Halloweenie Stitchies!

...ignoring the fact that I was too busy to notice it's been over a week since I last posted.........*cough*

The fall leaves are terrible this year - truly terrible. They just dry up, turn brown, and fall. Not a single tree here has a color other than "hello, I'm dead-deady-dead" brown. It's kinda sad actually. (Is this because of the late summer storms and flood of rain? I have no idea, to be honest.) Oh well. There is always next year, right? 

Mmmmm! APPLES.

 One thing that is not terrible are the apple trees. They got hit hard by Irene, of course, but there are still plenty of apples for the picking. 

I love this place we go to nearby in Pomfret because the trees are short enough to walk up to and pick apples. (The places we always went to when I was a kid required some sort of long stick with a can/catch basket/clawed hand type of contraption for picking. It took coordination and patience, man!) We over-picked for 2 people - as usual. Twenty+ pounds! Might not sound like a lot to some but I, uhhhh, don't really bake. Cook, yes - practically every day of the week. Bake? Not so much with that. I think it was probably sometime around 2009 the last time I made a batch of cookies. I can usually put together a fairly decent apple crisp or dutch apple pie (provided I BUY pre-made crust, of course) so I just need to get around to doing that. I've been eating 2 apples a day since we went picking and I *might* just run of apples though before I actually get around to baking any. *snort*

Did anybody else fall under the spell of this booklet that was released last month?

Well, looky that! I guess I did because I managed to start AND finish a few projects from it within the last few weeks.  Gotta love a pattern that only calls for 4 different colors to work all of the projects. They just whip up lickety-split that way!

My first attempt at the Halloween piece though was...............not good. I had in mind to use some zig-zag trim I bought to use on my Death by Candy piece, as a sort of 'practice session' for figuring it out. (I am good at some things but straight up sewing is NOT one of them.)

Hmm. FAIL.

I basted the zig-zag down first so it wouldn't move around when sewing it to the rest of the place and.........it still did that. Some zig-zag areas were higher than others and the corners were so bunchy and icky it was painful. Back to the drawing board with this idea, I guess. I might have to shoot an email to Vonda to get some tips on this kind of finish. At least I was able to salvage the stitching part with some careful ripping and have enough to sew it into a tiny needle minder. So all was not lost. WHEW. :)