After close to two decades working for a top luxury retailer, Diane Vallere traded fashion accessories for accessories to murder. Suede to Rest, the first in her new Material Witness Mystery Series, comes out November 4. In addition, she writes the Style & Error Mystery Series, featuring former fashion buyer Samantha Kidd, and the Mad for Mod Mystery Series, featuring Doris Day-loving interior decorator Madison Night. Diane started her own detective agency at age ten and has maintained a passion for shoes, clues, and clothes ever since. Find her at http://www.dianevallere.com/.

Ever have one of those relationships where you don’t talk, you don’t visit, and you pretty much don’t communicate at all except for maybe once a year? And when you’re reunited, everything feels natural, like it hasn’t been that long, and any weirdness you anticipated just isn’t there? Until something happens and all of a sudden you realize maybe you should not have ignored things for so long. Maybe if you’d make more of an effort for the other three hundred and sixty-four days of the year, then today, when you really need this relationship, you’d receive a bit more cooperation?

That’s the way I feel about my sewing machine.

I admit, I have something of a love-hate relationship with sewing, largely driven by a 50-year old machine that may or may not have come from the same assembly line as Stephen King’s Christine. But temperamental equipment aside, when October rolls around, it’s Game On.

For the past few years, my sewing machine has been a willing partner in the construction of my (and a few other) Halloween costumes, otherwise relegated to a dark corner of the closet. The art of making a costume lies not in the craftsmanship. You’re not looking to construct a piece of couture that will last for the next twenty years. Instead, you want maximum impact that will last for a couple of hours. Quality is not a factor, except that it’s best that your costume not fall apart while you’re wearing it!

I haven’t always loved sewing, but I love the idea of sewing. What’s not to love about the fact that you can create something with a pattern, fabric, thread, and time? It’s like how a seed packet begets flowers (except you don’t add water and dirt, and you can’t just sit everything in the sun and wait a few days/weeks for the garment to bloom, so I guess it’s not like a seed packet after all). But spending time with Polyester Monroe, the protagonist from Suede to Rest (out November 4!), who inherits a fabric shop, has been like revisiting an old favorite playground. Even before it was time to start working on my costume, I was digging out patterns and cuttings of fabric that have been sitting on a shelf and enjoying a new outlet for creativity.

So this Halloween, whether you’re into scary movies, haunted hayrides, trick or treating, or just enjoying the crisp fall air, think about the fun skills you used to enjoy that have fallen by the wayside. Maybe it’s time to dust off your own temperamental machinery and see what creations you can bring to life.