Witching You A Happy Halloween

Greetings Ghoulfriends~

Are you all ready for little trick or treaters? Only one more day til the hordes ascend your doorstep!

I have a little seasonal witchery-stitchery to share with you today! This is the very last of my Swap-bot swaps for the season. As much as I love them, I gots to get to work on "C" gifts... I can't bring myself to say the word just yet, but y'all know what I mean...

Do you guys remember the Pin Up Swap I did a while back? (refresher link here) That was a good bit of fun, so when I saw that Snifferooski was hosting a Round 2, I signed up straight away. Seeing as how the send to date was coming close to Halloween, I knew immediately that I wanted to do a witch. A sexy, pin up witch, meow!

I loved seeing all the pin up girls that were swapped during the first round, and there was one that I was especially smitten with. It was given to Katy at Sew Lovely Embroidery and it was made by Carrie, who makes LOTS of cute stuff, and is one heck of an embroideress! You can see her Flickr Photostream here, and her blog here. I mean seriously, look at the detail! It's amazing! Very inspiring indeed, so I set off looking for the perfect witch to stitch!

As luck would have it... guess who my "send to" partner was for this swap? That's right, Carrie!! Ack, the pressure was on! This had to be good, after all, it was her piece that inspired mine - in a round about way.

My witch had to have stockings, not the orange & black striped kind (which are remarkable similar to those on my feet right this very instant), she needed some va-va-va-voom stockings!

Let's get to it, shall we?

Firstly, I gave her some seriously hot shoes, then I added the stockings. I used sheer ribbon.

Stitched down, then carefully snipped away with very sharp, very pointy scissors.

Next, I did the broom.

I padded the broom with a lot of different length stitches to get it to look like a real straw broom.

Moving on to her dress...

I cut the dress shape from velvet ribbon and stitched down. I love the result, but I'd use a different fabric next time. Velvet sheds so much once it's cut into that it almost melts away at the edges. It had me nervous, the piece of ribbon that comprised the dress was so small it wouldn't have taken much for it to shed enough around the edges to loose its shape.

Then I started her hair

I used two colors of brown, a light and a dark. I started with the light, the "highlights", then filled in all over the place with tiny stem stitches, two strands of floss.

Seems to me that I remember the hair taking a looong time.

Lastly I stitched on her hat and the bright swath of orange under the brim of that pointy hat. And lastly, I stitched her face.

Oy-vey, that face! Sure it looks nice now. What you don't see is the 3 or 4 times I snipped it out, blotted the water pen off of the fabric, let it dry, then tried again. These two little eyes, a nose and lips took an entire evening... ugh. Faces aren't my strong suit.

Almost ready to ship!  But first, I needed to finish the back.

I stitched my name, and the year on the back of some left over black fabric.

After carefully removing the extra fabric from the hoop (with an Exacto knife), I hot glued orange ribbon down over the back of the hoop.

I added some ribbon to hang the piece from, and viola!

She's ready to fly away to her new home in Oregon.

Carrie sent me a very sweet email when she received it. Apparently her boss thought it ought to become an "office" decoration, even had the perfect spot to hang her so "everyone could enjoy it" but Carrie is fast on her feet, and she snatched this little witch up and took her home... good for you, Carrie!! I would have too!

Carrie was also, very sweet and patient about getting her piece. I'm embarrassed to say that I was shockingly late on getting this piece in the mail... like almost 3 weeks late. (Eee-gads, talk about scary!)

So there you are my friends, a sexy, Pin Up, witchy-pooh!

Have you guys done any Halloween or fall sewing or embroidery? This is the time that weather cools down and I feel more like sitting down and stitching... good times!

Wishing you all 

A VERY HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!

oxo,

Lisa

Groovy, Mama!

Hi Again! I know what you're thinking, she just posted yesterday, and yet here she is again today!

 I know, right?!? It's crazy.

Having this new laptop to zip around the Internet is quite inspriring. It reminds me of that Mazda commercial... "Zoom, zoom, zoom!"

So yeah, back in September I had a little something-something in the works for my mom's birthday which was in early October, just about the same time as the "great computer crash of 2010".

Want to see? Ok!

Hmm, what could this little package hold?

Bunting! Tye-dye bunting!!

Because, you know, every mom needs 12 feet of tye-dye bunting.
It's a fact. Ask your mom.

(Uh-oh... my garden doesn't look so nice in this picture. Look away, look away!)

My mom likes to camp, a lot. And when she does, she likes to hang bright tapestries in and around her campsite. It's really cool & groovy looking. I love it, especially when I pull into the campground after she's all set up, it's really easy to find her campsite. I made this bunting for her to use for whatever she likes, but I think it would look especially cool hanging in the woods.

