Happy Halloween!

Here in the States, Halloween is awfully popular. But I will go out on a limb and admit that it’s never been one of my favorite holidays.

I’ve never really gotten into Halloween. I’m not really sure why that is. It’s just not My Thing.

My childhood memories of Halloween are not that vivid, either, even though we did the typical costume-dress-up-trick-or-treating thing, and we went to Halloween parties and the like.

When I was a kid, I always got the clown costume. When I crept into the teenage years, scary movie parties on Halloween were The Thing – but not for me. I always found an excuse to be in a different room. I’m still a scary movie wimp.

As an adult, my exciting Halloween “celebration” is comprised of a card game or two while waiting for the doorbell to ring. On a busy Halloween, we might get a whopping dozen or so beggars – and half of those are usually my nieces and nephews. Welcome to quiet, small town life!

Halloween stitchery, therefore, has never played much of a role in my needlework life. I did, once upon a time, incorporate Jack-o-lanterns into these embroidered pillowcases.

And there’s always my wee embroidered pumpkin tutorial – how to embroider a pumpkin in less than five minutes. But it’s more “Autumn” than strictly Halloween.

Last year, I featured this great little piece of chicken scratch embroidery of a spooky black cat, embroidered by a reader.

And, if you equate autumnal scarecrows with Halloween, there’s also this free hand embroidery pattern for a goofy scarecrow that I drew up for my niece.

But that’s all I have for you in the way of remotely-Halloween-related stitchery.

However, if you’re looking for some cute Halloween surface embroidery designs, you might check out these fun tea towel embroidery patterns from Bird Brain Designs. A little late for this year’s party, perhaps, but fun for next year!

You can find a whole slew of Autumn-themed embroidery and needlework projects available there, too – surface embroidery & redwork patterns, felt appliqué, and all kinds of other fun stuff.

And if you need something to stitch tonight while waiting for all the little neighborhood ghouls to ring your doorbell, they even have an immediately downloadable free embroidery pattern of a witch.

Which witch? This witch.

And now, I’m going to spirit myself away to the workroom, to finish my Book Organizing Party that I started yesterday – because I know how to have real fun on Halloween!

Have a terrific day!