Halloween Fabrics 2015

Two years ago, I bought about a dozen Halloween cottons. Last year, I bought five. This year, I haven't bought any. I'm just not feeling this year's fabrics. I have found very few with my preferred motifs of bats, owls, or ravens/crows.

I like these two bat prints, but I don't wear natural or cream...or ecru or eggshell or off-white or any of the other 4,000 shades of beige. ;)

Alexander Henry Haunted House Bellatrix The Bat Natural

Timeless Treasures Wicked Bats/Webs Cream

Another two bat prints are in purple, my favorite color, but the purple is combined with pink, which I don't wear.

Haunted Hill Small Toss Bats Eggplant

Every Witch Way Bats Allover Purple

There's only one fabric that really catches my eye -- this purple (or is it blue?) fabric with black bats and white stars. But I'm not totally in love with it.

Toil & Trouble Bats Purple

Perhaps this is not a bad thing. Perhaps the universe is telling me to make something other than cotton skirts. :P Actually, I'm feeling velvet and lace. I feel like sewing some panne velvet... even though every time I sew panne velvet, I swear I'm never going to sew panne velvet again.

Holiday Bazaar: What to Make?

My employer will be hosting a holiday bazaar in November. Crafters can sign up to sell their wares. Though all types of crafts will be welcome, the idea is that the bazaar will be a good place for people to do some holiday shopping. Proceeds will go to charity.

I have signed up to be a seller. It will be great excuse/reason to make some fun things. I’m best at sewing and paint/decoupage crafts, so I’ll stick with those.

The question is… What should I make? I don’t really do Christmas, so I’m totally out of the gift-giving loop. What types of things would make good holiday gifts? What colors or patterns or themes are popular with the non-goth crowd?

Any thoughts or ideas are welcome!

Concrete Excitement

Who knew concrete could be exciting!? ;) One's definition of "exciting" does tend to change when one becomes a homeowner.

My new driveway, walkway, and front landing are done (except for some final cleanup tomorrow).

The new walkway is a vast improvement. It looks so much better, and it slopes properly away from the house... no more lake under the window!

The walkway is now level with the driveway. The old one had sunk quite a bit!

The new front landing looks GIGANTIC. But it will look much more appropriately scaled when I have the landscaping done. I'm thinking about a wrought iron railing. I can never have too much wrought iron. :)

There is a middle school just down the street, and wet concrete is a tempting target for kids... so I have parked myself in front of the window to keep an eye out. And to ensure no vehicles veer too closely, I have parked my car in front of the driveway.

(Aaaand I just had to go running out the garage door to chase away my neighbor's *$*#@! cat, who was strolling across the driveway like it owned the place (probably after using my yard as a litterbox). X( That damn cat is always everywhere it should not be. Luckily the concrete is almost dry and the cat wasn't heavy enough to leave paw prints.)

Yes, I did consider stamping bat shapes into the walkway. I managed to restrain myself. ;)

Concrete Day

Just three days until Concrete Day! The contractor is scheduled to be here Tuesday. He will be replacing the driveway, walkway, and front steps - essentially all the concrete seen in this photo:

It's a hodgepodge, with some professionally poured and some DIY from the previous homeowner. The latter includes this odd triangle, which is flaking and crumbling into powder.

Must have been hit by one of these:

Then there's the sunken walkway which fills with rain or snowmelt to create a nice little pond under my living room window.

Finally, there are the steps in front of the door. They don't look too dangerous from the front...

but from an angle, you can see they are a death trap. The top step is only 5.5 inches (14 cm) deep - half of the minimum 11 inches required by building codes. Seriously, what kind of crazy person builds 5.5" steps?

So I'm pretty excited to have all that insanity demolished and proper steps, landing, and walkway poured. Once it's done, I want to spiff up the front entry, which is totally plain right now.

At minimum, I want to paint the front door. I'll go with purple (no surprise there); I just have to decide which shade of purple. I also need to put up a house number. I'm thinking some type of plaque to hang beneath the light.

I gathered some ideas on a Pinterest board.

Does This Thing Belong to Bane?

Recently, a couple of people have brought things to me and asked, "Does this belong to you?" And another time, a person said, "I knew it was yours because of the bats."  :)

It's pretty easy to tell if a thing belongs to me...

