Design Wall Monday--Plus Halloween

 Design Wall Monday--see more design walls on Judy's Small Quilts and Doll Quilts blog. 

I got started on a promised bookshelf quilt for my niece, Emma.  A collection of fabrics from the scrap drawer has been awaiting finalization of the construction method.  

There are many tutorials out there, but my favorite was from the Fabric at Work website. Her method included cutting different widths of background fabric and sewing the book pieces to the strip. 

The seams are pressed to the background strip--I'm using Kona Black. 

I cut random lengths up to 10" and widths up to 3.5" per the tutorial and cut them apart with the rotary cutter and a ruler. Here they are on the ironing board. 

And now all cut apart.  Once arranged in the order desired, the background/book lengths are sewn together and trimmed to the desired shelf size,  about 11-14" inches.  I will add different pieces to the shorter pieces you see here, for striped or labeled ends.  There will be some objects and perhaps a plant or extra block in a frame tucked in here and there.  My goal is a couch quilt size and I hope to have it completed by December.  I'll need to pick out a shelf fabric--a mottled or wood grain fabric is suggested for interest. Surprisingly, solid fabrics were not recommended for the books.  That's fine with me!

In other business, Thanks for all the compliments on the Hedwig the Owl costume I made.  Here's a pic of the older grandsons as Harry Potter and Hedwig. 

Cove and Hunter had a great time trick or treating in their neighborhood.  Daughter Elaine also sent a video of Cove (Harry Potter) casting a spell:  "Winguardium Leviosa!", and Hunter flapping his owl wings.  Youngest grandson Dane cried when posed by the carved pumpkins, but was all smiles when he was free to move about. 

A cute little ghostie :)  

Our neighborhood was slammed with trick or treaters.  DH was being very generous with handfuls of candy at first, but then had to slow down with the crowds.  We came very close to running out of candy and I had to try three stores before I came up with ONE bag of chocolate coins!  Fortunately, being a Sunday night, the crowds were gone by 8 pm.  Wonder what I'll make next year?

Slow Sunday Stitching--Cross-stitch and Halloween costume

Slow Sunday Stitching--see more projects on Kathy's Quilts Blog. 

Not much slow stitching has been happening around here, but I did spend a bit of time on the cat cross stitch project. 

Nearly finished with one side of the cat's chin and cheek. 

Last progress pic for reference.

Most of my crafting/sewing time this week was spent on costume making.  Daughter Elaine tasked me with making a costume for younger grandson, Hunter.   Big Brother Cove is going to be Harry Potter, and Elaine asked me to make a Hedgwig the Owl costume for Hunter (age 5). She bought the materials to copy a homemade costume she saw on a blog, and started by cutting out a tunic base and a bunch of felt feathers.  I took over from there, sewing all the feathers onto the tunic, and cutting out a half-circle cape from the white felt.

While there are lots of "no sew" costumes, I wanted this to last, so I used my walking foot to sew down the rows of overlapping feathers. I cut a lot more feathers in a larger size to cover the majority of the cape. This was not hard, just time consuming.  I did not do it all at once, but broke it into several sessions when I ran out of cut feathers and needed more. 

I used the smaller feathers on the top few rows.  The tunic back has no feathers, since by design I made the cape long enough to cover the whole thing.  I waited for Hunter to try on the costume before adding some elastic to hold the cape on his arms. 

We did have to trim the cape a bit in width, and I re-secured the ends of the feather rows where we trimmed.  Hunter was very excited. 

He'll wear gray leggings and actual shoes for trick or treating tonight. 

 

The elastic bands at his wrist and upper arm worked great.  I took a video of him flapping around the backyard. 

Mama cleverly bought a second pair of Harry Potter glasses to use to make Hedwig's beak and face feathers.  Can't wait to see the boys all dressed up tonight!

Halloween Week

 Halloween decorating was late, but I still got some up--if only to enjoy it myself!

Grant wore a mask and used long barbecue tongs to distribute candy to the very tiny number of trick-or-treaters that came to the door--none were really expected due to COVID restrictions.  There was one group of about 4-5 younger kids, and an hour later one teenager.  Good thing Grant bought the 100+ piece bag of candy---not!  

Grandson Cove was a red Sith Stormtrooper and Hunter a mummy.  They had a little socially distanced Halloween get together with their cousins and other grandparents in their backyard and did no trick-or-treating, but had fun anyway.  Baby grandson Dane had a Halloween onesie that Mama sent video of him wearing.   

Pretty Halloween sunset and later we watched the Blue Moon peek out from behind the clouds. 

On Friday afternoon I had gone down to the beach while Grant was still working, seeking some Vitamin Sea.  While it was sunny and warm at our house 5 miles inland, the fog was hanging off the coast and there were no surfers as the tide was way out. 

