What a WEEK!

I have had the busiest week since I worked full time retail! Mostly it is the new puppy's fault. She takes a lot of my time right now. I haven't gotten much done in the studio. I do sew a few hexes on the hexagon quilt each night though. Just a few more to go and it will be ready for quilting!

We've had a ton of rain and are pretty sick of it now. Tomorrow is Halloween and the neighbor's rummage sale. I don't have any plans to do much of anything except relax as much as I can till next week! I am trying to keep my schedule clear so I can just putter in the studio as much as I can then. :)

I have TWO Creative Prompts to catch up on too. Glimmer and Spirit. Maybe this weekend, when I am sitting in the living room, watching the puppy chew up things, I can do that. :)

My Post Spooky for today is this shot of the wet puppy and my orange Halloween socks with the purple Crocs. And YES I DID go out with those, in public, for all the world to see! lololol

Forgetful

I was wrestling with my web page this morning, trying to make updates. Good news is, that I did it for the first time ever, without hubby's help! Bad news is that I found out I didn't document one of the blocks for the U is for Unicorn quilt! lol It is the "N" block. I forget what "N" is supposed to stand for! lol

And the Gothy doll head is part of the decor for Halloween. I finished all my decorating, such as it was. But hey, at least I HAVE SOME stuff out this year! lol She is also my Post Spooky for today. (again!!!)

What a mess!!!

I finally got out all the crafting stuff to work on. In the photos below you can see the jar candles that I need to decorate, the boxes of beads, a block that I finished today and....

buttons, my order from eQuilter, the ironing board and the MESS!!!!! My table was clean yesterday! HONEST!!! This mess is my Post Spooky for the day. See the doll head in the background? She's watching me!!!

I also finished the D is for Dragon block from the U is for Unicorn quilt project. This was a very hard block to photograph! The tiny teeth and the sparkly thread work on the belly and on the leaves doesn't show up. You'll have to trust me on all this, the block is prettier in person! If you click on it, you CAN see more details too.

Mistake or Creative License?

I have finished Tom's Dragon Quilt wall hanging. The binding is the same fabric as the little boy's shirt. Some of the 3-D effects turned out so much better than I expected! Of course the camera doesn't capture all that very well. There are puffy clouds, the dragon's eyes, the boy's head, and the little dragons at the bottom, that are all 3-D-ish!

I worked more on the House Medallion quilt too. Here are some of the fan blades I've sewn together in groups of five:

I really had to give a lot of thought as to how to proceed from here. I didn't want to applique the fans 100% and I know I will want to quilt the blades via 'stitch-in-the-ditch. I didn't want to sew the blades down, attaching them to the quilt, until actually quilting it.What I came up with was to use 6.5" squares of Kona white fabric as the background. Above is a fan blade set placed on the white square.

I then folded the edges of the two outer blades of the fans under.

I am making a fabric sandwich! First the white square, then one fan set, right side up, then the next fan set, right side down, and finally another white square on top.
Next I sewed along one side, matching the white squares and matching the fan blades.
I then trimmed the blocks and pressed them open.

Now I have sets of rectangle fan blocks to use for this border.

However, in working on this part of the layout, I discovered that I figured these blocks out, WRONG!!! I am one block short on each side. I am going to get around this by making a flower block that compliments the pink flower buds that are in the center of the quilt. I will put one in the center of each side. I thought that was rather clever. lol I will also hand applique down the fan blade top edges.

For my Post Spooky, I took a photo of my little witch, Zelda. She will be sitting outside our front door on Halloween night, greeting the trick-or-treaters. I haven't been in the mood to decorate as much as I usually do for Halloween. I hope to finish up the decorating that I DO want to do, tomorrow.
Well, that is all from my studio today. I have already been at elementary school, substitute teaching this morning. It is raining out and is supposed to keep raining all day. I think I will stay indoors and enjoy MORE fabric therapy!


LATER THAT EVENING:
Ack!!! I am stuck. I don't know if I am making the right choice to add a flower in the center of each side or if I should break apart the border and have two smaller elements in there to make up the difference????

I have these two photo-shopped with mock ups of what I might do with them. The circle would be a pinkish flower. The exclamation points are really single blades. I either have to add a 6" block in the middle or two 3" blocks on either side. Decisions, decisions!!!

