It looked like we should rake this morning but it was so beautiful and what is Halloween without leaves to slosh through?

We had a really great day. We decided with all that we have been doing on the house that we should take the day off right after we took a trip to historic house parts annual tent sale. Sweetpea did not want to join us but that was the plan. In the end we did not get anything big for the house, we did find twist locks for the spice cupboards. Yippee!

But the real winner was helen. i have been casually looking for a manual typewriter for her for a while now and we found one there. she was beside herself. we came home and she typed her little heart out. daddy was very excited too. he spent a long time online trying to figure out what type it was and looking to order some fresh typewriter ribbon for her. so it is a royal 10 he thinks from 1935. we all love it whatever it is!

we also had not been to the movies in ages. we decided to surprise our girl so we blindfolded her and put her in the car. she kept peaking with just the bandanna on so i had to put my scarf over that too. this was fun. we took her to our favorite local independent theater, the little to see where the wild things are. i am sure that many of you have also heard that maybe not the best movie for smaller children. there were some intensely emotional scenes and some frightening scenes and some very sad scenes too. we all really enjoyed it. we think also not so great for younger kids we did have some discussions with our daughter after the movie to talk about all the emotional issues. i think she understood some and not others. i think that maybe she could relate to many of the emotions too. this was a very well done movie. i can't stop thinking about it 3 days later.

so this day did not seem to want to end. we had our neighborhood halloween parade then mexican buffet at our friends then finally trick or treating.

it was such a beautiful night here. it was a little crisp, clear and still. the moon was just perfect too. hope that you enjoy your day as much as we did.

here is our hermoine granger.

the path to class

felting class

my first class was felting with another new creative friend and house mate betz white she has 2 books that you need to check out.

Warm Fuzzies: 30 Sweet Felted Projects
Sewing Green: 25 Projects Made with Repurposed & Organic Materials

my felted project in process

i wish that i had taken more pictures in this class. everyone made very unique things. i was really feeling challenged with my design and my sewing skills. with so much support in this class i pushed on and ended up with a nearly finished bag, nothing short of a miracle. one of the big goals is to complete projects. this was the only class that i did not do some initial prep for.

creative characters

i did get to take one of mirsa's classes. yippee! as soon as i signed up for this class we started to discussing what types of charcters i could make. i asked helen if she would make some drawings that i could use to make some characters. in the end, i used a drawing that my husband and i love very much that she did before i even knew about squam.

meet shy horse.

this is the pattern that i made from helen's picture in the process of cutting the pieces.

this is the pattern all cut and pinned and ready to sew. it went just fine. marisa was so encouraging. i so enjoyed my day.

i stuffed it was some buckwheat that helen loves and sewed it up. i still need to work on the embellishments but shy horse is all together! helen loved her.

i am very excited. i can't wait to make more of these from her drawings. i think that this is going to be something very fun that we can do with her friends too. so much of this project the kids will be able to do. i think they will love picking out the fabric and embellishments.

here are most of the other creative characters from my class. again incredible creative.

block printing fabric

the last class that i took was block printing with incredible lizzy house

i don't want to seem redundant but she is yet another amazingly creative new fabulous friend from nirvana.

we really clicked. i am just sorry that i missed the first two days with her. but we had fun after that.

here is lizzy giving us the printing demonstration

i made blocks from helen's shy horse and another older picture that she had done called "baby bird in a tree"

here is the take home of my creations from my time at squam.

the second night that i was there when we were visiting in nirvana and sharing some wine i was able to make some bracelets for breast cancer. the other two night that i had left i was so exhausted from creating during the day, eating and the evening events that i didn't have any energy to make more bracelets.