I stitched up this wee little tag and sewed it to the backside one of the flags.

Oooh, swirly colors!

Mom really loved her bunting, I think she got a big kick out of it.

On her actual birthday she and I went to the Northern California Renaissance Faire, huzzah!

Happy birthday, beautiful, groovy Mama! I love you!

Hope you had as much fun as I did.

It's good to be back in Bloglandia, thank you all SO VERY MUCH for all your "welcome backs", you guys are the best! It's been great visiting you guys again (at warp speed). Looks like you've all been pretty busy too!

Holy moly, look at that! Perla makes 100!!

Hi Perla, welcome to the blog!

That's it! I'm having a giveaway!

More deets soon, pinky swear!

oxo,

Lisa

Back In Business!!

Well hello there girlie-whirlies!! Guess who has her fancy~schmancy new laptop up and running???

THIS GIRL RIGHT HERE!!

Yeah, that's right... me!!

Oooo~da~lolly! This is neat! As I sit here on the sofa watching the evening news I'm chatting with you all in Bloglandia, this is so cool! Gosh, too bad it took my computer blowing up to realize that the 21st century is as comfy as my big red couch.

I've been a busy bee these last few weeks while I've been out bloggy commission and I have lots to share with you guys, now I just need to get all the photos off of my camera and on to the computer...

And whoa! Would you look at that? My little blog has almost 100 followers! {although I really prefer to think of you guys as friends, followers just sounds weird to me} How'd that happen? I think this calls for some sort of celebration, whad'ya think? I'm thinking giveaway and I'm thinking some sort of stitchy goodie and a nice cuppa tea!! Hmm... I'll have to put my thinking cap on and see what I can come up with. Details will follow soon, so make sure you come on back and see what I dream up!

Muahahahaha!

Ok! (cracking knuckles) It's time for some blog surfing... I'm coming to visit and catch up with you guys! Ready or not, here I come!

oxo,

Lisa

Soon!

Oh boy, oh boy!! My new laptop computer arrived yesterday. My friend, who is also the IT guy at my office, has it in his safekeeping for the weekend to get it all set up for me. My fingers are crossed that it'll be ready on Monday! I was so excited when he brought it in to show me that I actually "squeeeed" and was bouncing in my chair & clapping my hands like a kid! It's so shiney you guys!! Isn't it purty?!?

I can't wait til I have it here at home and I can spend some time getting caught up on all your blogs. I feel so outta the loop...

"See" you all real soon!
Lisa

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New Computer & Some Crazy (quilting) Talk!

Howdy-doo Folksies,

Good news, good news! My new computer has been ordered and is on its way!!! I'm so excited, I ordered a laptop and I feel like a grown-up now, woo-hoodily-hoo! I just can't wait! By this time next week I'll be surfing' & bloggin' from the couch, yay!

So since this weird little phone app won't let me add more than one picture per post, I thought I'd share a little sneak of something I've been working on here and there over the past couple if months whenever I have a few extra minutes or am in between projects. Go easy on me gals, this is my first go at crazy quilting. I *think* I'm doing this right...

It's kind of neat now that I'm at the adding embellishments stage, placing little bits of this & that wherever I please is sort of fun. I have no idea where I'm going with this piece, or what I'm going to do with it when it's finished. But I think I'd like to do something *other* than a pillow. What do you guys think?

Hope your all doing well and I can't wait to catch up on all your blogs. Have a great night!

Oxo,
Lisa

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Drats!

You know what's sad? A girl with a dead computer who's having serious blog withdrawals.

My poor, decrepit desk top computer has had its last harrah, I'm afraid. It's been trying to go peacefully, but I've been staunchly fighting for its life for several months. Alas, its time has come... and gone. Thankfully, I have one of these new fangled smart phones (a Droid Incredible) so I have some web access, in fact its how I'm posting this blog, but its just not the same. So, unexpectedly I find myself in the market for a new computer. I think am going to join the 21st century and get a laptop (which I will not lie, is kind of exciting!). I'm debating over the highly recommended Mac Book, or a PC... decisions, decisions...

At any rate, I miss you guys so I just wanted to pop in and say hi, so..."hi!" Hopefully. I'll be back in action soon. In the meantime I'm staying busy as usual and trying new things which I can't wait to chat with you all about!

I hope that you're all doing well and enjoying a beautiful fall! It's still pretty warm here in NorCal, so I'm still waiting for my beloved Autumn.

Oxo,
Lisa

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