Fall is here so how's your Christmas shopping going?

The flowers of summer are all but gone and the mums and pumpkins that introduce fall are here.   Football season is well underway and Christmas will be here in two months, three weeks and three days.  How are you spending your wonderfully cool fall weather?  Have you started your Christmas shopping?  Starting early allows you to beat the crowds and find excellent prices on last fall and winter's merchandise that stores are putting out this time of  year.  Do you really care that it's last year's pink?  Pink is pink whether it's 2009's or 2010's.  I've purchased several items already and not paid more than 40% of the regular price for any of them.  Today, I picked up 6 pairs of socks for my granddaughters for a whopping $1.20 total!!!  You read it right.  Brand new socks at 20 cents a pair.  It's all a matter of starting early and checking out your favorite store's clearance racks on a regular basis.  But I'm getting ahead of myself.  We'll talk more about Christmas later. 

I love having the doors and windows open and all the fresh air coming in.  I've been sewing at the kitchen table because there's construction going on in the sewing room.  (Thank you leaky roof!)  It's been great sitting there with a breeze blowing through the screen door.  It puts my love of sewing with my love of the outdoors and it's making me more creative.  And I'm really enjoying the fact that the air conditioner is off and the electric meter is no longer spinning out of control!

This wonderful fall weather has my creative juices flowing and I need to get a lot of sewing done.  To start with, I have to make a fall/winter wardrobe.  I've been blessed to loose the weight I put on while I was taking Lyrica and almost 50 pounds later, I'm still loosing. Unfortunately, I have almost no clothes that fit and the few that I do have show how well "loved" they are.  I don't want anything super fancy but I do need something to leave the house in.   This year I'm going somewhere I've never been before with  my sewing and make outerwear. I'm starting with a simple fleece poncho but I've never sewn fleece before.  My work with fleece is limited to those no sew blankets.  I'm torn on whether I want a hood or not. And if I don't want the hood, do I leave it plain or add something like the fake fur trim?  Do I trim it even with a hood?  Here's my options. What do y'all think?

McCall's 3448 with hood

McCall's 3448 without hood

McCall's 3448 with fake fur trim

Probably the most pressing issue is Halloween costumes!!  Can you believe it??  Seems like yesterday that Bill was riding his bike dressed as the Grim Reaper with his scythe attached.  He's decided what he wants for his costume but I'm still debating.  It would be so easy to go back to trailer trash mother-in-law costume but I think I want something different this year.   I've thought about a gypsy, Cleopatra and a princess from the days of Prince Arthur.  What do y'all think I should be?

I'm off to bed but I'll be back!  :-)