Happy Halloween!

I used some of my left over Halloween fabric scraps and made some simple Halloween Fabric postcards.

I started out with some orange yarn that I trimmed. I also zig zagged the yarn to the edge for this one.

Then I decided to not trim it and leave it "hairy".

Then I wanted to test the same design with ric-rac.  It think I like the yarn better.

Perhaps because the ric rac isn't the right shade of orange.

Here is another with the yarn

This one makes me think the pumpkins are behind bars.  

Hope your Halloween is Spooky... but not too spooky....

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Drawings

I haven't had a chance to add color to my beach scene, but I want to go ahead and post it.

It has been done for a couple weeks now.

I have also been working on another sketch.  This one is almost finished.

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Halloween Costumes

There hasn't been much quilting going on this week. Mainly because it is costume making season! Each year my hubby's work sponsors a Halloween party for all the kids and each year we love going and dressing up. This year my boys went as Edward Scissorhands, Cousin Itt, and a Statue on a Pedestal.  My daughter had a hard time deciding what to be this year but finally decided to dress up as a Cowgirl.

All four together.  Usually I end up making all the costumes, but this year I put the kids to work.  Cousin Itt did most of his costume himself.  I barely had to help at all and I put the other two boys to work cutting and spray painting.  They all had a good time and enjoyed being able to say they helped make their own costumes.

Edward at the Party,  He won one of the prizes for his category.  They gave out prizes for the best three costumes in each age group. His was in the the 6 to 8 group.

All four at the party.

Bag for Jay

I have been watching a cute eight and half month old baby the past couple weeks, and his mom had been bringing me his food every morning in a plastic Wal-Mart bag, so I sewed him a cuter one during his nap time the other day.  I used two fat quarters for this - the kites and a bright yellow.  I didn't use a pattern, I just cut some rectangles and sewed it up.  It isn't very large, just big enough to hold a couple of jars of baby food and a small thermos of water.

I love the cheerful kites and the bright yellow.  

It makes me happy every time I look at this bag.  

:)

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First Place Award!!

A couple weeks ago I drove to Columbia, SC and hand delivered my quilt and entered it in the state fair.  It was the first time I have entered anything in the state fair and really didn't think it would do well, it being my first time and all.  I was satisfied with being able to say "I have a quilt on display at the state fair."  Well to my surprise,  I got 1rst place!!  I was soooo excited when I heard the news!
Below is the quilt I entered.

This is a photo I took and I blogged about it here.

Here it is on display at the SC State Fair

I tried to take photos of some of the other quilts, but I didn't get very many.  My kids kept rushing me out of the craft building.  For some reason they thought riding rides was more fun than looking at quilts or all the other wonderful craft items in that huge room.  

 Now seriously... do these rides look more fun than staring at quilts?

The kids had so much fun that they kept riding rides even when it started to rain.

According to the kids, three and a half hours of riding rides in the rain is

definitely more fun than staring at quilts.  :)

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Fall Panels

 Last weekend I basted 3 fall themed panels.  I was hoping to have them all finished by the end of this week but I was also babysitting an 8 month old all week and I forgot how much doesn't get done when babies are around-housework, fancy dinners, quilting etc.  I did manage to finish up one panel during nap times though. But the other two will have to wait since I get to watch the baby again next week and I have some client quilts that need to get done which will be on the schedule for nap time next week.

Here are some better views of the quilting.

Below are the other two panels waiting their turn.

 While watching the little one this week, there were a couple days where he wanted me to be right next to him on the floor while he plays.  He has 4 teeth coming in up top and was extra clingy.  So if I left the room even for a second to grab something real quick he would cry.  So I decided to stay near him on the floor all day and spent that time basting two big client quilts.   These are the ones I will work on next week. 

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Quilt for Citizen Sam

 I finished this quilt on Sunday.  Since I have been quilting a lot for others lately, I make sure Sunday sewing is reserved for my own personal projects or for service quilts.  This one falls under the service quilt category.

I wanted to post about it sooner but it has been raining most of the week so I wasn't able to go outside and take a picture of it till today.  Today was the first sunny day we have had all week.

This quilt is going to the Citizen Sam project. I didn't make the top for this, I only did the quilting and the binding.  A guild mate of mine showed off six completed Citizen Sam tops during our August guild meeting and asked for volunteers to help her get them all quilted.  I told her I would take one and she gave me this top and the backing to go with it.  The guild provided the batting.  They have a big roll they use specifically for our service project quilts.

The quilting on this one went pretty quick. I did a general meander down the rail blocks, and for the stars and stripes rows I did a star and swirl meander.

 I had the perfect blue and white star fabric for the binding in my stash.

I will turn this quilt in at our next guild meeting in November.

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Fat Quarter Stars Quilt Along Block 2

My finished Block 2 of the Fat Quarter Stars Quilt Along.

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Friendship Star Table Runner

I first saw this pattern on Sew We Quilt.  It was by guest blogger Shell May of The Raspberry Rabbits.  I book marked the post because I wanted to make it.  Time passed and I figured it would probably never get made becuase I just have too many other projects.  But then Shell reposted the tutorial on her blog the other day and I thought, I really like this and I am going to make this now.  So I picked out some Christmasy fabrics and got started.  It went together pretty fast and I was finishing up the hand stitching on the binding Friday morning.  I will have to wait a couple months before I can put it out though.  Right now my Halloween Table Runner is on my coffee table.  But Christmas will be here in a blink of an eye for sure!

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Bird House Quilt

My newest finish was a quit top created by one of my guild members who recently passed away.  Her family received four tops of hers that they wanted to have completed and this was one of them, the Bargello I previously posted about was another and I have two more waiting their turn under the machine.

 You can see the quilting a little better from the back side.  The fabric is all one color, so the difference in color must be some shading coming from the window.

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October Guild Block

My guild has started up their Block of the Month Program again.  They started it in August so this is the third month they have had it.  I missed the August block, and forgot to take a photo of my September block, but I remembered to get a quick shot of my October block this morning before I left for the meeting.

The theme for October was any block pattern as long as you used Black, Orange, and One other color.

I picked purple for my other color.  Below are all the blocks that were turned in.  

Unfortunately they didn't pick my name in the drawing so I didn't get to take all these beauties home.
But it was still fun to see all the different blocks, and I can't wait to see what the winner does with them.

Purple Quilt Finished

My cat finally got off my purple quilt and I was able to finish it up.  :)

Actually I quilted a little bit on it every day over the past two weeks.  I have spent most of my craft time quilting for others lately, but I always make sure to set aside a few minutes each day (sometimes only 15) to work on something of my own.  Thanks to those spurts of time set aside I now have a finish of my own.

I wasn't sure what to put in the big purple border squares so I decided to go with feathers.  

You can never go wrong with feathers right?

In the purple diamonds between the nine patches I tried one of Leah Day's Free Motion Designs called Feathered Hearts.  You can see them pretty good from the back of the quilt.  They are a little more dense than the rest of the quilt, but they were fun to do and great practice.

I have a couple more client quilts and a Citizen Sam quilt waiting there turn on the machine so I will better back to those.    

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FQQA #1

Here is my first block for the Fat Quarter Quilt Along.  

Now I have to wait a whole week to find out the next pattern... oh the anticipation...

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A Bargello

I finished the quilting on another client quilt over the weekend.

 It was about to rain when I took these first two photos, so I moved to the front porch.

My quilt holder wasn't home, so I had to use the railing.

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