Pony Pumpkin

My boyfriend surprised me with a pumpkin and the comment, "Here go make something." Since I had just drawn a horse the night before I decided to try to do that on a pumpkin. Since I was at a friend's house I had to use the tools on hand.  I used a white gel pen to do the initial sketch. After the carving the ink easily washed off with a damp paper towel. It turned out to be a little short for a horse, so it's my pony pumpkin. It does have four legs but because of the curve of the pumpkin, only one is glowing.

Gourd Ideas

 I've been over on the Welburn Gourd Farm site watching some of their tutorials. They are very thorough. The only downside is they push their own product line, and many of those things you can get cheaper at your local craft shop. Some items are exclusive to the gourd world though, and worth the investment. You can also get a free catalog from them by requesting one on their site.
Faux Bird House

Hand Built Pottery I Made Yesterday

I got to work on some pottery at a friend's house yesterday. They do have a kiln if they ever get a chance to figure out how to use it.

Hand Built Pottery

I spent an awesome day today hand building pottery.  Yesterday at Agincourt I got to do some illumination and I was enjoying the little ceramic containers on the tables.  They are for water, brushes, pens, and paper weights to keep our lovely papers from blowing away in the wind.  Someone was selling pottery for cheap to raise money for the thrown weapons group. So I bought a cool vase.  All that made me crave to be making pots again. So I sat down today and made some pinch pots and coil pots with my very own hands. My friends acquired a kiln but they haven't used it yet. Hopefully they'll catch the pottery bug too and make some pots and we can fire them all. I loved having my hands in clay again. I'll post photos of them tomorrow.  For now you can see the illumination I was working on yesterday. I only did the painting on it. It was pre-printed on the card stock.

Sorting and Tossing

Today I'm doing one of those tasks that most of us hate. I'm going through boxes of projects that never quite made it.  Embroidery Christmas stocking parts that were too tedious to hold my interest, a mermaid doll I cut out and sewed and turned and then abandoned, old purses I never went through so I could give them to a thrift store and so on. I did find about $2.00 in change I added to my car fund in a giant pretzel barrel. And I found some momentos of my daughter's wedding in Vegas. Quilt projects that need to be sewn into pillows or potholders. And letters from penpals that stopped writing when e-mail took over the universe. I still have a long way to go but I have a headache from all the dust I've inhaled.
I did find some clothes that had gone missing. One is the red dress I need for my wardrobe project. It's all good, but not much fun.

Designing Fabric

I'm teaching myself to design fabric for Spoonflower. I sorely miss paint shop pro 7 because there were some cool tools on there that would have helped design fabric. I'm getting by with Photoshop but it's just not the same. You can check it out over here: Piggleswiggins on Spoonflower

Unfortunately their prices are out of my budget. Or I'd be ordering yardage of my own designs.

Witch and Skull Drawings

I found my crayons yesterday so I couldn't resist doing a witch drawing, with Halloween right around the corner. I used calligraphy paper, which was really too smooth for crayons. I have had better results with a paper with more tooth to it, like the kind for pastels. I wasn't able to do much blending which made things challenging.

Oh and a few days ago I drew a really ugly skull.

Brick Stitch Feather Earrings

Before they were too far gone, I wanted to get back to working on my brick stitch earrings. As fate would have it, one of the bead colors is reddish pink, so the earrings will go with my new fall wardrobe.

I'm holding it upside down.

Fabrics For My Fall Wardrobe Project

New Red Shirt

On Monday my boyfriend packed up and drove off to GWW with his two new shirts.  Here is the red one. He dyed the other one moss green but it was packed before I got a photo.

It's rained all day today so I have a feeling he's camping up to his ankles in mud right now. I sure hope the event isn't cancelled because of rain before he sells anything. It goes through Sunday but it's pretty hard to do sword fighting and archery if the ground is a swamp.

Sewing and Murphy's Law

After another four hours of sewing today, I'm finally done with both the shirts my boyfriend needed for Great Western War.  If you want to read the final details they are on my sewing blog. Guy's shirts. He's leaving tomorrow but still hopes to dye the shirts today.

Now I can get back to my regularly scheduled life. I bought fabric to make 2 dresses. But I need to take a break from sewing to clear my head and rest my hands. I was also up until 4 AM last night so I'm just going to relax the rest of the day.  I walked to the corner for lunch and on the way back I thought I'd lengthen my stride and burn a few more calories.  Two steps into it a pain shot through my right heel.  Now it hurts when I step down on it and when I pick my foot up again.  So I have a feeling I'm going to be needing to sit down a lot the rest of the day, which means I won't be able to help load everything for Great Western War. It's kind of hard to schlep bins if I can't put weight on my right foot.  I'm right footed too. I sure hope I won't be alone here for a week and not be able to walk much. Hopefully it will stop hurting . But for now I'm keeping my weight off of it.