Leftovers

Thank you much for all of the Happy Birthdays last week! I basically celebrated all weekend and enjoyed every moment. I am really looking forward to what this year has to bring.

I had quite a bit of fabric leftover from my Halloween quilt, and as I am definitely in the Halloween spirit, I thought I would play with my scraps and see what I could make.

First I tried my hand at making a mug rug. I know I am waaaaay late to the party on these, but boy are they fun to make AND a great way to practice machine sewing bindings! 

  

Next I wanted to try something using half square triangles, so I made a pillow. I am not loving this to be honest, but it does add a bit of color to my couch.

And I made a table runner. This is so much cuter in person. My dining room is so dark and it is hard to get great photos, but I really wanted to show you this. Once again I machine sewed the binding on, and the more I am doing this, the easier and neater it gets. I think I mentioned that I bought a darning foot for my machine, and I have been playing with it, but I wasn't brave enough to try to freemotion quilt this runner.

I have a few projects going for my shop, and I am trying to decide if I want to add things like table runners and mug rugs. Quilts are such a big undertaking, and the supplies are expensive as well, so I am thinking some small items may help to fill up the shop. Any suggestions?

October 13

This year I had birthday cheesecake!

I had a totally relaxing and craft filled birthday. I had a chance to play with my new darning foot for my sewing machine and attempted some free motion quilting. I need LOTS of practice.

Becky made dinner. Super yummy shrimp pasta and salad.

We listened to Pandora (did you know Pandora has 8 Halloween stations?) and inspired by Pinterest, we made glow stick jars, paper bag luminarias and we even carved pumpkins, thanks to $1.99 pumpkins at Aldi's.  We are all a bunch of big kids :)  I took photos, but the only one that turned out is the cheesecake photo above.

I love hanging out with my kids and I am blessed that they like hanging out with me! Makes me wish every day could be a birthday!

Spooky Little Quilt

This truly is a spooky little quilt. You know how sometimes a project is doomed from the get-go? This is one of the them.  Don't be fooled the cuteness of the pictures :)

The piecing went fast and easy because I used 6" squares. After everything was sewn together I realized that the quilt really needed some green. But I thought the "plus" pattern looked pretty cool. Then came the quilting. I thought I would do some diagonal lines, but things started going horribly wrong half way through. My walking foot was an epic fail. So I switched back to the vintage foot that came with the machine, and did some straight stitching along each seam. A bit better. I decided to give machine stitched binding a try and in theory it is an awesome idea. Parts of the binding are absolutely perfect and other parts not so much.

 

 Hi Sophie.

In spite of all my mishaps in making this quilt, most of them disappeared after a fast trip through the washer and dryer. Once again, there is nothing like taking a warm, puckery quilt from the dryer and being able to say "I made a quilt".

Ruby

I am having fun working on my Halloween Plus Quilt!  As I am working on it, I am clueless as to what color thread to use to quilt it....any suggestions?

But I realized that I forgot to show you my baby Ruby quilt once it was finished.

The weather here has been gray and abysmal for the past week, but the sun was shining today. YAY!! I finally got a chance to take some pictures for you and to put in the shop.

The finished size of this quilt is 36" x 36" so it is perfect for a baby quilt, but I thought it would be awesome to use as a table topper too. I was really unsure about my choice of backing/binding fabric, but I think it ended up being a good choice. It doesn't compete with all of the cute patchwork fabric.

I also changed up my normal quilting style and quilted this with a diagonal grid. I tend to make "square" quilts, so I think the diagonal quilting adds a bit of extra interest.

I have almost a full jelly roll of Ruby that I am going to use to make something for ME!! I think I am going to make this. But it is going to have to wait until after the holidays. I definitely need to start sewing some lovely Christmas gifts. I am heading to Pinterest for inspiration. I may be up all night :)

Weekend Update

The first weekend of October has been cold and rainy, so it has been perfect for hanging out in the sewing room and cutting fabric. I am making the "plus" quilt I told you about yesterday, and have finished cutting, laying out and labeling. When I was laying out the design, I realized that I probably should have added some green fabric to the mix, but I kind of like the vintage look of the quilt as is.

Most of the Halloween decorations are up, and I will be sharing photos as the light in my house allows. Dinner is cooking, the fireplace is going and I am watching The Big Bang Theory,  which is my new favorite show.  A wonderful Sunday afternoon.

The October Project

Happy October everyone!! Can you believe it is October already? To me, October is the start of the holiday season. I love pulling out all of my Autumn/Halloween decorations and getting the house ready for the trick or treaters. But there is one thing missing. A quilt. So I am making one.

Here are the fabrics waiting to be cut into squares. I am still deciding what kind of quilt I want to make, and am really leaning towards a "plus" quilt. It satisfies my love of patchwork squares, and adds an extra design element into the mix. But my challenge is getting this quilt made within the next few weeks so we can use it during the month of October, so I definitely will be making a smaller version. Wish me luck :)