Monday, October 12, 2009

Two (actually three) Finishes

Earlier this spring I swapped some scraps with my Lazy Sister Sue, and we planned to do the Bricks and Stepping Stones quilt by Bonnie Hunter at Quiltville. I drove my scraps all the way out to Ohio for the April retreat, and all the way home, not working on the project at all.

This summer I got busy - and yesterday afternoon I tied the final knot and removed the last safety pin, and called it done. Of course it was instantly comandeered by the Munchkin, who turned himself into a quilted ghost, and then used it for a cave and tunnel for his trains as he played on the floor. I got it back after his bedtime, and field tested it on both the sofa and the bed. This one's a keeper!

Note the bees in the border~ and all those ties - in the middle of EVERY four patch. If I had it to do again I would have added an inner border, but I was tight on the bee fabric and it was one I could not get more of so I was not messing around too much by making the center too big. As it is this ended up as a nice large quilt - touches the floor on all sides of the quilted ghosty, and covers my side of the king size bed - and then some.

Concurrently with finishing up this quilt, I have gotten back to work on my Halloween quilt - dubbed "As You Witch" by Jill. I started back in July. Shellie has been after me to finish this one up - and now that things have settled down a bit I figured I could focus on it a bit better, since this is a "make it up as I go along" pattern and I could not remember exactly where I left off last - except that I had purchased fabric during my shop hop in late July to finish it up.

I had a slight change in plans as to how I was going to use the fabrics, and I ended up using the original novelty print in the borders, so you can see it both uncut and turned into kaleidoscope blocks. The dark black/brown with the orange dots will probably be the binding - the more I put it with the blocks, the more the "black" really read as brown and just did not work with the other fabrics, but I think it might work for the binding.

These pictures don't really do justice to how bright these colors are - the orange sashing is a red on orange print, the yellow is pretty vivid, and the lime, purple, blue and other colors in the blocks are also very intense.

I have a traditional Halloween white sheet for the backing - a vintage sheet still in the original packaging that I picked up at an estate sale. It's in the wash to get some of the sizing out of it but then I think it will be great on the back. I plan to quilt around and through the kaleidoscopes stitch-in-the-ditch which should create some "spider web" type areas on the back - and i have some black yo-yo spiders prepped to applique back there to make this double sided.

19 more days until Halloween! I hope to get this done sooner than that so we can at least have some time to enjoy it before the Halloween decorations get put away!

Oh - nearly forgot that I needed to post a finished picture of "On Pinwheels and Kneedles" - the machine quilting turned out great and I was very very happy with this one. So was my MIL.

7 comments:

Marj said...

Saw your sister Susan at our guild meeting tonight. Forgot my camera so no pictures for my blog...oh well there is always next month. looks like you have been a very busy bee. I like all three of your finishes.

Joan said...

Hi Regina, I love what you did with the witch blocks. All three quilts look wonderful. Great job.

Darling Jill Quilts said...

Wonderful!! You have been very productive!! I'm so proud!!! :) lol

Gina said...

Love your Halloween quilt. Lime Green, orange and purple just my colours. LOL
Isn't it great when a quilt gets used for other things. I think you might struggle to keep your quilt on your bed

Love and hugs Gina xxx

Shellie said...

Wow. The Halloween witchy quilt is just awesome. Incredible. wow. It turned out great. Love it. It is so Halloween....

Linda said...

This entire post gave me joy and inspiration. Thanks!

Reenie said...

wow...how did i miss this post?? All three quilts are beautiful, but the bricks and stepping stones really caught my eye. I just might have to make this one...when I allow myself to make more tops that is!!! lol