Fall is Everywhere!

Halloween is quickly approaching.  Most years it buzzes as a blur on our way to Christmas.  This year having stepped back from working full time has allowed me to breathe and enjoy the beautiful season that fall truly is (I'm trying to forgive it for be the season before winter which I dread).  A couple of weeks ago one of the boys at school asked me if I'd decorated my house for Halloween.  I told him I had not, to which he responded, "Well, you really need to.  It's time, ya know."  So I went home that night and drug out all the fall decorations I had and got to work.  I also have been busy making some new things to put out around the house.
I had seen this awesome Halloween quilt on Pinterest back in the spring.  I decided I need to make one for myself.  I've blogged about it before in a previous post but now that the Halloween season is here I thought I'd post one more picture.  I finished this quilt in July.  The only thing I "saved" for October was the binding.  Binding and I are mostly like oil and water.  We don't mix.

I worked on the binding while watching Royals games at my brother's house.  My niece is working on her sewing with me.  It's never to young to start them sewing!

I'm artfully displaying my chevron Halloween quilt.

I found these slim wall hangings in monthly designs. I did the 4th of July one just in the nick of time and it stayed up the rest of the summer.  I finished my own version of a Halloween wall hanging based very loosely on the November one.  I did the embroidery that says Trick or Treat by hand.  I quilted this on my longarm machine.  I used a basic all over stipple because I didn't want to draw away from the pretty design.

My wall hanging on the longarm frame getting quilted.

This slim wall hanging is in my dining room.

I then decided I needed my version of the trifets/table toppers I've seen around.  Last weekend I had a 20% off coupon to JoAnns along with all their Halloween and Thanksgiving fabric already being 40% off.  So I bought some fabric and whipped one of these up.

My hexagon table topper used to display my bargain find ceramic jack-o-lantern.

The Halloween side of my hexagon table topper.

The Thanksgiving side of my hexagon table topper.

On Labor Day the local quilt shop in Chapman, KS has a big one day sale where everything in the store is 40% off.  I went a little crazy.  One of my buys was this Elenor Burns patterns that I'd been admiring that was a log cabin jack-o-lantern.  I picked it up along with the similar wreath pattern for Christmas a a few extra wide backings for some quilts I have in the works.  I quilted this project on my longarm using spirals on the orange jack-o-lantern and a free motion spiderweb design on the black.  It's hard to tell in this photo but the background of the jack-o-lantern border is spiderwebs.  I also hid a few spiders in amongst the spiderweb quilting.

My log cabin jack-o-lantern.

I hope if holiday sewing brings you joy you've been able to slip in some time for a few projects.  Happy Halloween!

T-Shirt Quilt

Part of my original business plan included making t-shirt quilts.  I put out a call for t-shirts and had several takers.  My second cousin in Arizona sent me her box right before the end of the school year hit the fan.  I had warned her that it would probably be a little while until I got to them-she may not have anticipated quite the entire month of June.
I started last Monday working on her t-shirts and finished up today.  She had cut some of the shirts already so I was unable to do my original design I had in place for t-shirt quilts.  What I ended up doing to accommodate all the different sizes of shirts was I cut all the shirts on 3 inch intervals.  I had 3"x3", 3"x6", 12"x12", 9"x12", etc t-shirts to work with to form a quilt.

The t-shirts on my improvised design wall.  

I laid all the cut t-shirts on my bed and went to work rearranging them until I had a pleasing square quilt.  I had a few gaps where there were not t-shirts that fit and no left over t-shirts to put in those places.  So in those spots I put squares and rectangle cuts of the border fabric.  I pieced them together having to use partial seams with several of the more unusual sized t-shirts.  Partial seams were not nearly as bad as I remember them being.  I then went to work on the border. Since I didn't need to put sashings into the quilt because of it's neat design I spent a little extra time making a very exciting border.  I assembled the pieces and added them onto the quilt.

Ready to go.

I loaded the quilt onto the longarm and got busy using a free motion design that I love.  My double bubble design is becoming my favorite design to quilt when I'm not using a pattern and just going free motion.  It's easy and relaxing.

Ready & waiting to get started on the longarm.

A close up of my double bubble design I like to free motion on the longarm.

I pulled the quilt off the longarm and added the binding.  I chose instead of hand sewing the binding down to machine sew it down this time.  It worked out well as I've never done that before and believe that will be my go-to binding strategy for t-shirt quilts.

The final product, it measures about 70 X 85 .