I caught this quick composition from the bluff before the gentleman passed by on the shore.  

I surprised this squirrel a ways down the path, it stood stock still until the first instant I looked away, and then it disappeared under the boulders.  There were many tons of rocks piled up below the bluff, trying to keep the shoreline from erasing the pavement and sidewalk above.  There was no easy way down to the beach, so I kept walking.  

These California Brown Pelicans are huge birds, fishing the shallows.  I was standing easily 100 yards away and zoomed in as far as I could.  I wish my picture of them flying had come out better.  I'll visit again when the walls of the house seem to close in too much and I need another dose of Vitamin Sea.

Design Wall Monday--10/7/19

Just under the wire for Design Wall Monday--see more Design Walls on Judy's Small Quilts and Doll Quilts.  She gave me a shout-out for suggesting a name for an apple core doll quilt she is making, so sweet.  Thanks, Judy!

I did play with the orange scraps shown last week and made a pumpkin block from the cover quilt of APQ magazine's  October 2019 issue, Fall Dash by Sherri McConnell. 

The brown fabric was from a fat quarter, but all the rest was from the scraps and strips drawers.  I cut out a bunch of small squares to make the other block version of a pumpkin but it isn't finished yet.  

Hubby and I got away for a short vacation last week--a rare occurrence indeed.  We scored a room at a lovely hotel right on the oceanfront in Cambria, CA.  Off season pricing and no crowds, no fog, and no heavy traffic--it was terrific. I brought the never-ending blackwork embroidery to work on, and a free pattern I printed out from Lizzie Kate. With all the embroidery floss I have, none of the charted colors were in my stash. There was a yarn shop in Cambria and luckily they carried Anchor floss as well. 

The pre-mounted cross stitch blanks are so great.  I got a small start on Cozy Christmas Wishes.  Ball&Skein and More is a lovely little shop that has lots of samples and supplies for knitting and crochet, so great to find in this tiny town.

Coming home on a Friday leaves a whole weekend to play before having to go back to work. I did actually finish the Blackwork embroidery!  The four panels are now ready to be trimmed and framed together with CW prints in a small quilt. 

Daughter Elaine asked if I'd like to help her decorate their new home for Halloween after grandson Cove's soccer game on Saturday.

Grandson Hunter started with this box, haha!  We made a trip to Michael's and I bought foam sheets to make googly eyes for the shrubs in front of the house, while Elaine hung cobwebs and ghosts.

Next post, I'll share some of our vacation adventures. Happy October!

Works in Progress, Visitors, and New Toy

I'm continuing to work on some of the Three for September projects (my WIP busting effort working on one project every three days).  I spent a few hours quilting the Medallion Rescue quilt.  Lots of boring stippling around the star center, and then some custom work on the borders, all done on my Husqvarna sewing machine.  

The ribbon effect in the blue borders was done with a scallop stitch on my machine.  I like the way it turned out, however imperfect it is :)  Then I tried to come up with a way to quilt through the white sections of the chain blocks but somehow ended up with a more complex quilting design, simply by trying not to have to bury a ton of threads.  I used my Hera marker for all the lines.  I think the chains still stand out enough against the quilting.  Binding is ready to cut and sew, in the same blue dot fabric. I'd like to get that done this weekend and call this rescue complete. 

Another project on the Three for September list, Jewels in the Curio, still needed fabrics cut for the three borders.  I pulled out the GO! cutter and 2.5" strip die to make quick work of the rest of the necessary pieces.  It was very satisfying to have them all lined up, labeled, and ready to go when I want to piece.

Daughter Elaine texted last weekend hoping I had pumpkin carving tools.  The family stopped by on their walk and I was surprised by grandson Cove while I was digging around in boxes in the garage.  We had a short, fun visit, even though I didn't locate any tools.  

 Cove the Wizard grabbed some driftwood as a broom..

 ...Hunter the Thirsty rejected Mimi's first choice of a sippy cup with handles: "That's for Babies!"  He's rapidly turning into a little boy but his hands are still toddler chubby--love that.

And finally, the New Toy.  At our last guild meeting there was a raffle for a very special prize.  Many, many tickets were sold for this prize; I bought a few.  My sister bought quite a number of chances and ended up winning the prize!  At the end of the meeting she picked up her prize---and gave it to me as an early birthday present.  I was flabbergasted.  Here's a crappy photo of an impressive gift:

This is the Cricut Maker, with a rotary cutting tool specifically for fabric.  The prize package also included two of the large sticky fabric cutting mats, some other accessories and a fabric bundle.  I have watched a bunch of videos and seen some great projects on Instagram, but have not yet cut anything out. It's so hard to decide what to try first!  My sister and I are going to Sewtopia in a few weeks, and I'd like to use the Cricut Maker to do something fabulous with the Michael Miller Challenge fabric.  Wish me luck!

