I Need Your Help

I may have mentioned my daughter started her permanent job a couple of months ago. Before that, she and another "baby" attorney were clerking under a judge for a year. It is the custom for outgoing clerks to buy the judge a gift, so she and her cohort bought him a wooden duck and ducklings. He was so tall, with such long legs, that DD and friend were always having to scurry to keep up, so they felt this was appropriate.

The thing is, she has way far more confidence in my abilities as a seamstress than I do. She asked if I would be willing to make a "judge's robe" for the duck. Here is a picture of the duck:

And here is what she said about his size:
"His neck is 5 inches around. He is 10 inches tall. And he is 24 inches around at his widest point (somewhere around the tip of his tail)."

She gave me the links to a couple of sites with photos of judicial robes:
http://www.academicapparel.com/choir/judges.html
http://saxonuniforms.com/regalia/judicialgown.html

I'm thinking velcro instead of a zipper, a round neckline, and skipping the yoke, just going for a general pleated sort of robe.

Trouble is, I'm just not sure how to start, and I've never done pleats, though I have an idea how those might go. I don't want to line this, and I'm thinking black poly/cotton blend, or maybe just the deep Amish black cotton fabric in the Keepsake Quilting catalog. Any suggestions? Or should I just shoot myself now?
Thanks in advance, everyone.

After quilt group this morning, I went hunting more Halloween stuff. I won't show what I have just yet, because there is more to be done, but yesterday I carved 18 apple heads.


These will sit out for the next couple of weeks to get nice and dried and then be displayed in a couple of different ways. Since the theme is Mad Scientist's Laboratory, some will be in the fishbowl, and I'm thinking I'll poke some on sticks to line the sidewalk.

While I was out, I picked up a bazillion bags of candy for the big night, and some candy corn for us. It's the only time of the year I really eat it, though I like it a heap of a lot. On the back of the bag, it reads:
"Did You Know...? Each year Americans consume enough Brach's Candy Corn that if laid end-to-end, would circle the earth 4.25 times...WOW!"

I certainly intend to do my part.

Movie Trivia Answer 10/11

Well, either that was an easier question than I thought, or there are some really good players out there! Everyone who guessed got the right answer!

1956 was the first movie made from the serial novel:


1978 was the remake without a hopeful ending:


1993 saw the military base remake:


And Nicole Kidman starred in last year's version:


According to IMDB, in the 1978 edition, only 3 people knew how the script ended, so when Veronica Cartwright's character runs into Donald Sutherland's character and he does the alien scream, she was truly shocked and the camera caught her actual reaction.

New question on Saturday!

Nature day

The trees haven't peaked here in my neck of the woods, but they're getting mighty darn close. Last night I risked taking my camera to work because there is one tree on the property that was looking so gorgeous already and I wanted to try to capture that.

Lovely, isn't it? (you can click on the photos to enlarge)



But look what happens when the sun hits it:

As I started back for the truck, I decided to get under the tree and see if I could get a good shot, and these are what I came up with:


Then, inspired by Ami Sims', er, excuse me, Madison's blog post of mushrooms yesterday, Tandi and I went out to snap some pictures of the micro things in our yard. (Actually, Tandi cracked acorns for the squirrels and I managed the camera).
Here is one we found:

And then I found a couple of odd little shoots, maybe 3 inches tall:


This is the underside:

I don't know if they are mushrooms or not. Maybe they're fairy umbrellas.
More things we saw in the yard:

I just love that shade of green.




Something hard and fuzzy on an oak leaf:



In the empty lot across the road, I loved the contrast of these red leaves with the pale spotted bark:


And the pale green spikiness of another small tree there:

The temperature is supposed to get into the 80s this week. A few last roses...

...and we're done.

Saturday at the Movies

This movie was originally a serial novel written by a man named Jack Finney, who was born in 1911 and died in 1995. Now, this man's name meant nothing to me, but it was interesting that his novel and the original movie, a black and white filmed in 1956, spawned 3 additional remakes: 1978, 1993, and 2007.

The 1993 remake, which, though it had some well-known names (Meg Tilly, Gabrielle Anwar, Forrest Whitaker) strayed from the original premise, taking place on a remote military base in Alabama, and in my opinion, was the worst of the 4.

If I mentioned any more names, or more about the plot, you'd probably get it right away, so I won't.

But I will give hints on Monday if there are no correct guesses!

Can you name any of the 4 versions?


Answer on Tuesday!

New Look

Do you like it? Thanks to Our Red House who posted this link , I can do a little more with my blog than before--and I love the seasonal look.

I'm going to add this to my Tools and Notions column so we can all find it again later.