I Wish I Knew!

 Oh how I wish I knew how my brain works! After breakfast and my 2 cups of coffee this morning, I began to plan my attack on the day. I have a list of things needing to be done outside and THAT was my plan. But, somewhere between that formulation and the back door to the great outdoors, this happened.

From out of nowhere I decided that today was the day to tackle the witch's stocking! I started as I always do with a project like this where all I have is an image. I grabbed my inspiration photo, brown Kraft paper and a pencil and set to work.I much prefer to work from patterns. There is something very technical about pattern making-and, we all know that that is not my forte! Lol

It is relatively easy to produce a shape about the size you might want...although even this simple task took me 2 tries. Sorry about the pictures-the sun was shining in very brightly.

Once you have that, you would think the hardest part was over but you would be wrong-at least in my experience. Of course, you have to think about the size of the seams you are going to use and you also have to take into consideration how much of your surface area will "disappear" as you stuff the project and it becomes more 3D...that is where I always go awry because it will not be the same amount of "disappearance" for the whole thing. The shape of the project definitely affects the stuffing. In any case, a lot of times I "close my eyes" and go for it-only to have to try, try again.

This time, I actually wanted the stocking to be a bit wider at the leg part but, once I stuffed it and saw how it came out, I was OK with it because I wanted a skinny, scraggly witch leg anyhow.

Once it was sewn, curves were clipped and it was stuffed.Then painting began.

I used my regular acrylic paint mixed with textile medium for the painting. I like using the medium because it makes the paint glide onto the fabric more evenly but doesn't "dilute" the color intensity of the paint the way it would if I just thinned it with water.

I used the masking tape as a barrier to the different colors of the stripes and it did an OK job. There was a bit of seepage but I corrected it the best I could. I am really not worried about it because as you will see, once the paint is all dry, I will be giving the whole stocking a coffee stain. It is supposed to look a bit ragged and grungy-just how I like it.

After the orange and black stripes were done, I painted the body of the stocking with an ivory paint. It is pretty much the same color as the muslin but I wanted paint coverage everywhere so the stain didn't sop in too heavily in raw areas.

Before I coffee stained the stocking, I decided it needed a little more love. I drew a black line between the foot of the stocking and the body and then decided to add "BOO". I was going to try to paint it but decided to just use a Sharpie marker instead...and even that was an issue as the marker kept going off of my plan because of the bumps in the stuffing.

Next, I mixed up some instant coffee into warm water and added some cinnamon. I painted the stocking with the mixture and then sprinkled on more cinnamon and came back with the liquid to wash some of it away.

And now I wait overnight for everything to dry. I will need to make a trip to HL to get some dried greenery and moss to finish this the way I want but, my grand dog is returning in the morning while daughter #3 and her family head to NYC to see Harrison get on the beautiful Coast Guard ship, the Eagle. It will be his platoon's chance to sail the ship the rest of the way to Maine. Hazel will be with me and I don't like to leave her alone-she just looks so sad when I do-that I won't be going anywhere for a bit but I will see if I can't rig up something to at least give you an idea where I am going with this.

Until then, stay safe and stay tuned.