Halloween Wall Hanging

      I have some fabrics left in my scrap bin by T.  She did a few Halloween quilts.  I made a wall-hanging for my daughter, about three years ago, and it turned out pretty cute, from being made with T's Scraps.  I have used those scraps again, plus a couple new Halloween fabrics I picked up this fall.  Annita and I went over to JK Quilters on Ustick Road, and they had some amazing Halloween Fabrics.  The center of this wall-hanging is a square that was left by T in my scrap bin.  I started with it and then grew the quilt around it.  When I quilted it on my Viking (can you spell Husqvarna?) sewing machine, I used my walking foot and went around the words "Happy Halloween" in black thread.  It made it stand out nicely.  The rest is stitch-in-the-ditch, which rhymes with witch, of which there are none in this quilted wall-hanging.  

     When we went on our last camping trip of the year, I started piecing some Halloween blocks for a whole Halloween quilt.  Below is a photo, of my first three blocks.  We were at the Bruno Sand Dunes State Park.  I based them on the outcome of the wall-hanging.  I was the only one at camp that was outside sewing for hours, just a few feet from the camp fire.  I take my Necchi camping and get a spot with power, or my husband brings solar panels.  I had lots of fun and ended up in the middle of nowhere (really!) while trying to find the Bruno Canyon Overlook (the road was not on the map, but the overlook was).

Me practicing social distancing.

A Break From Quilting?

Sometimes it is nice to do a small easy project, between big quilting projects.  I get instant gratification when I do a small project that does not take days, weeks, or months (dare I say years?) to complete.  In the past, I have made tote bags, pot holders, and place mats.  I am certain I have made other small projects, I just cannot remember right now. I do not make table runners.

I happen to be a big tea drinker.  Some of the best tea comes loose-in-the-can, but I don't always like fiddling with a diffuser to make my tea.  Also, some diffusers allow too much of the tea leaf to float into your drink.  In August, I made some tea bags for my husband, because he loves the loose-leaf Immunitea.  I bought some muslin, and sewed some tea bags and poured some tea leaves in each one and chain stitched them together, leaving a bit of thread hanging on each one.  He really likes the tea bags I made for him.  I like the Earl Grey, of which, I have several tins.  Last weekend, I took the time to sew some tea bags for me.  I learned that I need to put less than a kitchen sized teaspoon of tea in each bag, so the next time I fill tea bags, I will use a little less tea.  The reason is, I got ten cups of tea out of the first tea bag.  I think that is fine when I use a teapot, but usually I just pour boiling water into my mug, then put the tea bag in. 

I made a whole pile of tea bags.  I did not fill them all yet.  I just have them on hand for when I need to make some more.  I cut a soda bottle top off, to use as a funnel.  I suggest a smaller spoon to scoop the tea into the funnel, as you don't need much tea to make 3 or 4 cups per bag.  I have a couple of preferred brands; one being Divine Lotus Tea Company. 

Sixteen Patch!

 I am the proud owner of a lovely sixteen-patch/four-patch quilt.  Annita made this beautiful quilt top, and she gave it to me.  I quilted it with stitch-in-the ditch with gold thread, in the center portion.  I used black and pink in the borders.  I hope I did it justice.   I love it! Thank-you, very much, Annita.

Lovely old barn on Locust Grove Road (to be with us not much longer)

Tile Style Quilt for Special Young Lady

This time of COVID-19 has put some extra stress and anxiety on our children.  My co-worker's daughter was feeling that around the first part of August.  There has been so much uncertainty about the new school year and how that would be handled, along with all the summer fun activities with friends being cancelled.  I offered to make a quilt for this 14-year old.  I got to go shopping for awesome cheery fabrics for someone who loves animals.  I did use a little bit of fabric from my own stash, however the main fabrics are from a current line.  I wanted a quick easy, yet fun, quilt design, so I went on-line to Missouri Star Quilt Company and watched the Tile Style video.  I discovered something about these MSQC tutorials.  She really just gives a quick overview and leaves out important pressing instructions to aid the quilter in clean seam joinings.  After the first block made me realize this was the case, I looked back at the video, at the close-up the the finished quilt and paused the video.  I could see she had lumpy, not-exactly-joining-smoothly intersection on all those squares.  I planned which way I would press the parts of my blocks so they would all go together correctly, but I still had problems with many of the blocks being right next to the same patterned block.  This is something else that Jenny at MSQC did not care about in the quilt she made.  I care and believe in "planned randomness". I did some seam ripping and resewing , but I was on a mission.  I think I made it bigger than I meant to, but decided that was okay as she is a tall gal.

This is the quilt front.  If you click on the photo it will show you a closer up (bigger) view of it. My co-worker was very happy with it and so was his daughter.  That makes me happy.

This is the back of the quilt.  I used some left-overs from the front and other quilt left-overs that I thought would go.  This is truly one of the nicest quilts I have turned out this year.  Thank you, Phyllis Oneal, for the wonderful quilt job.  I asked her to use pale blue thread, which is a nice detail.