Almost a Quilt Top

 Hello Quilty Friends!  This week has flown by faster than a witch on Halloween.  My plan was to have this quilt finished and shipped by today.

Yesterday evening I managed to piece the bottom two rows together before calling it a day.  As I stood back and looked at the layout before putting them together I realized I really didn't care for the sashing or cornerstones.  Word of warning...striped sashing is hard on the eyes and makes me a little dizzy.

I think the cornerstones would have looked better had I used the colorful prints instead of the black prints.  But this granny is running behind and doesn't feel like bending over or squatting in order to test my theory.  What if I don't like it?  More bending and squatting.  And seriously, would the grandkids really care about the color of the cornerstones?  Probably not. 

The new plan "Quilt till you wilt" and have this girl on the quilting frame by this evening and finished by Sunday evening so it can be shipped next week.  That means three full days in the studio, maybe some scary Halloween-ish movies to set the mood.

I also need to decide if I want to ship on Monday or make a few small items with the scraps. Maybe a pillow, table runner, or pot holders.  Or should I just wait and use these scraps up next year?  There's still plenty of time before Halloween.  We'll see how I feel after the quilt is finished.

Until next time...

I hope you find time to stitch up something sweet!

Nimble Thimbles Quilt Show and FREE PATTERN

 Nimble Thimbles is a small quilt guild in Franklin, Indiana, my hometown.  This past weekend was their annual quilt show.  There were many vintage/antique quilts as well as new.  

The first quilt I saw was one I knew and loved because I've been wanting to make it for years.  It's called Budding Beauty, it's a FREE pattern and can be found here.

Next was a vintage Grandmother's Flower Garden.

Look at these tiny hexies and hand quilting!

Another impressive vintage quilt with one inch finished squares.

Just look at all this scrappy goodness. 

The Courthouse Steps quilt was folded and displayed on a quilt ladder.  I'm not sure just how big this quilt is but it doesn't matter because the width of the finished pieces is a quarter inch.  Impressive no matter how large the quilt.

The rest of the in this post are the new quilts that caught my eye.

Of course you can't go to a quilt show without buying something.  I'll share my small purchases later this week.

Until next time...

I hope you find time to stitch up something sweet!

Another Halloween Quilt From Scraps

Hey Quilty Friends!  What do quilters do when they don't want to store or save scrap fabrics?  The answer is simple, make another quilt from the scraps.  In order to make another quilt from the Halloween prints I needed to pull more Halloween-ish fabrics for the borders and binding.

I can see how this could become a scrap quilt rabbit hole because there will be more scraps produced from the fabrics I pulled for the borders and binding in the picture above.  On my cutting table is a basket of white background fabric scraps, they will be worked it into the new scrap quilt.

And let's not forget the mountain of black scraps from the background of the five Lone Star Quilts made over the last year.  A little of  the solid black will be used in this quilt.  

The cutting for this quilt is finished and there's still scraps!  

They may be used to make a scrappy quilt backing or table runner.

The last three Halloween quilts and pillows were bound with this black striped fabric.  I'll be using it for the sashing in the current quilt. The black squares will be the cornerstones.

Here's the plan but things can change, especially the sashing.  I may turn the stripes vertical, it all depends on how hard it is to cut them horizontal.  I love the look of them horizontal but we all know how fabrics can get wonky when printed and ironed.

Right now it's pedal to the metal time!  I'd like to have this girl finished in a week or less.  

Until next time...

I hope you find time to stitch up something sweet!

 

BOO Pillows For Them And For YOU

Last week I used the fabric scraps leftover from the three simple Halloween Quilts to make three BOO pillows.

The great thing about pillows is they can also be used as wall hangings.  Just take out the pillow form.  This pillow finishes at 14.5 x 24.5.  It's hard to find pillow forms that size so I made my own and stuffed them with leftover poly batting.

 

If you would like to make one I've added the measurements below.  You will need some basic knowledge of quilt piecing. It's color coded. For example the red square goes with the red in the instructions below.  I hope this makes sense.  You will also need to understand how to make 2 at a time HST's and flippy corners for the light purples.

Happy Stitching!

Until next time...

I hope you find time to stitch up something sweet!

Three Quick Halloween Quilts Finished

 These simple Halloween quilts are sure to make the grandkids happy.  Ages 10, 7 and 4.  They love the holidays, what kid doesn't?  Especially the ones where candy is the main dish.

For some crazy reason I've been collecting Halloween prints for over a year.  It all started with a Halloween fabric clearance sale.  Not too much you can do with a handful of FQ's.  So what's a gal to do but buy more when you can find them cheap.

Each quilt has the same prints but not in the same amount or order. 

Each quilt has a different border so the grandkids will know which one is their quilt.  I opted not to add labels and names to the quilts.  My daughter can help them decided who gets what color.  As sure as I choose the colors they will be unhappy with my selection.

Most of the fabrics are Halloween prints.  This white cat print is just too cute.  It would have been nice to have it in yardage for the backing but Walmart doesn't carry Halloween prints in yardage.

I had to add some non novelty prints in order to make the quilts bigger.  Of course after I did this Walmart put out a few Halloween FQ's.,,, and I bought them anyway.

The leftover border fabric for each quilt was added to the backing.

Each quilt has the same Joann's black stripe binding.  100% machine bound with black serger thread.  I also used the serger thread for the quilting.

A good portion of yesterday afternoon was spent designing a Halloween pillow pattern to use up some of the scraps.  It has been so long since I actually designed and made anything besides large squares.  It felt good, so I designed a few more quilts to help use up some of the solid black scraps accumulated over the last year.

Until next time...

I hope you find time to stitch up something sweet!