Goths and Depression

The recent Lancet Psychiatry article on teenage goths and depression has prompted many responses, including an article in The Guardian and posts from fellow bloggers on blogs such as The Everyday Goth and Domesticated.

Here are a few of my thoughts...

(Firstly, I'll assert that it's easy to draw incorrect conclusions from statistical data. For example: 82% of people killed by lightning are men. One might conclude that lightning targets men or that women have a higher survival rate.)

I don't like the study's definition or context of goth. Essentially, it said goths are a group who rebel against the norm or attempt not to conform... as if the Goth group were a subset of the Rebel group. Do some teens "go goth" simply as a way to rebel? Yes. But I wouldn't say they're goths. I'd say they are rebels, and goth is their chosen mechanism of rebellion (and is probably just a phase). But many go goth because they're drawn to the music, the fashion, the art, and/or the culture. For many, goth is about finding a place that feels comfortable, not about rebellion.

I wonder what controls, if any, the study used for intelligence. Other studies have shown that smarter people are more likely to suffer mental illness. Maybe smart people are more likely to identify with goth than with sporty or chav or skater, and any apparent correlation with depression is actually related to intelligence, not choice of subculture.

Maybe teens choose goth because it appeals to them... but then they're bullied for being goth, and the bullying leads to depression.

There are a lot of maybes.

As for my own experience with goth and depression...

I didn't know about goth until I was an adult. But I was depressed practically since birth.

My teen years were excruciating. I did not rebel or strive for nonconformity. Quite the reverse; I followed the rules and tried to be inconspicuous. Under the strict dress code of Catholic school, I looked like everyone else. Even so, other teens judged me as different. I was picked on and bullied.

I first got treatment for depression at age 21. I slowly began to peek out of my shell, and at age 22, I heard about this thing called "goth." I looked into it and had an immediate sense of connection. I felt comfortable in the goth community. For the first time in my life, I didn't feel weird or freakish or rejected.

For me, depression and goth are correlated -- but it's an inverse correlation. When I'm more depressed, I'm less interested in goth music or fashion. When I'm more actively goth (crafting, sewing and DIYing in goth style, following goth blogs, listening to goth music), I am happier.

Identifying with the goth community has been an overwhelmingly positive experience for me. I imagine there are others who feel the same.

Less Dismal

I am happy to report that the bathroom cabinet project is looking less dismal.

Only a couple of hours after emailing Amazon customer service about my missing package, I got a response apologizing that they couldn't replace the items because there were none left in stock. They had issued a refund and gave me a link to another seller who had the items. Good job, Amazon. This is why I love you. :)

Then it was off to Sherwin Williams to test the love from their customer service. Cabinet door in hand, I showed the clerk the terrible finish resulting from the paint and roller that had been recommended to me. He confirmed that the ProClassic I'd originally asked about could not be tinted to black, so I looked at options for dark grey instead. Then I talked to another clerk who had recently painted a crib using ProClassic satin and a mohair roller with excellent results. Unbeknownst to me, the first clerk was already mixing the paint... in semi-gloss instead of satin. Ugh. A paint store is not a fast food drive-through where every customer has to be served in two minutes or less. Can I please have five minutes to try to make the right choice, lest I set myself up to waste another two or three hours sanding and repainting?

Ultimately, I decided to keep the semi-gloss as it might be a bit more durable for the frequent use and cleaning the cabinet will endure in a bathroom. The clerk gave me the paint at no charge. Not Amazon-level love, but quite acceptable.

Then I went to the grocery store. Though my purchase was almost exclusively vegetables and fruits, I did also buy spaghetti noodles and a frozen pizza. This apparently prompted the 50-ish female clerk to ask me, "How many kids do you have?" I replied very matter-of-factly, "None. I just eat like a 10-year-old." She was embarrassed. I thought it was hilarious. :D I snickered all the way out to the car.

When I got home, I discovered my missing package from Amazon sitting next to the garage door. O.o Maybe it was delivered to a neighbor by mistake, and it took them three days to bring it over? I emailed back to Amazon customer service so they can cancel the refund or charge my card again.

Then I hauled the cabinet down to the basement and spent an hour sanding it. I hate sanding... so afterwards, I consoled myself by eating the pizza. ;)

Now it's time for the second attempt at painting the cabinet...