Birthday and the Witches Tea with Pumpkins

My friend L had a birthday this past week and  I tried to use some fall colors in her card.  Pretty Petites and French Foliage were the stamp sets I used along with the hexagon punch and some DSP.  

L and J and I went to the "Witches Tea" at Teaberry's.  We were supposed to go to this last year but the hurricane put the kabosh on that.  The tea room was decorated to the nines in Halloween regalia and most of the participants came dressed as witches.  This was our favor - a rosette ornament used as a napkin ring.  Below was the menu for the evening and you can catch a glimpse of the spiderweb-lace tablecloths that wer on the tables.

I took pictures of our food and I won't bore you with them, but I will tell you that it was delicious. A four-course meal that included a bowl of award-winning soup, a tangy fall salad, my choice of braised spareribs with garlic mashed potatoes, carrot coins, and red cabbage and a final course of pumpkin mousse.  Of course we each had our own pot of tea and over 100 varieties to choose from.  

This owl was in the ladies room.  I wish I could have taken more pictures of the decorations in the main rooms but the light was very low and the seating was sold out.  We were entertained by a lovely witch who told us all about the history of witchcraft in her storyteller way.  

If you walked into the tearoom you really would have thought that it was a meeting of witches. Almost everyone had on black and some sort of witches hat.  

While not exactly a witches pointed hat, this was the hat that I wore.  I picked up this little felt top hat when we were in Delaware visiting Rachel earlier this month and I knew that I wanted to make a hat for Halloween out of it.  I really had hoped to find a pointed hat that size, but it was not to be. I had some fabric from the quilt show (oops, I don't think I posted about that yet), and some beads and fall picks that I gathered along the way and put this together.  

There are hair clips sewed to the brim underneath that I used to pin it to my head.  That white pumpkin is smaller than an adult head just to give you an idea of the size of the hat.  I think I mentioned that I had plans for the pumpkin but it wasn't to use it as a hat holder, though this did work out for the photo and looks pretty cool on the kitchen table.  

I've had a run with fabric projects this fall that I've been trying to complete along with some other things that I've been working on.  These pumpkins below are the easiest pumpkins that I've ever done.  I found the tutorial here.  I opted to use just three strands of jute and found that taking a longer running stitch around the yo-yo made it go faster and didn't leave such a big opening for me.

I had these fat quarters on hand down at the condo and thought it would be okay to make some non-traditional fall pumpkins out of them.  I pulled plates and bowls out of the cabinets to use as patterns for the circles so you see a variety of sizes.  

I'll have to get a better picture of the basket that I used for the picture.  It was a project that I had asked HWNSNBP to do for me - a  wood and wire trug to gather produce from the garden.   I didn't get a chance to use it for that this summer since we let the garden get away from us this year. There's always next year.  

I have so many things on my to-do list that I wanted to get done for Halloween but I've got a stinking cold that's knocked me for a loop.  I was going to bake cookies, try making pumpkin marshmallows and throw together some pumpkin fudge, but I don't want to spread my germs around.  It's frustrating when you stay home sick and can't get to do the things you would really like to take time off for.