EVEN LATER THAT SAME EVENING:
Gosh, I feel like I am writing a cheap murder mystery novel tonight!!! After much thought and more deliberation, I think I am going to go with this layout:

I took some spare strips of black and put that up on the design wall. Then I laid out the blocks more accurately. NOW I think instead of having a six inch block to play with, I only have five inches. (not counting seam allowances)
SOOOOOOOO, I am going to just put equal sized strips of white in between the fans and space them about like what they look like above in the photo from my design wall. I can add embellishments later if I want, OR I can use the extra white space to maybe show off some fancy quilting when I get that far.

I am now pooped! I think I will go to bed so I am quite rested and can work this out, once and for all, tomorrow! I also am almost done with the "D" for dragon block in the U is for Unicorn quilt. I get bored easily and tend to get side tracked. :)

Did I do That???

On Monday I went the Quest Quilt Guild here in North Little Rock, AR. I met Linda Poole for the first time. I have known her forever but we've never met in person. She gave a nice presentation and her trunk show was soooooo neat! I loved seeing the other Fairy Quilts.

I didn't realize how busy I've been until I went to load all the photos today! I have been playing with the layout of the fan blades for the House Medallion quilt:
Here is a stack of these fan blocks, ready for the fan blades to be sewn together. There are 28 blocks/fans to be made. I need to finish the Dragon Quilt so I can use the Juki for piecing these together.

Next to the Pfaff are the last two alphabet blocks for the U is for Unicorn quilt, waiting to be done. Then there are several filler blocks and the applique work for the border blocks left. I ordered more red material today, to make sashing for these blocks too.
The Altoids box in the photo has a magnetic business card in it. I put pins in there and the magnet holds them in place better than a pin cushion, when working in the family room with the cat's 'helping' me. :)

I have the sky done on the Dragon Quilt. The clouds puffed up so nicely!


I have almost got the landscaping quilted on it now. There is sits next to the Juki, waiting for me to finish it today.
Finally my Post Spooky for today is the mess on the dining room table. Those are all the Halloween decorations that I need to put up this weekend. Of course I will finish quilting that Dragon Quilt first!

I also cleaned up my cutting table and put stuff away. I can't believe I let it get so messy. No, wait, I CAN believe it! After all, I AM a quilter. lol The hexagon quilt top is so very close to being done. Today I ordered the batting and backing for it. I will be quilting it by hand. I hope to finish it sometime next year. Hubby asked me to not set up the frame for hand quilting until after the holidays. I would have to agree. A king size quilt on a hand quilting frame WOULD take up a LOT of room!

Hope everyone is having a great weekend. We have sunshine and hubby will be planting the fifty iris bulbs today, that we got from our neighbor. Toodle-lou!

Fanning myself

Besides thinking about how to quilt and back the big hexagon quilt, I am working on the layout for the blades of the fans on the next border of the House Medallion quilt too. I am too close to this project to be objective about the layout!!! lol

Gothy doll head has her hair done up now. Next will be fingernails, a costume, and embellishments. I like her so much! lol This is also my Post Spooky for today.

Well DAGNABIT!!! I inquired about batting for the hexagon quilt. The super thin cotton batting I would like to use would have to be joined in the quilt somewhere, as it does not come wide enough. The next low loft batting after that is Warm and Natural, but it is very dense. I THINK I can get that in the extra wide widths. The batting that is for SURE wide enough, and would not have to be pieced, has a higher loft. All these are cotton battings. SHOOT!!! Now I don't know what to get??????????

What to do, what to do???

I've been busy these past few days. The Post Spooky for today involves trying to figure out how to quilt my hexagon quilt top! It is VERY close to being done. I have to decide on stitch in the ditch, or just inside each hexagon, or some other pattern of quilting to use.

I have to keep in mind what I will get for the backing as well. Do I use two different colors of thread? The hexagon quilt has black around many colored hexagons. What have I gotten myself into???? lol I will have to think about it tomorrow though, as it has gotten quite late here tonight. :)

Boo! ya'll :D

Slave Driver

Lady Lego hasn't been around much. She must have been off on some exotic trip to some far away land. She showed up this morning though, here in the studio! She glared at me until I turned on the Juki and did some quilting. She is my Post Spooky for today too. Trust me, she can be quite scary!!!

