Huzzah for my stash!

Incredibly, I had everything I needed to make Miss B's witch costume on hand and after a frantic sewing session last night this is the result. I think it came out quite well. It only ended up costing $8.00 for the hat and is a great improvement on the horrible thing I nearly bought her from the local shops. She thinks she looks pretty good in it and has been preening in the mirror ever since I finished the final stitch last night. Scuse the photo - it was taken in a big rush before school today. I swear it was easier to snap a shot of her without a silly expression on her face when she was a toddler!

I am feeling very smug about it all as I didn't have a pattern - I just cut out a rough dress shape, with sleeves and fudged a little (hence the pintucks!) until it fit. Amazingly it all went together with no trouble at all - even the sleeves - and I am now master of the automatic button hole function on my sewing machine. Embarassingly I had never needed to sew a buttonhole on it until last night, even though I've had my fancy pants new machine for over 5 years. All it has sewn is quilts, doll clothes, a few skirts and some costumes for a school musical that somehow didn't require buttons.

The reason I'm so pleased with myself is that although I have done lots of dressmaking in the past, it was always always with a pattern. I would not have had the faintest idea how to run up even a simple costume without one. After sewing for Blythe, human clothes are a walk in the park!

Seeing Miss B so happy with the costume made me feel a bit sad that Halloween is not really celebrated here in Australia. I know that the seasons don't aline properly etc etc but it really is a lot of fun and I can't see the harm in having to provide a few sweets for the trick or treaters. Last year Miss B dressed up and we took her around our street trick or treating but we weren't exactly welcomed by most, so this year we will go to the one child friendly event in our city that is halloween themed - the Manly Halloween Street Party. It's not quite the same (it's not even held on Halloween, but on the Saturday!), but at least she'll get to wear her costume again. On Friday night we'll carve a pumpkin and decorate the verandah - hopefully we'll see some trick or treaters on Sunday. Otherwise I will have a lot of chocolate and lollies to eat!