I got the idea that I wanted to do a seasonal Halloween thing this year, which is almost entirely NOT me.

I was inspired by seeing these dancing witch displays that peole are making . They seemed to speak to me with the subtleness of them.

So, I have a little something on my front porch that has all the neighbors scratching their collective heads and asking themselves, "What IS that?". I dont explain to anyone because it is something quite personal as to the motivation, and it speaks to me. This has been out there for a few years, deliberately absorbing the passage of time.

What I need now is to add something to this scenario and what it needs is a couple of questionable and dark characters to deepen the mystery and the personal meaning.

I looked at the most common of these dancing witches and how they were being made, thinking taht maybe I could get some ideas on simple construction. After trying around with a few things, I came to the conclusion that all of are too slap dash for what I want. Black trash bags are not going to be what I want . I only want one large figure and maybe a smaller side kick. But I want something with a bit more class than trash bags. Certainly, if I were going to make enough of them to form a circle of dancing witches holding hands, the trash bags would be the way to go.

So I went to the resell store and found a nice long black dress , cobbled together a simple frame and began to design something with a heaping helping of sinister, in the form of the tradtitional image of a witch. As I draped and tried different things, it became quite evident to me that my "witch" seemed to be more of an elegant lady who needed a pair of pearls. She does not want to be a witch with a comic looking hat! She wants to be a mysterious lady cloaked in black with a heavily veiled face! I guess I just cant do comic book halloween images,

So, as usually happens when I set out to design or do something like this, the idea morphs and changes. It takes such a process to work past the preconcieved notions and ideas and images to get to something a bit more original.

So, I am going to let her be a mysterious and elegant figure in black and not a comic book/halloween store witch.

She has emerged and she is speaking to me. She has a reason to be on my front porch. And I wont explain her mystery.

I just wanted to share this.

Sewing? Yes, it looks like I will be doing some altering of the dress that I bought as the base layer and maybe even some real construction of a garment,

Anyone else doing some DIY seasonal displays that you have some passion for?

I am not a fan of decorating but this is a step beyond for me.

What better than a mysterious lady in black to bring it all together and add a deeper layer of whatever this is?

She will be simple and subtle and classy and very mysterious and obscure and may have a side kick, as all elegant and frightening incarnations of fear should have. No lit up pumpkin heads for my lady. She has way too much class for that!