Using a variegated blue thread, I have been working on the dragon's face:

I did the boy's shirt in gold thread and his hair in a brown variegated thread. If you click on the photo you can see detailing in a bigger photo:

The pants have red thread work:

I tried to quilt this in a manner to use the direction of the thread to enhance this project. I don't mean to sound full of myself, but I am quite pleased with how this piece is coming together! :)

I still have the belt to do. as well as the darker parts of the dragon's face.

I had best get back to it. Lady Lego can be quite a slave driver when she is in one of her moods!

Little Things

This is a preview of the next border I am going to put on the House Medallion quilt:

The 'fan blades' are not sewn together yet, and I have more colors to use, other than what is shown. I like this quilt! I don't know how big it will end up because I am designing it as I go along!

This week's CCP is FEATHER. I made a red feather and surrounded it with a FMQ feather design. That is a continuous design all around the edge. Someday I hope to get this technique down pat and use it in quilting an actual quilt!
I started quilting the dragon quilt today too. The blasted thread kept breaking on me though. Grrrr, I hate when that happens!!! At least it was only the boy's hair that I used that thread on. Since then, I've gone on to work on his shirt with a different thread. That one hasn't broken yet, so I now know that the thread was the culprit all along!

For my POST SPOOKY today, the Gothy Doll face is probably done. I still am thinking about styling her hair differently though. I will put black fingernail 'polish' on her fingers and make a costume for her as well, before calling her done.

Creative Prompt: SUMMER (and PURPLE)

Jaye threw a fast ball or was it a curve ball? Either way, she added an extra CCP word this week. I am only just now catching up with 'past due' ones. So I am going to be one of those who fudged this prompt. At least I HOPE I am not the ONLY one! lol

The word last Friday was SUMMER. On Monday Jaye threw in the challenge word PURPLE. I was going to do a sun, then a swing set, then a swimmer, for summer. This morning when I sat down to actually work on these, I decided a purple butterfly would do just fine. :) I could kill two words with one pen!

There he is, waving "hi" to Jaye!

Of course I have to do my Post Spooky too:

Isn't she just the most elegant thing? lol

Creative Prompt: SPIRAL

For SPIRAL, I decided to make spirals of ribbons.

For my Post Spooky I have a progress shot of the doll's face:

Eye See You!

Progress on an older UFO

It's been an odd but productive weekend.

I put another border on the House Medallion quilt.

Next go-around will be Dresden Fans.

My Post Spooky is a progress shot on the doll.

That is not a crown but it is masking tape to protect her hair.

Post Spooky has begun!!!

Laume is organizing the "Post Spooky" fun again this year.

I pledge to post something spooky each time I post anything on my blog this month!

My first spooky posting is this doll head:
You'll have to trust me on this, she IS spooky!!!
Check back to see why, later this week.

Happy Halloween!

This was our jack-o-lantern tonight! We had about twenty kids come to the door. We had gorgeous weather tonight. Doing the "Post Spooky" posts has been fun. I hope you enjoyed it too!
I finished two more quilt tops today. Next I will be sandwiching them and actually quilting on some of them next week!

Happy Halloween y'all! :D

What happens during ten hours of fabric therapy?

Since I last posted I haven't had much time to be in my studio. I made up for it today! I cut out the fabric for two aprons, and a table runner, and trimmed several blocks up for various projects.

Here is the top of the table runner that I started today:
It is just a simple Irish Chain pattern. The blocks are six inches square. I hope to sandwich it and quilt it later this week...maybe! lol

I have started sewing the blocks together for the Coffee Quilt. All the fabrics have coffee words on them like espresso, mocha, and latte. I hope to have this one done for a gift for someone for Christmas.

I made progress on the House Block Quilt too. I have the sashing and corner stones done around two of the four rows. All the houses have detail work on the doors and windows. You might be able to see that if you click on a photo for a closeup.

My spooky post is this little travel tissue holder I made from skull and crossbones fabric. I plan to give this one to a co-worker who swapped shifts with me so I could go away for five days in a row. We went to a little renfaire and celebrated my 54th birthday there on Sunday!!!I don't feel older though. I feel wiser! Ahhhhhhhhhhhh, fabric therapy has put me in a better mood to go back to work for the next two days....or more, depending on if they have the schedule up at work yet.

I wonder what it will be like, working in a store on Halloween night? hmmmmmmmmmm.....