Festival of Strings Part II

Last Friday when we were cleaning up the sewing room, Esther found a bag of Halloween fabric cut into 2” strips and some squares.  I had cut these almost 3 years ago and never sewed any together except one block.  We sewed all afternoon on Friday.  Esther learned how to press the blocks and she arranged them all on the design wall.  Then on Saturday she sewed a few of the blocks together herself on my sewing machine!  I had to keep reminding her to watch the fabric feed through the machine, but overall she did a great job lining up the fabric with the 1/4” foot.  So this is her quilt as much as it’s something I made.

I’m thinking of having this one professionally quilted with some kind of cute Halloween pantograph.  It’s the perfect size for the couch and will certainly be finished by this Halloween (I think)!  It only took 3 years and a determined four year old to get the top done…

Linking this to Stitched In Color’s Festival of Strings.  Take a look, there are lots of beautiful quilts to admire!

Witchy Woman

I finished up Esther’s witch costume over the weekend.

I did say I was going to use the Urban Prairie pattern, but when I opened up the envelope I nearly fainted because there was tissue paper in there!  So, I pulled out my trusty Pink Poodle Bows Reese Peasant Dress Pattern and just used that instead.  They are basically the same type of dress and I’ve made quite a few from this pattern, so I am happy with the results and I didn’t have to worry about  the “bodices” and so forth that make me sweat.

The fabric is mostly Costume Club I think.  The hat, tights, and broom are from Joanns and I made three roses for the hat from scraps so it’s totally matchy-matchy. 

I have a brilliant idea to use a pair of Bea’s old ballet flats to make glow-in-the-dark shoes for Esther.  I also sewed Bea’s costume and will share a pic of everyone dressed up when we go trick-or-treating.  I’m posting this dress in Elsie Marley’s Kid’s Clothes Week Challenge.  I don’t sew many clothes, but I’m hoping Esther wears this dress around a lot for the next two weeks.

Here are all the squares cut out for my newest quilt.  I’m going with  red, white, and blue, which is a color combo hopefully you can never go wrong with!   Here are all my blocks cut out. 

A few weeks ago for my birthday I got a new cutting mat.  I really love this Fiskars mat because the light color makes the fabric stand out when cutting.  Colors seemed to blend with the dark green color of my old cutting mat, making it hard to accurately cut at night which is when I have time to sew.

Don’t’ forget to enter my giveaway here.  I’ll announce the winner Sunday night.

100 Followers Giveaway

A few weeks ago I was just shy of reaching the 100 followers mark on my blog.  Donna from Donna’s Lavender Nest generously donated this beautiful pack of five Lecien fat quarters from her Etsy Shop to mark the occasion.

To win, just leave a comment that you are a follower.  I will randomly pick a winner next Wednesday.  Open to international followers too.

I finished up quilting my Oh Deer quilt this morning.  It turned out pretty good—now I am just waiting on the binding fabric from the Madrona Road collection to arrive.   I will be working on Esther’s Halloween costume in the meantime.  She is going to be a witch.  I am using the Urban Prairie Dress pattern by Violet Craft and some spooky Halloween fabric she picked out herself.

It is cold and rainy here in southern Maryland, just the perfect weather to curl up under a quilt.  Have a great week!

Deploy that fabric…

Is a new book I’ve seen making the rounds on the blog circuit. (By the way, I looked it up on Amazon and it is about upcycling/recyling military uniforms in different projects…)  I didn’t know anything about the book when I adopted its title as my new motto…and thus started shopping in my stash instead of ordering new fabric online!  I decided to deploy that fabric I have folded neatly on the shelf, stacked on a table, and then randomly piled up along the walls of my office.  No more buying!  I’m deploying that fabric and getting it out there doing the job it was intended to do…being a quilt, a skirt, a pillowcase.  I was on a roll this weekend! 

Esther helped me pick out some Halloween fabric at Joanns a few weeks ago.  I saw on another blog some cute Halloween pillowcases and knew my girls needed them this holiday.

Last year, I made them all trick or treat bags, even Veronica, who was just a bun in the oven at the time.

 

With their initials on the back (thank goodness we didn’t switch names at the last minute!). 

So this year each daughter got her own pillowcase.

Even though Ronnie is too young for pillows yet, I think she likes hers!

 

I got a lot of other sewing done this weekend, too, and will share more pics when I get the chance.

Swaps Goodies

Today I got my fall swap package in the mail.  I sent my partner, Kim, this fall table runner, some Halloween candy, and a wristlet key fob I made.

 

The leaf fabric has a linen look I really like.

Today the mail lady Donna drove up our road and delivered these goodies Esther is modeling in the photo…a cute pumpkin bag, a tabletopper, a Halloween mug rug and new mug, and candy.  You can’t see the chocolate pretzels because Esther has already eaten them all! 

Thank you, Kim!  Everything is lovely!

I also mailed out my block for my Block Swap Adventure partner Linda yesterday.  I never took a photo of the complete block, but here is the sneak peek.  She asked for bright colors.

I really wish I had taken a photo of the whole block.  It is by far the best one I’ve made for BSA and I think it turned out really nicely.  My points were all in the right place and not cut off for once!

Here are the three blocks I’ve received so far along with two I made myself. 

I plan to make a quilt for my brother-in-law in civil war repro type fabric once I amass enough blocks.

Mom on duty

Well, this past week was a bust.  Pretty much everyone has been sick at least once, if not twice, in the past two weeks including myself and my husband.  Bea even had to miss her school fieldtrip to the pumpkin patch.  Amazingly, I did manage to get these pillow covers made for Halloween.

Esther LOVES to decorate for Halloween, so on Thursday while Veronica took her nap, we made these out of a Moda Haunted Mansion charm pack I bought last year.  Here she is looking quite unwell while modeling the new covers.  We had several takes of this photo and this was the best shot…

 

These were easy to make.  I didn’t even quilt the fronts.  Since the edges of the charms are already pinked, I wasn’t too worried about unfinished seams.  Plus, the window for Halloween decor is kind of short, so I don’t see them getting washed too often. After sewing together the charms in a 3 x 3 square, I added orange or purple frames to make the front 16 x 16 and then sewed a contrasting envelope style back.  Super fast and easy!

 

I have some pieces cut out for a Halloween quilt, but realistically I won’t get it done until next Halloween:)  I was thinking of trying to swap some of my Halloween fabric leftovers.    Does anyone know a reputable site for swapping fabric? 

Fall Tablerunners

 

I’ve made quite a few tablerunners lately either as gifts or for swaps.  I bought a charm pack last year and have managed to make 4 tablerunners out of it.  I can’t remember the name of the line, but it’s a Moda fabric by Sandy Gervais.

It’s backed by a brown polka dot and bound by a fantastic modern dot fabric and machine attached.  I am loving the zig zag stitch!

I made another identical runner and backed it with a great large scale fabric that I might like even better than the actual top and bound with my favorite zig zag fabric.

And here’s a view of the back—it could be reversible.

The backing was a great find at Joanns.  I only paid $1.80 a yard for it during one of their 1/2 off red tag fabric sales.  I love it!

   

I’m working on another tablerunner with the latest fall line by Sandy Gervais (of course!) called Finale.

I can’t wait to get this one done.  Hopefully in time for Halloween!