Halloween Quilt closeups

I was reminded that I haven't posted here recently, so I thought I'd show you some closeups of the Halloween quilt I've been working on. It's still in the quilting stage, but it's getting there..

Here is a closeup of the mitered border - not too shabby...

Below are shots of the embroidered blocks in the quilt...

I've been spending a lot of time knitting on the afghan, lately, too. No pics of that yet... The snow is supposed to arrive tomorrow, so the time to snuggle up and get to work on a project is definitely arrived!

A Quick Update

We've been dealing with a lot of wind the last few days. The good news is we no longer have any leaves in our yard and our trees are leafless, so no more falling in the yard. The bad news is we had a couple of shingles fly off the kitchen roof yesterday. Thank God I have handy cousins that don't mind coming over to help us. DH and I are deathly afraid of heights. I swear if we ever buy another house, it will have to be a one story.

I've been working on the quilting of my Halloween quilt for the last couple of weeks. I don't think it will be finished with the binding on it by Sunday night, but I can at least hang it in the hallway for the day and finish it after the holiday. I'll show you how it looks when I get it done.

Everyone is coming over for trick or treating on Sunday. We're having a spaghetti dinner to give everyone the strength to make it through the evening. After dinner, DSis and DBiL are taking Nephew #1 out for his first real trick or treating excursion. Mom and Nephew #2 are staying with DH and I to hand out candy to the 300 kids we usually see each year. We go through a lot of candy!!! And there usually aren't any leftovers :( Not that I need to eat them - LOL

One last thing I want to share. I found this video on Deb's blog and fell in love! This kid is amazing!!! Enjoy :)

The Halloween Quilt

I got the borders on the Halloween Quilt yesterday! It's my first attempt at mitered borders, as well as a striped border. Other than that one corner, I think I did pretty well. I'm happy with it, at least :)

I went digging through my batting cubbyhole for a piece that would be big enough to get this basted together, figuring I would need to piece a couple of pieces together to get one large enough. Not only did I find a piece of poly batt that will be big enough, but I found a complete queen-sized wool batt in there! I swear I used the last complete batt on DNephew's quilt this summer....do you think they reproduce when we're not looking?

I got lucky at Goodwill this week and found another Mexican vase that I liked. It's got the same design on the front and the back, and is very bumpy in texture around the sides. I think it goes nicely with the other vase and the lamp I got at Shipshewana this summer.

Last weekend, DH and I took my mother for a color tour to Cadillac. There wasn't as much color on the trees as we had hoped, but we had a good time. We had lunch in town, stopped at an Amish cheese shop, checked out Goodwill and Salvation Army and headed home. On the way home we spotted these in the distance, so we decided to travel a couple of dirt roads to get closer. DH snapped this picture to get an idea of the size of them - the wind turbine is in the field behind the house...I swear these things are like 500 feet tall. There were about 12 of them in a row through the fields. They made almost no noise, and were so peaceful....I don't understand why everyone around here is fighting having these things put in....It's like having a huge giant silently standing guard over you.....of course if you're paranoid about guarding giants, I guess I can understand...

Project Updates..

First off - I'm sorry the photos today are so blurry. I'm not sure what's going on, other than I was the one taking the photo - DH does such a better job of this than I do.

I have been spending most of my time lately on the Halloween Quilt. I've managed to get all the center blocks embroidered and cut down to size. I just need to assemble them together now. Then it's deciding what to do with the border...I've got 3 or 4 options and am just letting things ruminate for now. I'm still hoping to have this on the wall for Halloween - but it may just be a top...we'll see.


This next picture is of a pineapple block I made this week. You may recognize the fabrics as those being used in the Log Cabin quilt I posted about earlier. Well, as I was working on those log cabin blocks, it became painfully apparent that I could not get 2 blocks to come out the same size. They varied from 12" to 12 1/2"...and I'm too much of a perfectionist for that to be acceptable. So, I had to come up with a different plan.

That's when I remembered these paper piecing patterns I had floating around my sewing room for a pineapple quilt I had wanted to make. It kept getting put on the back burner, but I still had these patterns done up. And then it hit me. The strips I had cut for the log cabin quilt would work perfectly in the pineapple blocks! So, I did a quick block this week to see how things worked out. Other than the very outer corner pieces, I think this is very good! And I get the accuracy I prefer using this method, as well. So, I do believe the Log Cabin Quilt will stop at 8 blocks (I'll figure out what to do with those some other day - maybe the back of the Pineapple Quilt?) and the Pineapple Quilt was begun :) I'm happy with the decision.


