Halloween Table Runner

I grabbed one of my favorite Halloween fabrics and some coordinating fabrics to go with it and put together this table runner.  The pattern comes from Karie Patch Designs and is call Served with a Twist.  I love how the 4 patches in the center aren't your traditional 4 patches, the purple fabric is all twisted up.

And just like the peppermint pincushions, I made two of these.
I kept one for myself and gave the other to my sister.  

This is my outdoor kitty Rex.
While I photographed the table runner, He wanted to play and stretch out in the newly made shade.  Even though it is Autumn, the temps are still in the 80's here in the afternoons.

Sunday Doodling

 I spend a lot of time on Sundays just doodling.  Today I finished up this picture that I have been working on the past three Sundays.  Usually I just doodle shapes and lines and cover a whole page, but my husband said he wanted me to turn those lines into something he could recognize, so I made this picture of a waterfall.  Then I added color.  Usually I just work in black and white but for this one I felt the need to add color.

These are what my drawings usually look like. Random doodles all merged into each other. This one has my niece's name mixed into it.

Fall Into Fall Giveaway

Debi is hosting a Fall Into Fall Giveaway.  She has gathered 151 different bloggers, 8 of those are business bloggers, and each one is offering a give away.  I am one of them. WAHOO!!

My give away today is pattern for a 43" x 48" Autumn Wallhanging, 3 fat quarters of my most favorite Halloween fabrics, and a Halloween fabric postcard of your very own to mail out to whom ever you wish.

To enter, just leave a comment and tell me the name of your favorite Pumpkin Recipe.

Mine is Double Layer Pumpkin Cheesecake.   mmmmm

The winner will be drawn on October 15th.

Good luck and happy blog hopping.



*UPDATE*    *UPDATE*

The winner is....

JayTee of JayTee's Patchwork Place!

Congratulations!!

Peppermint Pincushions

I used the free pattern from Connecting Threads to make these two pincushions.

One is for me, and the other is going to be put up for auction during my guild's "Make It, Bake It, Sew It, Grow It" auction at our next meeting.

I decided to make two at once because based on past experience when I say, "I will make one for me later on", it always turns out that later never comes and I never get one for myself.  So this time I cut out enough fabric to make two and now I have one to give and one to keep.

This one is mine.

My son Thomas liked the button better on this one so that is why I picked this one to keep.

Finished Blue and Yellow Quilt

 I finally got my cats to behave and finished quilting this blue and yellow quilt that was made by a guild member. I had wanted to do some crosshatching on the blue border to match the straight line quilting in the nine patches, but the borders were so wavy, there was no way I could have done that without having fabric fold over on itself, so I went with some pretty big swirls for that part.








For the appliquéd circles, I wanted to turn them into flowers with the quilting.  I wanted them to be uniform so I decided I better mark the quilt.  Something I try to avoid at all costs if I can, mainly due to laziness. But some designs call for uniformness and so I must mark the quilt.  I started out tracing one of the appliquéd circles onto a piece of paper and then drew equal sized petals all around it.  I then cut it out and was about to mark each and every circle when it dawned on me, why not just pin the paper to the quilt and quilt around it.  That will save time marking and time removing marks later.  It worked out great and no marking!

Break Time

My kitties obviously don't want me to sew today.  Usually Jasper sits beside me, but this time he wanted to be like Sheen and sit on the quilt I am working on.  They must be tag teaming me today, taking turns hopping up next to me.  So I decided to take a break and post my newest finish.

This quilt below is another quilt being donated to the Boys Home.  It was made by one of the ladies in my quilt guild and I offered to quilt it for her. It is made of all flannel and she didn't want any batting.  I decided to go with some straight line quilting for this one.  It turned out to be exactly what this quilt needed.

Postcard Booth

About three weeks ago, I was asked to participate in the Tobacco Festival.  The person in charge of the Artists's section of the festival wanted me to display and sell my postcards.  So I spent the past couple weeks getting ready for the event.  And this is the fruit of my labors, my own booth at the event.  My daughter is in the photo posing at my booth and she was going to sit with me all day, but she found some friends and they went to enjoy the festival.  I didn't mind.  I would rather her have a good time with her friends.  They did stop by every now and then to check in and say hi, which was nice. When I first got the call to participate, I had plenty of postcards and ATCs to show from my collection, but I didn't have any to sell.  So I had to make a few so my booth wouldn't be so bare.

