Monday, October 28, 2013

Halloween Sewing Swap

Happy (almost) Halloween!  I love Halloween, it's always been one of my favorite holidays.  So, of course I jumped at the chance to participate in Martha Fipps' Halloween swap.  And I didn't hesitate to buy a whole slew of new Halloween fabrics (lol!)  Unfortunately I had no idea when I signed up that life was going to be so crazy the last couple months so it was a little hectic getting 4 items sewn up for my partner.

My partner wasn't too picky, but didn't have kids, so all of the items were for her.  I decided to try my hand at making a cuppa and a catch-up's nesting bowl pattern using Rachel's (@woodenspoon) flying geese dimensions for the focus print.  I made the 7" bowl and it turned out HUGE!  The basket filled up with all the goodies stuffed a medium flat rate box.

I also made Noodlehead's small Open Wide pouch, a little card wallet using the leftover HSTs from the flying geese, and an improv pieced coffee cozy with some more scraps.

Isn't that button and Riley Blake: Too Cute to Spook adorable?

I received a lovely package in return from Katie.  It turned out that it was an even partnered swap, so I created for and received from the same person.  Katie claimed she was new to sewing, but after looking at the items she made me, I don't believe it!  She did such a fantastic job with everything!

 
I think the coasters are my favorite -- scrappy on one side, text print on the other -- what could be better than that?

I had such a fun time decorating over the weekend.  The bunting goes perfectly over my fireplace and the table runner on the coffee table :)

Did you make anything fun for Halloween?

Thursday, October 17, 2013

Bee Blocks

I'm finally getting caught up on my September/October commitments.  Who knew opening a new library building would be so exhausting!

For September's Scrapbeelicious bee, Gwendellyn @ therainbowrevolts asked for "themed" scrappy trip blocks

The theme for this one is scraps that were on my table... they just happened to be coordinating from Cuzco and Glimma
Rainbow DS prints -- a mix of Chicopee, FMF, Florence and Croquette
For the Grace circle of do.Good.Stitches, Irelle asked for a modern solids block (November BOM from Sew Mama Sew). 

These blocks took me about an hour and 15 min each, but I cut every piece right before I sewed it since each component had different measurements.  I think it would be easier to do an entire quilt using this pattern and bulk cut the pieces.  I used Kona Medium gray for my neutral then a mix of solids I had laying around from my meager stash of solids.


Finally for Newbee Quilters over at Threadbias libellenart asked for a Converging Corners block in black, red and gold for a quit for her son.  I don't have a lot of "masculine" prints in my stash, so the pickings were pretty slim.  I had to keep asking Ryan if it was boy-ish enough :)


And for October, emptysea asked for a rainbow patchwork wheel block.  I had some fun with fussy-cutting on this one :)


The only blocks I still need to to do be all caught up are the October Scrapbeelicous blocks.  I am a little intimidated by this one because Cathy (@wombatquilts) wants a low volume paper-pieced block (maybe 2 if we're feeling up to it).  I haven't done paper piecing yet, but we've gotten to the introductory posts in the paper piecing portion of the Penny Sampler class.  So hopefully I'll have more confidence in the coming weeks once I get caught up! :)  Thanks for stopping by!