Lady Dracula! and a few other things..........

Our granddaughter who has always wanted to be a beautiful mermaid or princess, etc..... for Halloween, decided that this year she wanted to be scary.  So, she told me she wanted to be Dracula.  I started thinking about it and asked her if she might want to be a female version of Dracula.  "Yes," she did want a long shiny red dress instead of black pants and vest.  I made the dress from this "lovely" red stretchy crushed velveteen.  It is a simple straight long sleeved dress with a round neckline, a keyhole opening at the back with an elastic loop and button closure.  I added a band of red satiny fabric to the bottom.  The cape is made from the black polyester fabric that I've been using as a backdrop for photographing light colored garments.  I'll have to go buy something cheap to replace it.  It has a sheen to it and was the only piece of black fabric that I had that was big enough to make this cape.  I had two other satiny pieces that I thought would work, but they were both just inches shy of being enough.  The lining, as you can see is red satiny lining fabric from Hobby Lobby.  This grand's only real request was that the lining of the cape be shiny.  She will need face paint and some fangs to complete her look.

 

This is the pattern I used for the cape, and that I will use for the next caper I'm going to make.

 

The next project is the Hermione costume.  She's the girl from Harry Potter.  Her cape is black with a burgundy  lining.  This piece of fabric that I found at Hobby Lobby is actually burgundy on one side and black on the other.  The picture makes the burgundy look orange, but it isn't at all.  I won't need to line this cape.  I will make flat felled seams so the inside won't be unfinished. 

The Hogwart's School colors are burgundy and gold.  Hermione wears a toboggan and scarf.  I am not really a knitter, but when I was in the 7th grade one of our teachers stayed after school and taught some of us how to knit and purl.  We each made a sleeveless boatneck sweater.  I still have mine.  Anyway, I played around with knitting three stitches, then purling three and came up with this cabled scarf.  I didn't know how I was supposed to join the new color of yarn, so I just tied the two together.  Since then I asked Katie at Kaddidlehopper how I was supposed to be doing this.  She told me that I should just knit the new color in leaving a length of yarn that I could go back and weave into the scarf.  I learned this too late for the scarf, but I did do that on the toboggan.  For the toboggan I did the knit 3, purl 3 for the brim and then when I added in the gold for the body of the hat I just knitted one row and purled the next, etc....  When I got to the point that the body was as tall as the brim, I started joining two stitches into one, I think this is what you call dropping a stitch, every 11 stitches, then every 10,  then every 9, etc... until I got to the row that was every 5.  At that point I stopped and pulled the remaining stitches together and sewed the two edges together and voila, I had a toboggan!  I made and added the pom-pom at the top.  Oh yeah, I added fringe to the ends of the scarf.  I know I didn't do that correctly.  I really need to learn what I'm doing if I'm going to do stuff like this.

 

I forgot to show you the plastic snakes that I started to use for the Medusa wig.  I'm going to take these two to my grand and see if they will work as a necklace.

Local Beauty

Below are some photographs that were recently in a magazine that two young ladies from our area have started publishing recently.  The first photograph shows the beautiful fall trees (it was taken last year since it's too early for our leaves to change yet this year) along the Cherahala Skyway, which is a stretch of road across the mountains that connects TN in the Cherokee National Park to NC in the Nantahala State Park.  This is not too far from where I live. 

 

This photograph is of Bald River Falls.  When I was a child we used to go to these falls very often.  Last winter the falls froze!  It was a beautiful sight!  I just wanted to share with you the beauty of nature in this area of TN.

Tomorrow is my husband's 58th birthday!  We married when we were only 20, so nearly 38 years ago.  He is still my biggest cheerleader and friend.  I thank God for him every day.