Happy Halloween!!

I think I’m finally over my mental block with the FMQ on my Halloween quilt.  I’ve got the quilt about 3/4 quilted, and while I will finish it for the New Year’s UFO challenge, it will not be done before Halloween is over.

I’m getting a little more comfortable with the quilting.  When I stipple quilt, I don’t use a pattern.  Seeing that this is going to be a pumpkin wall hanging, I wanted to quilt some leaves on the quilt.  I found a pattern, and traced that pattern onto freezer paper, and ironed it to a test piece of fabric and quilted away.  My quilting was a bit jerky and the pattern was a little more complicated than I wanted.  I didn’t think I would like picking out the paper once I was done.  So, I went to plan B.



I used a chalk marker to mark the leaves and stipple loops so I would have a very loose pattern to follow.  I had just finished marking part of the quilt when Red showed up.  He thought it would be a good idea to roll around on the quilt and erase the marks I just made!!

Still, while chalk doesn’t stick around very long, I like being able to erase it with my fingers as I mark the pattern.  So, the quilting is a combination of following the pattern, and trying to quilt without it in areas where I didn’t mark it or it was erased. 

  

Here is the whole quilt.  I plan to applique a pumpkin top and stem to it, and cut it in the shape of a pumpkin. 


I’m trying to decide on which binding to use.  Do you like the stripe fabric I bought a few weeks ago, or the plaid fabric that you see around the cat blocks?



If you want to see close up pictures of the cat blocks, or get the free pattern, you can click to my previous blog here.

Have a safe and  Happy Halloween, and keep an eye out for the kids on the streets.
Karen

Favorite Fabric Friday

This fabric is from the 30’s blocks I inherited from my grandmother.  I just love the little cowboy and his lasso.



I’m still working on this quilt, trying to get it finished before the end of the year for my New Year’s UFO challenge.  Here’s a picture of the quilt top so far.


My helper just can’t stay away when the camera comes out.  Looking forward to seeing the other Favorite Fabric Friday entries on  http://rosebudquilting.blogspot.com/

Take care,

Kalamazoo Quilt Show #2

Here are some more pictures from the Kalamazoo quilt show.  I love landscape quilts

These were pretty creative.

This one was a miniature, about 12-15” tall.

Of course, I had to get several pictures of a cat quilt.

Hope you enjoyed the show.   I still have more pictures that I'll show later..
Karen 

Kalamazoo Quilt Show

I went to the Kalamazoo quilt show last weekend, and thought I’d share some of the pictures with you.

I don’t know what it is about optical illusion quilts, but I’m fascinated by them.  Someday…

I like the use of color in this quilt

I really like this simple quilting pattern.

This one’s for Molly.  These are 3-D stars attached to this quilt.  They look like they were created by an embroidery machine.  But wouldn’t this be a good way to combine crocheted stars and quilting?

This one looked like a lot of work.  I like the border.

 

Butterflies for Cheryl…

This one was very heavily quilted.  The gold colors you see are all thread painted.

Am I showing my age with my love of this one?

Gotta go.  I’ll show more quilts later.  Hope you enjoyed the show.

Karen

Garden Harvest!

We harvested the garden last week.  We did pretty well with the gourds, but lost several to the critters.  The deer had some fun with the pumpkins as well.  As some of you will recall, there is a story that goes along with these pumpkins.  Every few years, I go all out and decorate my house with pumpkins, straw, corn, gourds, etc.  Two years ago, I bought several pumpkins and a black cat to decorate with.  I love the goofy look and mismatched eyes on this cat.



In our yard, we have a little “garbage” pile where we throw our leaves, sticks, and other yard waste.  Last year, DH came to me in August and said “remember that $100 you spent on pumpkins last year”?  (I did not spend $100 on pumpkins).  After Halloween, he put the pumpkins in the yard waste pile and the pumpkins made it through a hard Michigan winter and grew new plants without any help on our part.  We got 5 pumpkins out of those plants.  So, we threw them in the yard waste pile again last year.  This year, same result only they were HUGE pumpkins.  They have to be 24-26 inches tall, and are very heavy.

Here are my pumpkins this year.

The gourds that I planted came out pretty cool too.

 














I just love coming home and seeing this arrangement on my porch.  This year, we’re going to throw the pumpkins and the gourds into the yard waste pile.  We’ll see what happens next year.

Karen

Favorite Fabric Friday

I went shopping last week at a lovely little store, The Quilter’s Garden.  It’s been ages since I had gone into their store, and I’d forgotten what a great quilt shop it is.  I saw this batik fabric, and it was a fall color, and it was a very cool gradation, and well, I bought a yard without thinking twice about it.   Don't even think about asking for a fat quarter, Cheryl.



