Happy Halloween!

I've had more fun working on my Halloween costume for the last few days. Microsoft invites all of the families in for Trick or Treating in the hallways, and costumes are strongly encouraged. Both for the burst of color and the fun of the sewing project, I decided to be a fall tree.

I bought felt and a few batik prints, and then found an ideal leaf in a neighbour's yard to use as a template.



I spent Saturday evening catching up on NPR and cutting and sewing. In addition to the more complex felt shapes, I cut simplified and smaller versions in the batik fabric. While I was at the fabric store, I'd lived it up and bought new sewing scissors, which turned out to be an excellent addition to the evening. Two hours of cutting and no bruises! (It's good that my new scissors are such a good fit for my hands, since I'm still stewing over the unfortunate demise of my last pair of sewing scissors -- Kevin borrowed them over the summer to cut sandpaper.)
Here are the pretty piles of felt and fabric leaves waiting to be sewn together:



...and the piles of leaves in the sunlight the next morning:



Even the scrap pile was vibrant and pretty!



I spent the football time on Sunday handsewing the leaves onto a hoodie with metallic thread.



I tried getting a finished shot in the mirror, but only got horrible flashes -- maybe I'll be able to get one at the Brown dinner tomorrow. I wore it to work today, and ended up getting the costume prize for my group -- neat! One guy came in with a very cool and very credible imitation of one of the guys from the Blue Man Group, so I felt honoured. :-) Definitely couldn't compete with all of the little kids for cuteness, though.