Happy Halloween

Wahoo!! It's Finally Halloween. I am excited. Probably more so than the kids. I don't usually sew clothes, but once I year I break out the costume patterns and whip up some fun costumes for the kids. It's the only clothing I do like to sew, mainly because it is fun and doesn't have to look perfect. Ever since I discovered quilting over 10 years ago, I have been in love with it and would rather sew a quilt any day over a skirt or shirt or pair of pants. So here is my once a year "clothes" that I have created. I did 8 costumes this year. Four for my children and four for some friends.

These first four are my children. We have a Gnome on a mushroom, A Mummy, a Patchwork turtle, and a Tree. I sure had a good time making all of these. The mummy was probably the easiest. I just cut a ton of 3 inch muslin strips and wrapped them around my son, using safety pins to hold them on. Every year, my husband's work has a Halloween party a couple days before Halloween. At that party they have a costume contest which is split up into different age groups and prizes are awarded for best girl and boy costume in each age group. Each of my kids won for their category! I was very surprised at that and my kids were all super excited to be winners. It was the Mummy's first time ever winning. I was especially happy for him. :)

These four were made for friends. Since they live out of town, I had my daughter, son and neighbor try them on to make sure they would fit and so I could have a photo of them before I mailed them out. The first one is the witch costume I mentioned in a previous post, second is Cousin Itt from the Adam's Family. Then there is Cleopatra. The photo for Cleopatra was more of a first fitting. Later I added some gems and a fancy brooch to the costume, but forgot to take another picture of it before I mailed it out. Last is suppose to be a wolf. The pattern I had was a generic body suit where you add different items to turn it into the animal you want. My neighbor is modeling it and she said it looked more like a cat than a wolf, her mom said it looked more like a mouse... Ah well, It is suppose to be a wolf. There is a nice long gray tail but you can't see it too well in the photo. Also in the photo, I still had to hem the legs. They were quite long, but I wanted to make sure they weren't too short so I started them out long. Better to be too long at first, than too short. :)

Tonight we go out trick-or-treating to show them all off. For some reason I always last longer than the kids. Maybe as they get older, and I get older that might change, We shall see... :) HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!!

V is for Violet

This card was made for the "Letter V" postcard swap for ArtsNtheMail. I chose to do V is for Violet. Again I have used french knots to surround the borders of the card. I think I am addicted to these little knots. They always feel so nice when I rub my fingers over them. This time I decide to do a fabric edging instead of a satin stitch edging. It gives the card a whole different feel.

Black and Orange

I saw this orange and black fabric at the store awhile ago and was automatically drawn to it. But, since I am on a fabric diet, I refrained from buying it. Later on in the month though, I had to make a witch costume for Halloween and the person who wanted the costume had specific color requests for the costume: the dress had to be black, orange, purple, and green. Well, I knew exactly where to go to get the orange and black. :) And since I always buy a little extra material for my projects, (in case I screw up) I had plenty left over to make these post cards. These cards were made for the ArtsNtheMail Black and Orange swap. From the beginning, I had envisioned embellishing the black squares with some orange something or other, but wasn't quite sure how I wanted to do it. Then I decided hand work was the way to go. I alternated between rows of Daisy flowers with a bead center and a row of clustered french knots. I love the way it turned out. The best part is running my fingers over the top and feeling the texture of the thread. I hope the ladies who receive them like them as much as me.

IFQ ATC Round 10

These sets of ATCs were made for round 10 of the IFQ ATC Alphabet swap. I was assigned the letters E and K and the numbers 8 and 9.

I chose to make E is for Easter Egg, K is for Keyhole, 8 pink flowers, and 9 planets. It is hard to see in the photo, but I quilted some leaves on the pink flowers with some light pink thread, and for the Keyhole I used a new technique of modge podging the image onto my fabric. I just received a V is for Vampira card from another postcard swap that was done this way and I loved it, so I thought I would try it out myself.

Halloween

	The past few days I have been busy Making Halloween themed poscards. Halloween is one of my favorite holidays. I love the cool weather, all the change in colors, and all the pumpkins. I just can't seem to get enough of pumpkins. This card on the left was made for the Jack-o-Lantern swap for ArtsNtheMail. I also made an extra one for my October Mingle for Fabricards. When I think of October, I think of pumpkins. :)
I made this card for the Halloween swap for ArtsNtheMail. The background fabric is one of my favorite Halloween prints that I own. So far I have made a pillowcase and a bag with it, and now it is on these postcards. I still have a little more of this fabric left. Now I just need to figure out what else to use it for. :)
This card was made for the Halloween swap on Fabricards. I had just enough of the "Happy Halloween" ribbon to make enough cards for all the ladies in my group.	I signed up for two Halloween swaps on Postcard Pizzazz, one "Regular" and one "Crazy Quilt" These ghosts where for the regular swap.

These two were made for the Crazy Quit Halloween swap for Postcard Pizzazz. I am really loving the crazy quilt method. It is a great way to use up my small scraps that I can't bear to throw away.

Postcard Wallhanging

I finished my postcard wall hanging quilt last night. The actual quilting had been done for weeks, it just needed to have the binding sewn on, which I did last night while I watched The Bee Movie with the kids. I used the pattern from Kate's Blog but made the shashing thicker and omitted the two rows of squares that separated the three sections of the the quilt.
The Quilt looks totally different when there are no postcards in it. I meant to take a photo of it empty, but in my excitement to add the postcards I forgot to take a photo while there were no cards in it. Halfway through filling it up I remembered the camera. Instead of taking all the cards out, I just decided to take a picture of it the way it was, half full. So the first photo shows it half full and you can see some of the empty squares. The next photo shows it full of postcards from all the wonderful people in my postcard groups. It sure was hard to pick 48 cards to display since I have so many wonderful ones to choose from. I will have to swap them out frequently to enjoy them all.



This is a close up of the quilting I did in the sashing. I was in "Feather" mode after making those feather postcards so I did feathers through all the sashing. I found it more difficult to guide this quilt through the machine after stitching on such stiff small cards. What a challenge it was.

Crazy Quilt Blocks

I'm still fairly new to crazy quilting and have only really done it on postcards. This time I joined a 8inch Crazy Quilt Block swap in my Art4Mail yahoo group. It was very different for me to work on flimsy fabric instead of a stablized post card. I think they turned out pretty good though. They are very similar to the postcards I posted a while ago. Same fabric. The swap said not to use cotton, and since almost every fabric in my stash is cotton, I had to resort back to these silks I had. I hope they ladies in my group like them.