Design Wall Monday--10/31/16 Happy Halloween

Design Wall Monday again.  Well, another week passed quickly, with not too much time in the sewing room.  However, some of it was spent with my grown niece, Emma, making Thomas. 

The photo is a bit overexposed, but you can tell what a sophisticated turkey he is.  Emma picked through my precut scraps and we pulled larger pieces and fat quarters for more choices.  Though I gave away the pattern for this mini quilt a few years ago, I had the one I made for  myself to go by.  Emma enjoyed using the Accuquilt GO cutter to chop up the scraps to the 2.5 width, then we crosscut them with the cutter for squares.  It was a fun couple of hours.  Thomas now has a pieced backing and I'll get the quilting done soon and have Emma choose her binding fabric. 

See more Design Walls on Judy's Patchwork Times. 

 

 I kept the GO cutter out to lower the volume of this scrap bin. 

 So great to get a new pile of light scraps in the 2.5" precut drawer.

 

Other tasks last week included getting a new kitchen faucet, thanks to son Nick,  a plumber who got us a great overstock deal AND installed it, and DH Grant who put up these pretty new patio lights.  We had our house painted this gray blue-green a couple of months ago and the 25+ year old builder grade lights had to go. The first two new lights went up just fine but the third one had to be partially disassembled to change the too-long mounting screws.  Naturally there was a trip to the Home Center involved to complete the project, but only to buy clear caulk to seal the backplates from rain.  We actually did get some of that wet stuff here in SoCalif, just about 1/2 inch to kick off our rainy season, enough to ease the fire danger some.  Fingers crossed there will be more rain in the next 3-5 months.

Our Halloween was pretty light, only about 80 trick or treaters--in the past we have had a few hundred, but that's to be expected on a school night.   We played favorites with the grandsons to close out the evening.

Cove requested to be a ghost and Mama made him this costume from some gauze, draping it over his cute leggings and long sleeved shirt.  Clever and simple, perfect for a 2 3/4 year old.  Baby brother Hunter sported some bones :)   Too cute!

Tuesday's Orts

Tuesday's Orts--bits and pieces of events and thoughts that land here occasionally.

• One of my two jobs had an office move, luckily while I was out of town, and things are slowly coming together.  Here's hoping the 90's reception room furniture will be gone soon, as it is killing the buzz in the newly painted and carpeted space.  
• Traffic Rant:  For heaven's sake, pull all the way forward into the parking space, especially if you have a big ass vehicle and are parking in a tiny lot--other people would like to get by.  Sheesh!
• Despite the incredible disaster area my sewing room currently is, I have been sewing.  After carefully measuring and cutting, the first of two outer borders went on to the Bullseye quilt for my brother.  I did have to ease the borders a bit, but it worked out.  Then the second outer border side sections went on.  I laid out the remaining border pieces over the quilt top and cut them to length.  Only then did I notice I had cut duplicates of the side pieces--which would be too short for the top and bottom sections.  I took the high road and decided this gave me a DESIGN OPPORTUNITY for corner blocks.  Since I had so many extra circles from cutting out the centers of so many blocks, it was natural to continue the theme in the corners.

The acorn print worked well with the brown inner border and the green final border fabrics, I thought, and unified the corner bullseyes.

 Lucy agreed.

After a local search for dark green print, the outer border fabric I ordered from an Ebay seller.  It is a Kansas Troubles print from a line a couple of years old and the fabric is simply yummy in quality and hand.  I think it goes well with the Thimbleberries print that was originally the outer border before I started expanding the quilt to queen size.  Both have small leaves scattered all over.  

• Halloween on Saturday night--that brought a mixed bag of  trick or treaters.  In years past we have had literally hundreds of visitors to our door.  This year was about 100.  DH Grant again resorted to giving out handfuls of candy, even earlier than last year.  My favorite costume was a little girl in a one piece unicorn with floppy legs that "ran" when she did.  Adorable.  My favorite trick or treater, of course, was Cove. 
•  Once again, DD Elaine and her friend came up with a great costume idea for their two boys.  

Here are Hans and Franz, ready to Pump You Up (Saturday Night Live lives on!).  Cove/Hans is flexing pretty hard right there. My contribution was making the weightlifters belts. 

 Cove appears to have gotten at least some of the chocolate in his mouth!

Not a Pinterest Fail

Pinterest fails are famous on the web, but once in a while a trial works out.  I saw these pumpkins made out of canning jar lids on several websites, and remembered the large bag of leftover lids from the mason jars that my daughter and son-in-law gave out as favors at their wedding--four years ago--which I still had in a closet. 

