Post-Halloween Doldrums

It's definitely November here in the Pacific Northwest. It rained a bit Halloween morning but cleared up in time for the trick or treaters. The sun has managed to peek through a couple of times since then, but for the most part it's been gray and drippy. And thus it begins... {sigh}

After all the finishes during the last couple of weeks of October I've felt singularly unproductive these past several days. I still haven't tackled my Take It Further postcard for October, and now there's a new challenge out for November. I have a pretty good idea what I want to attempt for October's challenge; it's just a matter of sitting down and doing it. (Or getting up, moving away from the computer, and sitting down at the sewing machine!) I also have these blocks I am desperate to get off the sheet and into some sort of quilt top:

That sheet has been hanging in front of the closet for two years now. It's time to move on! It's in the way and I'm tired of it being in the way. I think my original plan for those blocks got sidetracked once I pinned them to the sheet. (If I'd been a little more diligent in keeping my studio journal back then - when I pinned those blocks to the sheet - I'd have a better idea what it was I was planning to do!) Now I'm just about ready to mash them all together like I did for my Orphan Train quilt and call it good.

Another obstacle in my path of late has been the piles of scraps that accumulated with the creation of my Fungly quilt, the Halloween quilt, the Alzheimer's quilt and the kitty quilts. Yesterday I finally began the process of sorting them according to which ones were big enough to go back into the stash and what needed to be dealt with in another way. I like the concept of the Floor Scrap quilts that are being made a la Gwen Martson. (here and here) I just haven't had the motivation to pick up two pieces of fabric and sew them together. Yet.

Soon, maybe even today, I expect the doldrums will wear off and I'll be sewing again. I may even put on my witch's hat to see whether I can channel any creative energy from it...

It's so nice having a hat that actually fits. I have a small head so it's rare to find one commercially that will stay put as I move around. I've heard of other artists who signal themselves that it's time to get to work by donning an apron... why not a hat? And why not a special hat?! Ooo, maybe I'll piece some fabrics together for my son to use to make the body of a special new hat! ;- )

Happy Halloween!

Just wanted to pop in to wish everyone a Happy Halloween :- )



This is a wonderful ceramic tray I treated myself to this year. It was made by Sharon Bloom.

And here's a little trick I pulled off a couple of years ago:

Some detail shots in case the picture above doesn't get bigger when you click on it...

The skull and worm were a preprinted patch. I sequined the worm and beaded his hat. I beaded over the scroll print too...

I used tulle over the ghost images to give them a more ethereal appearance... added some tombstone charms, more sequins, star and spider beads...

It was a fun little quilt to make. I hope your Halloween is just as much fun for you!

Like My New Hat?

Look what my son made for me!

I provided the fabrics, of course, but he did the sewing. This is more 'me' than the ones available in the stores ;- )

I'm seriously thinking of dressing up the brim with feathers or adding a beaded hatband or something. Considering the lateness of the hour I may end up wearing it as-is this year. That gives me 365 days to come up with just the right embellishments for next year.

Once again I'm surprised that it's been so long since my last post. What have I been doing? Hmm... I finished the second Gizzy Quilt I was working on. Guess I forgot to photograph it in its finished state. Oops. When I realized that the auction was this weekend, not next, I sort of panicked. I delivered the quilts and then had to spend the rest of the day recovering. Then there was the whole day auditioning hat fabrics, and here we are!

Let the Haunting Begin...

Now I have a quilt I can hide under! Woohoo! The Halloween quilt is finished and it's not even Halloween yet. Hurray for me!

Between applying the binding to the Halloween quilt and hand sewing it down I pulled fabrics for a second Gizzy Quilt to donate to the upcoming fundraising auction for our local humane society. Once again I focused on some of my older prints that need to be moved out of here. This top is cohesive and balanced, but I find it singularly uninspiring. I think that may have to do with the colors as well as the prints themselves.

I prefer bright, pure hues and wild prints. These are darker colors, and the prints are very traditional, conservative. People in this part of the country wear darker colors - all year round - so I'm hoping the quilt will appeal to most of the audience even if it isn't something that rocks my boat. What I'd really like to make next is something wild and colorful. I just haven't figured out what that's going to be. I still have to get this little job quilted and bound, and the Sumptuous Surfaces class with Sharon Boggon begins on Tuesday. I expect that will absorb a lot of my time and energy for a while. It's not going to be very colorful either, at least not in the beginning. She has us working in a monochromatic color scheme for our first project. I may have to make some more liberated stars, in newer prints and brighter colors, whether I have a quilt in mind for them or not!

Shoo Fly Lap Quilt

I received the registration number for my little quilt for the Priority Hope challenge. It's now packed up, waiting to go to the post office :- )

While I was waiting for the registration number I sewed up those extra Shoo Fly blocks to make the Shoo Fly UFO big enough to be used as a lap quilt by a small woman. I had an idea about how I would incorporate them into a border for the quilt... unfortunately, the border fabrics I had chosen didn't work out the way I thought they would. So what else is new?! I dug around in my stash and came up with other options. This is what I ended up with:

I'm not thrilled with the fact that the new outer border sort of fades away but I figure the part that MIL originally saw and enjoyed will be the part that shows up on her lap anyhow. I found a beautiful dark red print to use for the binding, and I think that pulls everything back together into a cohesive whole.

(You may be able to click on the picture above to see it in greater detail.

The one below probably won't work.)

This stripe that I used in the outer border turned out to be a blessing in disguise. I found I had a co-ordinating print in a large enough piece to use for the back!