Color collaborative: October: Halloween

 

What a treat to be invited to participate in the colour collaborative this month!  And Halloween!  My almost-favorite 'holiday'.  (Thanksgiving remains #1.) But, I digress...

When I think of Halloweens past, my most vivid 'color' memory takes me back almost 40 years to Halloween Eve.  White.  White bones.  Hundreds  Dozens of felt white bones that I had spent weeks hand sewing onto my son's costume for his very first pre-school Halloween party---and I still had dozens to go.  Hand sewing because a) I stink at sewing with a machine; b) I apparently never heard of stitch-witchery back then; and c) he was determined to help me place all those body parts in the right place after he found I errantly put a leg-bone on the arm.  (Yes, he was rather precocious, but did end up being a physician.)

This would have been my post if I still had the costume to show you.  I'm sure it was the finest skeleton costume to ever grace that preschool. (Sadly, his sister refused to wear it the next year, when I spent far less time sequining a boo-tiful witch robe. That is--a pretty witch....she couldn't say beautiful.)

Fast forward maybe 38 of those past 40 years, and you now find me with a totally new obsession in fall color, which just happens to be Halloween color at its finest.  But, it is the color that was untouched in my crayola box as a child.  I despised it.  I never owned a single piece of clothing in it, so it must not have been a top 10 in my mom's color palette, either. My dolls refused to wear it.  And eat anything that color?  BLECH.  

Our American Halloween tradition hails from the Irish immigrants who brought with them the tradition of Samhain (the celebration of the summer harvest passing on to winter).  In Ireland, the harvest lanterns were carved from potatoes and beets and turnips; the new world had pumpkins which proved perfect carving material.   

Thank you, my Irish ancestors!  Pumpkins and Halloween and ORANGE have been linked ever since; and all have become entwined with how I celebrate the season.

 

Whether I'm crafting...

 (Russian needlepunch embroidery.)

(primitive rug hooking)

 

or collecting...

boo!

 boo, boo, boo!

ring-a-ding-rattley-ding ...

 

or cooking...

(I'd show you the pumpkin pie, but I ate the last piece last night)

 

My Halloween is full of Orange!

 

with one scary, white skeleton skull. How could I resist? 

 

* * * * * * * * * * 

 

What is The Colour Collaborative?

 

All creative bloggers make stuff, gather stuff, shape stuff, and share stuff. Mostly they work on their own, but what happens when a group of them work together? Is a creative collaboration greater than the sum of its parts? We think so and we hope you will too. We'll each be offering our own monthly take on a colour related theme, and hoping that in combination our ideas will encourage us, and perhaps you, to think about colour in new ways."

 

 

Don't forget to visit the other Colour Collaborative blogs for more of this month's posts, just click on the links below.... 

Annie at Annie Cholewa

Sandra at Cherry Heart

Gillian at Tales from a Happy House

CJ at Above the River

Jennifer at Thistlebear

 

Comments

[CJ]

Lovely to find your blog Steph, and to see all of your fantastic Hallowe'en decorations. The knitted pumpkin is brilliant, and I love your vintage lanterns and shakers.

[driftwood]

oh I love your knitted pumpkin too!

[Gillian]

Hi Steph, it's great to have you on board with the Colour Collaborative. This was fascinating and reminded me that the American Halloween tradition is so much more embedded in your culture than it was in the UK when I was a child. It all sounds so fun! Thanks for this glimpse into your second-favourite holiday.
Gillian x

[Sandra (Cherry Heart)]

Lovely to have you join us for this month's post Steph! I'm with you, it's the pumpkin orange that does it for me at Halloween :)

S x

[Tracey]

I am loving all things orange right now and even thought I might paint a few of my kitchen chairs in orange.
Happy Halloween.

[Donna]

What great decorations Steph! Orange is my big Halloween color but I have added teal to the mix. I just like how it looks together. And maybe a bit of brown....

[Jennifer]

Hi Steph! I loved this post. Your Halloween work is beautiful. I too have made a skeleton costume for a son and it was hard! I ended up making new bones, much larger, to sort of suggest the array of smaller ones. :) I'm so glad you joined us. Your blog is wonderful too. I'm following you on Bloglovin now and looking forward to reading more.

[Annie @ knitsofacto]

Those rattles are wonderful ... how old are they Steph? And I'm rather taken with the needlepunch pumpkin.

Thank you so much for joining us this month :)

[[email protected]]

I'm guessing the noisemakers are from the 40s or 50s....that's when the lithograph tin ones were most popular....mine do have the wooden handles and they are the earlier ones.  I bought them, though, so they are not something that has been in our family.....so not really sure!

[Christina]

I love orange, always have. It is also my oldest sons and third son's favourite colour. I wear it, too! I love your collectors scary pumpkins! Enjoy Halloween. x

[Leigh]

Steph, this is so fun! Funny to think how our relationship with certain colours have such a deep and personal history attached to them! - LOVE your rug hooking, wow!

[Ali Whale]

I dislike orange but I love your collection. This post also reminded me that there was a time when we didn't have pumpkins locally and we used to carve something else and I think it was turnip/swede.
I just remember it being an absolute nightmare and very easy to go completely wrong or cut yourself, as a spoon was useless. That's maybe why I don't bother with pumpkins, horrible memories of hollowing out a swede...!!

[Tracy]

VERY, VERY fun, Steph... so many wonderful accepts for celebrating October and Halloween. Wishing you & yours a VERY SPOOKTACULAR HALLOWEEN! ((HUGS))

[karen]

like you I was never a fan of orange and I think I despised the color. And now, I cannot get enough of it in my knitting, my sweaters, my fall decorations. How lovely that you were invited to do color collaborative :)

[Amy at love made my home]

you have certainly changed your mind about orange over the years. Your rug is amazing. xx

[deb]

I love orange too! Your Halloween crafts are so fun! Happy Fall!

[Taciana Simmons]

Love the rug and yes ... October...Halloween... Orange...everywhere. Love your post and your blog. I will come back for more. Thanks for your visit to my blog. I'm now one of your followers. :)