Boo!

Have you ever seen such a wild quilt? This is for our 4 year old grandson for Halloween and was loads of fun to do. Thanks to logcabinquilts who has been reducing her stash (I know - I don't get it either) and offered fabrics to me, I was gifted all these cute Halloween fabrics. Some were yardage and others were small pieces but this pattern is perfect for those. Thank you, LG.

The pattern is from Wanda at Exuberant Color and she has a great tutorial on her blog. Click here for a direct link to her Cross Quilt. But pay attention to her instructions -- they are spot on and it always takes me about two rows of sewing to get my rhythm down right. It goes together like a dream and uses 6.5" strips rather than five 2.5" squares.  Goes together much faster. Thank you, Wanda.

The backing is fun and looked darling on the quilt. Candy corn fleece - what's not to love! And I think is really what my grandson likes the most.

And since this is for a 4 year old, will never be entered in a quilt show, and was just for fun, I decided to try my hand at free-hand quilting spiderwebs (in purple thread).  No rulers - no templates - no real plan.  He loved it and it's pretty forgiving!

So in the end, it was fun, went together quickly, I learned a lot quilting it, and it got to Toronto well before Halloween!

I hope you're finding time to quilt for someone you love!

Jan

Win-Win!!!!

Happy to say that I managed to get this done this week.  This top went together like a charm!  I mentioned in this post last week that I was using Wanda's Cross Quilt tutorial from her Exuberant Color site.  If you do what she says (and you have a design wall), this goes quickly and is pain free. I will definitely do it again and am thinking this may be a great project for those 2.5" strips I keep planning to cut from the men's shirts that are calling my name.

I also had the opportunity to shop a guild member's stash and I have to say, it was a bit awkward (for me -- probably not for her).  This woman has had her home on the market for two years and her family is in Ohio - children and grandchildren.  I think she has been widowed about six years and she wants to get closer to her family.  Who can blame her for that!

To her credit, she is lowering the price of her house one more time, planning to downsize, and is leaving Kentucky.  I applaud her!  One of the things she had to do in order to make this work is get rid of a LOT of her fabric, her quilting books, some batting, thread, patterns....

So on Saturday, she opened up her studio to our guild and we responded!  All fabric was $3/yard and her "yards" were generous.  She sold in increments of half yards and rounded down.  Some of the 1 yard cuts I got were almost 1.5 yards.  Fat quarters were $1.00 and easily more than FQ in many cases.

But, it felt a bit uncomfortable to be digging through stacks of fabrics.  I almost felt like we should be saying "may she rest in peace".  She, on the other hand, showed no remorse, had cookies for us, and was moving the fabric that would get her "home."

I got this stack of peach/orange fabrics for $15 and the cuts range from scraps to half yard cuts.  I was trying to be deliberate in choosing fabrics in colors that I don't gravitate toward -- orange, purple, and pink.  I made progress!

Look at these!  These are neutral charms and were $2.00 -- along with some odd cuts.  Who could pass that up?  Or a bag stuffed full of 2.5" and 2.0" squares for $1.00.  Seriously -- I have lots of squares but these needed a home!

The good news is -- she was pleasantly surprised with how much she sold and is hoping to sell the rest tomorrow when she opens up her studio to a different guild!  I wish her luck.  And, lest any of us worry about her, she has three full cabinets of fabric, books, and kits that are moving with her -- not to mention her Innova.

As far as I'm concerned, this was a "win-win"!  I hope you have had a wonderful week full of fabric surprises!

Jan