ends in between the outside and the lining, then sewed around the top of the purse.
9.  I put a buttonhole in the front center and sewed the button to the inside edge of the purse.  Instructions here.

10.  The ruffled floret was an afterthought, created to cover my hand stitching.  I cut the remaining pieces of skull fabric into 1" strips and hand stitched through the center of the strips in a tight spiral pattern onto a piece of black fabric.  Once I had it the way I wanted it, I cut away the extra backing and attached it to the purse using a blanket stitch.

FYI: If you're using chain as the strap, learn from my mistakes and don't put it on until you're all finished with everything else.

Finally, Sabrina was satisfied and, since Baby Bear was with her daddy this weekend, I took a nap.  :-)

Pumpkin Decorating: day 2

I suppose there actually is a silver lining in every cloud.  I took Baby Bear to the doc on Friday and was told she has the swine flu.  The poor dear went from "kinda sickly" on Friday morning to "really yucky" within a few hours.  The silver lining I mentioned was that, after she started treatment, she was feeling much better and wanting to create.  We needed some sedentary activities to do, so the pumpkins finally got some more attention.

I de-gutted the first pumpkin as Baby Bear looked on.  She was really looking forward to cutting holes in it with the apple corer.  She wasn't strong enough to push the corer all the way through, but she did the best she could, then handed it over to me.  I used a hammer to tap the corer in, then pulled it out, leaving the little round plugs in the pumpkin shell.  Baby Bear poked the plugs through, then reached inside the pumpkin to fish them out.  It was great fun!  We were quite satisfied with the result.

Unfortunately, we didn't have the same luck with the green pumpkin (or pumpkin-like gourd) and the apple corer.  It looks grey in the pic, but really it's a pretty soft sage color and I was really looking forward to carving it.  First, I nearly lost my knife; I got it stuck, trying to cut a nice little lid out of the top.  This thing was as dense as concrete and almost as heavy, too!  The stem broke off in the car, so I had nothing to pull the top off with once I got it cut.  I pried and pulled, hammered and pushed, but nothing worked.  I finally gave up on the top and tried to put holes in it with the apple corer.  Bad idea.  I finally did get the thing hammered in up to the hilt, but then I couldn't get it out!  Alas, I believe that is the last of my little plastic apple corer.  In trying to extract it, I broke off little orange slivers, leaving sharp edges to cut fingers on.  Anyway, we ended up with one holey orange pumpkin, instead of two polka-dotted ones. 

Next, we broke out the glitter.  I chose crystal glitter for this project, because I wanted to keep the natural color of the pumpkins.  Now, I had purchased a dainty little pumpkin to glitter, but my dear sweet little girl immediately claimed that one as her own.  She decided to decorate it as a birthday gift to her daddy, as his birthday is so close to Halloween.  She did a great job, but I wish I'd had another little one.  The glitter seems somehow out of place on this hulking, ungainly vegetable.  The color looked much more uniform once the glue dried, but I found some spots where I must have accidently wiped it with my sleeve, so I'll have to touch those up before displaying it. 

"After" pics will be forthcoming, but we have three left to decorate first.  Yes, I do realize I went a little pumpkin-crazy this year.