Waiting!

 It seems like all I have done lately is WAIT! Repairmen are supposed to be here and yet I WAIT! This makes day number two of waiting for Cox Cable and even more than that for the repairman who is supposed to be replacing my broken skylight. And, my new A/C unit that is supposed to be installed tomorrow? Well, I am waiting for a response to see if that is still going to happen. I was getting pretty agitated this morning because I was just bored. Did I forget to mention that my car is in the shop so I'm pretty much stuck here - which I would be anyway because, well, I have to wait!

I didn't want to get involved in any large projects just in case someone actually did what they said they would do so I scanned the things I have around here and came up with a Halloween idea. When I showed you my recent $ Tree haul, you may have noticed a black oil funnel. It just read witch's hat to me but I had no idea how I would do it...until today's desperation kicked in. I decided I wanted it a bit "slouchy" so, I got out my box of fabrics and pulled out all of the black fabric I had - which turned out to be a lot as there was much left over from many past Halloween costumes. I pulled out the crushed "velvet" and decided to give it a go. I started by measuring how much I would need to go around the largest part of the cup at the end and cutting a rectangle that was a few inches taller.

I cut that out, sketched a triangle and cut that out as well.

Then it was a simple matter of stitching up a narrow seam. I actually thought I might have to do this a few times until I got it right - remember, I'm a measure once cut twice kind of girl. Lol But, as luck would have it, I got it right on the first try. It fit perfectly around the bottom and was tall enough to allow the fabric to slouch on the cone.

When I was at HL the other day, I picked up a package of wood rounds and thought I would glue two together to give me some depth and then just paint them black. But, since luck seemed to be on my side ( at least where witch hats were concerned) and the "velvet" was so easy to work with, I decided to give covering the circle with the fabric a try. I thought I would have to cut a number of little snips around the circle as you often have to when you are wrapping fabric around something circular but there was enough stretch to this fabric that it went on perfectly - I just used hot glue.

And then to make it sit flat I just cut a circle from a piece of black cardstock and glued it over the raw edges of the fabric. Then, I hot glued the bottom edges of the fabric to the inside of the oil funnel cone and glued the cone on to the brim.

When that was done, I started to think about how I wanted to embellish it. I love vintage and even though this was a velvet witch's hat, I decided against the tinsel or "fancy" trims and decided to go with colored and grunged cheese cloth. I put some water, paint, instant coffee and cinnamon into a bowl and submerged the cheese cloth. When it was the color I wanted, I draped it on a bush outside to dry...it dries really fast!

For right now, I just tied the cloth around the hat and added a Halloween hang tag using a piece of rusty wire. I twisted it around the cone and then added a rusty bell at the other end. I'm thinking if I can find some rusty stars in HL soon that I will swap one of those for the bell.

Is this my favorite project ever? Nope! Do I know where it is going to go? Nope. But, did it take my mind off of all of the waiting I was doing. Definitely - for awhile - and now I continue to WAIT some more. I am always seriously surprised by the lack of communication you get from people you are paying to do a job. Just a simple text that "I got delayed...be there tomorrow" or "I'm sorry I'm late but I'll be there soon" or even "I'm not coming at all". Just any word so that you're not sitting there waiting and worrying that you'll miss a knock at the door or a call. That's my rant for the day. Not much I can do about it. Stay safe and stay tuned.