My youngest daughter decided she would be a Hufflepuff witch from Harry Potter. She owns a wand and she just wanted a scarf made in the black and gold colors of the House of Hufflepuff to wear with her 'muggle' clothes. Sure. Seems easy.

I made my way to the fabric store and purchased a 1/4 yard of fleece (her preferred fabric) which was on sale for $5.99 a yard. Thus $3 out of pocket with the two colors.

I eventually sat down and cut the fleece for the block pattern she desired. Cutting whet smooth with my rotary blade.

Next I set up my machine, ready to sew with gold top thread and black bottom thread. I also ran a test stitch. And I had a problem. Lots of stitch skipping. Big amounts of stitch stitching.

I went into detective mode and started making adjustments to fix the problem. Needle bent? Tension checks...mutliple times. I even dusted and oiled the machine per the manual. It did need it anyway! Still was having a problem.

At this point, I'm starting to look into the cost of repair. It's a Kenmore machine, so I checked into Sears repair online. Flat fee of $62.99 plus any necessary parts. More than I want to spend, but was definitely considering it as a possibility. It wasn't just the scarf I wanted to sew. I have holiday gift ideas!!

I tried a few more things. Looked at the needle again. Swapped it out. And realized my needle was in backwards!! I have no idea when that happened.

Finally, the machine was working like it was suppose to. Maybe even better than the last time I used it since it had now been oiled and dusted. It's like a whole new machine.

And of course, I was able to complete the $3 Halloween costume. Here's a picture:

Are your Halloween costumes homemade or store bought? We've done both, but I'd love to hear your take.