Last year at about 4 pm on Halloween, I realized that I had forgotten to put something together for Atticus to put his treats in. Utter nonsense, of course, the little guy was eight months old and immobile, and he still hasn’t tasted sugar. I don’t think anyone would have missed him not having a trick or treat bag. But it was just one of those moments of new mom insanity where I just couldn’t let my beloved child experience the holiday without everything being JUST SO.
I raided my never ending stash of black wool and scraps of silk dupioni for a long ago design project, and I whipped this together using last years obsession of machine applique.
I fell so in love with those sharp saturated colors against the black wool, that I thought I *had* to have a table runner made just like this. That’s what’s been in my head all year when I wrote “Halloween Table Runner” on the crafty to do list.
After spending all year working on these Halloween trees, I decided to call an audible and change that table runner idea into a tree skirt for the whimsical tree.
I’m in tree skirt overload over here right now, finishing up skirts for all my old trees and now two more for Halloween, and I have yet to get through a one without some majorly unladylike swearing sessions. I don’t care how carefully I measure for the center spot, I cannot seam to get a decent circle using the string and marker method. I’ve basically been starting with that, getting some kind of an egg shape, and then cutting it by hand to get the right shape as the skirt gets smaller and smaller and smaller.
This one had the added frustration of some mystery issues with the machine applique that I just could not troubleshoot. The orange and green stars went on like butter, but for some reason, when I tried to sew on some purple stars, made out of the same fabric just in a different color, it wouldn’t work. Stitches kept skipping, bobbin threads tied up in knots, no matter how many times I changed the needle or the threads, the purple just would not work. So I finally just decided to give up and call it finished with just the orange and green.
Gizmo is hard at work covering any empty spots with loads of white hair.
This makes me feel better…I swear sewing machines have minds of their own. Mine likes to break needles that I put in correctly. I take it your's doesn't like the color purple? 🙂
Wow, what a big dent you've made in your to do list… just look at it! I'm jealous, I need a list… smile.