  I wanted to have a whole table full, but time didn't permit me to make that many.  What I did have time to make turned out to be enough.  I ended up selling four postcards and probably would have done better if there would have been more people walking by.  The "Artists on the Green", as we were called, got a raw deal that day.  If  the city would have decided to keep the main vendors across the street from us, instead of move them a couple blocks down then we would have had as much traffic as the rest of the festival.  The people would have naturally flowed over to our event, but since the main vendors were were moved a couple blocks down most people didn't even know where we were.  My husband had to tell a couple of his friends and our neighbor where to find me.  A few  of them made their way over, but others never did.
  Towards the end of the day I became miserable and bored.  It was super hot, temps in the 90's.  The heat is mainly to blame for my misery at the end.  But, if there would have been people walking by to chat and discuss postcards with, then the heat would have been a bit more bearable.  But sitting there doing handwork in the heat, not talking to anyone was just not fun. I actually became bored which it is rare for me to be bored. I was ready to be home and work in the comfort of my AC.
    The coordinator of the event felt so bad that she told us all that even if we did have sales that we could to keep the 15%  booth fee we owed her.   She did tell me she has other fiber art events coming up soon, though and they have been successful in the past and she would be in touch with me again.
   Over all though, minus those last two hours,  I must say I did enjoy the event and getting ready for it.    I even enjoyed the first couple hours sitting in my booth.  It was my first experience ever trying to sell my own items at an event, so I was excited and the very few who did come by were quite interested and were a joy to talk to.

  These next photos are the postcards I made for the event. These first ones are brand new ideas and there is only one of each of them.

These next ones are similar to ones I have made in the past and I made multiples of them.  

• 1 Log Cabin Quilt Block Postcard
• 3 Candy Canes postcards
• 7 beach postcards - I sold two of those.
• 2 Halloween Ghost postcards - I sold one of those.
• 4 Pumpkin Halloween postcards 

The other one I sold was a red and black spider web postcards with iron on gems.  I had made it about a year ago, but since I had a duplicate at home, I went ahead and sold it.  That is why there is a missing slot on the postcard display on the right in the booth photo above.  I sold that card while I was setting up the booth.  

He's at it again...

Here is my kitty Sheen.  You may think he is just watching me sew this fabric bowl, but no, he is waiting for his chance to attack the cord hanging down ....

Caught in the act!

He makes my sewing come to a complete halt on more than one occasion since I don't want to risk getting his paw with my needle.  After a few minutes of letting him play with the cord, I sent him on his way so I could finish my project.

Three more Mosaic Color Play

These are the newest blocks I made for the Mosaic Color Play swap over at IFQ.

The first went to South Africa, the second to Portland Oregon, and the third one is on its way to Australia.

I have received all my blocks, but my last partner is still waiting for hers to arrive even though we mailed them on the same day.  Post coming into the USA seems to be fast, but unfortunately post going out seems to take two to three weeks longer.

I want to sign up again because I had so much fun swapping squares and making blocks, but I am afraid I won't get another 12 blocks before next October when the sign ups end.  It took me over a year to get the first twelve.  I sent out my very first square in the beginning of July of 2009.  One year and two months later I have 12 finished blocks.

Two New Rag Quilts

I finished up two rag quilts this week. They are for two very special clients and they both needed them about the same time, so I cut, layered, sewed, snipped, and fluffed them both at the same time.  It didn't feel like it took too much longer than normal and I ended up with two finished rag quilts this afternoon.

Sheen is always there "helping" whenever I get out the rotary cutter or turn on the sewing machine. Here he is hindering progress on the more pastel colored rag quilt.

Another Quilted Quilt

I finished quilting this quilt the same time I did the 4 patch swirl,
I just forgot to add it to that post.  So here it is now getting its own post.

This one was pieced by another guild member and will be donated to a boys home in the area.

Since you can't really see the quilting in the large photo,

I did a close up shot of the free hand meandering stars.

Cathedral Window Pin Cushion

My swapping friend from Australia sent me a snail mail yesterday and inside was a sample of a unique way to make a cathedral window using two background colors.


I was memorized by the sample she sent me and just had to make one for myself.  I grabbed three of the closest fabrics I had and got started.   I wasn't even worried about the colors playing nice together because if I screwed up big time I was going to chuck it in the trash and not feel bad.

The scraps I used were from my 1.5 inch bin, so my finished window was 2 inches.  It turned out pretty good, so I decided to totally neglect my house chores and the two rag quilts I am suppose to be making and turned my small cathedral window into a pin cushion.  I picked out the rest of the 1.5 inch squares that matched the top and whipped it together.

I put some peltex on the insides and on the bottom to make those areas stiff.  Then I cut two 2 inch pieces of batting and placed those underneath the top of the window for softness.  Then I stuffed the whole thing with plastic pellets, hand stitched the seam shut, and sat back and admired it.   What a neat way to do cathedral windows.  Thanks Mandy!!!