As always, the picture doesn’t do it justice.  It really is more shades from orange to brown to yellow yellow.  Wouldn’t this make a great border or binding fabric?  Looking forward to seeing the other Favorite Fabric Friday blogs at http://www.myquiltblog.com/

I am so excited.  I got a squishy in the mail yesterday from the Halloween lovely fabric panel giveaway that Shirley did for a giveaway to celebrate her signing up for Blogtoberfest. She also included some extra scraps to go with it.   Thank you Shirley.  I can't wait to play with this.  Interesting that your Blogtoberfest giveaway took 9 days to travel from British Columbia to Michigan, and that it arrived yesterday of all days, eh Shirley?  It must be a sign... 


Karen

Pumpkin Patch Shop Hop

The quilt shops in my area are having a shop hop at the end of this week.  These shops usually have a progressive quilt that you can collect the fabric and patterns at each stop.  This year, each shop designed their own borders to go with the quilt.  I found it quite fascinating the different looks that each quilt has with the various borders and block placement.

There are the quilts from Pieceful Traditions and Guildcrafters Quilt Shop.


Quilts from The Quilt Patch and Jennifer’s Quilt Shop


From The Material Girls and  Monarch Quilts


And from The Stitchery and Sew What
 

For a closer look at the quilts, you can go here.  If you are interested in the shop hop (SE Michigan), you can visit their website here.  Work is a little busy right now, so I won't be joining the shop hop this year.  Nor do I NEED to add another UFO to my list.  But I will try to go to some of the shops that are close by on Saturday just to see what sales might be going on.  Can't miss the sales, right?

Which one do you like best?

Take care,
Karen

Favorite Fabric Friday

At one time in my life, many, many, many years ago, I fell in love with a beautiful purple fabric.  I was taking my first sewing lesson, at a Singer store in the mall.  I remember it was during the summer, because the mall was nice and cool during the summer heat.  I was a shy kid who read a lot of books, and I think my mother must have decided that I needed to get out of the house for a while.  So, she signed me up for a class that I took over the summer break. 

I found this fabric swatch in an old sewing box that I haven’t used in a long time.
 

 

Ha, ha, ha, isn’t is lovely?  I think it is polyester.  For my project, I made a maxi dress.  I think this must have been the early 70’s.  And now for a bigger laugh, I found this Polaroid picture!


I remember there was a fashion show in the mall where we modeled our garments.  The back of the picture says I was the “deb” winner.  I remember I won electric scissors, which I still have.
Funny how our choice of favorite fabric changes over the years... LOL.

Looking forward to everyone’s Favorite Fabric Friday entries on http://www.myquiltblog.com/. 

Karen

Quilt Show

As promised, here are some more pictures from the Durand Quilt show.  I love the bright colors in these two quilts.

I like they way this quilt was appliquéd.

I love 3-D effects, like the scarf on this Christmas quilt.

This hankie quilt was kind of neat.

I love the double colored prairie points, and the sailboat (barely visible) at the bottom on this quilt.

 













These pictures do not do justice to this Baltimore Album quilt. There were several of these quilts on display as I think there had been some kind of guild challenge.  This one had a yellow background, and there was another one with a lime green background.  They were all spectacular.
 

A New York Beauty quilt.  Someday, I’ll finish my own UFO…

If you want to see all the quilts from the show, you can click here.  Hope you enjoyed the show.  There is a quilt show in Kalamazoo this weekend. 

October 17-18, 2009
Quilt Kalamazoo! by Kalamazoo Log Cabin Quilters
2900 Lake St., Kalamazoo County Fairgrounds, Kalamazoo, MI

It is a bit of a drive for me, so I’m debating whether I will be going or not.  DH had some minor surgery yesterday, so we’ll see if he is up for the drive this weekend.  The fall colors are so beautiful, and the weather is supposed to be nice this weekend.  So I think a nice fall drive would be nice. If not, there is one a little closer to home that I can go to.

October 16-17, 2009
Come Sail Away! Western Wayne County Quilt Guild's Show
Wayne County Community College District Western Campus, 9555 Haggerty Road, Belleville, MI
Contact: Roxann Baker, Guild President, roxb51@aol.com

And last, but certainly not least, today is my 32nd wedding anniversary.  Yep, 32 years ago in the finest polyester wedding dress you can find :) on Sweetest Day, my DH and I were married.  I was going to post a photo, but that was the days before digitial, and I have no idea where all of those pictures are. 

Take care,
Karen