Getting the lids evenly coated took about four coats, but I'm not a very experienced spray paint user.  The pumpkins called for 24 canning jar lids.  After watching a couple of videos, I chose to use large zip ties to hold them into the pumpkin shape. Fortunately, I also had some of those on hand.  The only thing I purchased for the project was the spray paint. 

That worked pretty well and was more secure, I thought, than raffia or yarn. 

I had just enough cinnamon sticks in the cupboard to make two pumpkin stems.  I hot glued the sticks together and into the center, and used the raffia to cover up the glue.  I also cut a couple of circles of scrapbooking stock and hot glued those to the pumpkin bottoms to help keep the sticks in.  Pretty cute, huh?  I gave DD Elaine one and kept the other.  I haven't got any real pumpkins yet, but grandson Cove (20 months) visited the pumpkin patch the other day with his mom and dad. 

He had a good time riding in the cart with the three big family pumpkins and carrying around a warty gourd.  Not pictured is a tiny pumpkin that represents his baby brother arriving in March.  Cove spent the night with Mimi and Papa last night and the better part of today and we had a great time playing, as usual. We look forward to meeting our next grandson in another few months!  This grandparent gig is the best :)

Spooky Break

I'm taking a short break from the Timber Quilt, which has progressed to a lot of completed sections:

And just four additional blocks before assembly into a top. However, since my new deadline for this quilt is Christmas, I'm paying attention to a long neglected small project for Halloween. 

I designed this to use up some cherished charm pack scraps of a Minnick & Simpson Halloween line. Everything else came from stash and my own scraps. I've pin basted for black buttonhole stitching/quilting and may bring the backing to the front to finish. I'm happily home from work this morning as my doctor is out of town today and Monday. 

After being sick and then out of town, not to mention the dang heat, there has been little sewing happening. Time to remedy that!

October Round Up

I thought September went fast, but October passed by in a blur as well, though plenty of events occurred.  DD Erica went to London, Paris, Edinburgh and Glasgow.  No sooner was she home than DD Elaine and family went to Puerto Vallarta.  Grandson Cove was a champion traveler, his parents reported.  He turned 8 months on the day they returned. All had a wonderful time, thankfully. 

Cove studying the Airline Safety Card

My sewing room has not seen nearly enough action this month, nor has my blog.  One more year without my finishing the Witches quilt or a Halloween wallhanging, both of which are still neatly folded on the Hoosier cabinet.  I'm still working on the Winding Ways quilt but it is very slow going.  I did spend time with a box of pieces last week, pinning segments, in a waiting room while DD Erica had a surgical procedure.  I also put some  "big" stitches in the Pink Lemonade quilt, which is still not done.  Erica didn't need much nursing when we got home, but still I couldn't seem to settle to the machine.  I had to ask for another month to get Winding Ways completed, and hope that is enough.  Sheesh.

Halloween week snuck up on us as well.  The decorating was haphazard at best but there was some done! 

The owls are felt coasters from Target last year.  The skull light has some great flickering bulbs.  (No idea where to get replacements for them when they finally burn out!)

Erica and her best friend obliged at the last minute on Halloween with cobweb duty.  (Pay no attention to that silly man in the doorway).  We had more trick-or-treaters this year than last--its always iffy when the holiday falls on a Friday, in my opinion, as it seems more people hold parties instead of going out.  Grant resorted to handfuls of candy in the last hour when things slowed.  It was all over by about 8:30.  Our first trick-or-treater of the night was our grandson.  His mom and a best friend plotted for a year the babies' first Halloween costume and revealed their secret only on October 31st.  It did not disappoint:

In the hat, Cove was Wayne, from Wayne's World, and friend Jude was Garth.  Party On, Excellent!    Southern California got a treat Halloween night as well, a drenching storm, with some showers overnight and the next morning.  Our rainy season starts October 1, so it feels a good omen that the month did end with measurable rain!

Cove spent today with Mimi and Papa today while his parents celebrated their 3rd wedding anniversary.  He's crawling, standing, jumping, babbling, and rarely still.  Which explains the short naps.  We loved every minute, of course, he is such a sweetie.  November is filling up with events and the holidays will be here before we know it, so it was nice to savor a Sunday with Cove.  My goal for the coming week is to get in some sewing time every morning, even if it is only a segment or two, then continue that after dinner.  Fingers crossed!

Halloween Report

Weird year for our street--started late, ended early, long gaps between groups. We were left with two unopened bags of candy. Very dangerous thing. 

Lucy dressed up. 

Amelie didn't really want to.  

My sister said there were a couple of haunted houses a few streets over so that must have held the trick-or-treaters up. Erica was handing out handfuls of treats at the end. It was all over before 8:30.  Next year will be different, I'm sure!