This last pic is Teresa Wentzler's Unicorn. I'm at the half-way point on it and decided it was time to snap a picture - blurry though it is. I'm leaving the unicorn for last, as an incentive to finish the design. I have a tendency to put things down and move on to other projects, you know. I'm now working on the upper right-hand side of the pattern, where the house is. I'm hoping that the greens in the lower right-hand section won't feel as tedious if they are closer to the end of the project. We'll see how that logic works out.

A few projects to show you...

First of all, in the spirit of Kim and her Thrifty Thursday posts, I had to share with you a couple of finds I've had recently in our local Goodwilly.

The first find was this Ott Lite, complete with a magnifier attachment. The price tag on it was $3.99 - and it worked! I didn't even have to buy a light bulb for it!! Whoa....

My next find was this quilt rack. DH sanded it down and re-stained it for me, and it is now hanging in our entryway hall. It was only $2.99!

To say I was thrilled with these 2 finds is an understatement. I love finding things I know I will use for very little money...and things I can love, too - well, that's just icing on the cake :)

Now to share with you some things I've been working on lately. Below is a shot of my design wall today. I've got three quilts on it currently. Can you name them? LOL

The first one I'll show you is the Halloween quilt that has taken my fancy. I started this quilt on 9-25-10, and this is how far I've gotten so far. All of the blocks on the top row are embroidered...and I'm working on the second row. I'm averaging 2-3 blocks per day, so it shouldn't take me too long.

I think this is my favorite block of the quilt. I love the embroidery pattern and I really like the fabric. I wish I knew the manufacturer, but I only bought fat quarters and none of them have the info on the selvage.

The next quilt I'm showing you is the Deflt Tile quilt. It's hard to see in this photo, but these are the blocks I've traced the pattern onto and basted to the green fabric behind the muslin. Looks like I'm at 11 blocks so far (I didn't know until I counted the blocks in the picture - LOL).

The last quilt I've been fiddling with lately is a log cabin quilt I started for my brother's first wedding - about 6 years ago. I have a total of 7 blocks done. I think I need 25 for the size quilt I want - queen-sized. Well, now my brother has divorced his first wife and is now planning a January 1 wedding with his fiance. Maybe I'll get it done for that? I don't know. If I do, I won't be telling them when I started it!!

This shot is the far left side of my design wall. I like to keep things that inspire me or make me smile within sight and my stitching chair is right next to this section of the wall. I've got a lot of things on here....The paper fan I got from my grandmother when she died - she bought it in Hawaii the only time her and grandpa went there. The first 2 cross stitch items I ever stitched and gave to my grandma - again got back when she died. A handkerchief from grandma. A scarf my mom crocheted for DH and he decided he didn't want it anymore, so I tacked it on the design wall. Two blocks I hand pieced from the Quilted Diamonds book - they aren't the same size, so I'm ruminating about what to do with them. My calendar, a couple of applique pieces waiting to be incorporated into a quilt label, a shot DH took of my stitching, a broach from my grandma, a twilled sunflower I like (but didn't make), and a note from my kitty that DH helped him write and put in my lunchbox one day last winter.

The photo at the very bottom is one of my favorites. It's from 1994 and it's of my mom and me working on our projects. She's nearly finished with an afghan she's crocheting and I'm working on some cross-stitch project....I have no idea which one. I don't know why Mom's not smiling, maybe she didn't want her photo taken? Anyway, it reminds me of happy times spent with my family.

What I've Been Up To...

I've been working on a new project this weekend that has taken me by storm. It's a Halloween wallhanging and I can't stop working on it.

I got all the fabrics cut yesterday. Today I spent the morning getting the embroidery designs traced onto the fabrics and the stitching was started tonight. I found the pattern in the lastest issue of the magazine that spotlights 10 quilt shops a couple times each year (of course the name of the magazine is escaping me right now). Anyway, I fell in love with the pattern and started pulling all the Halloween fabric I owned out of my stash. I have a lot of it!! I didn't have to buy a single piece of fabric for this quilt, including the back!! I'll get a picture of it soon.

Meanwhile, I'll leave you with this - Felix Butt. I finally got a quilt hanging off the quilt hanger DH made me this summer, and Felix has convinced himself that if he sits like this, nobody can see him. No amount of me telling him that we can all see him seems to make him think otherwise. Oh well :)

The quilt was made by my mother's mother's father's mother, Viola Hesterly. Did you get that? Basically, my grandma's paternal grandmother made it for her when she got married in 1940. It's a basic log cabin, it's tied and has a knife edge treatment on it. It fits a double bed and is very warm. I think she liked pink!