Sunday Stash #86

Today Sunday Stash is being hosted by Michelle of Squeak Crafts. So head on over there to link up.

Next week Sunday Stash will be hosted by Rachael of The FLoral Suitcase.

Last week's most visited stash link was the Don't Judge Me post by Molli Sparkles.

Slightly Halloween-ish

I do love Halloween decorations and craft. Halloween is not really celebrated here in Australia. As an event, it  is more suited to the colours of Autumn in the Northern Hemisphere though. The orange, red, yellow and green of the Fall make it perfect for dressing up the front door or porch - or even the hen house!

I have so enjoyed the photos posted by Kathy - the Chicken Chick on her blog this season. She even has a tutorial to make the Wicked Witch Ruby Slippers above.

So here is a $4 pull of some slightly Halloweenish fat quarters. Some cute cats and rats, spots and wheels of orange. No Halloween chickens I'm afraid though.

The Halloween Quilts I made for the kids are sadly still packed away since we moved last December. I think it is time to pull them out again. I did buy the big pumpkin to carve though.

See you over at Squeak Crafts for the linky party.

October Roundup

Sewing

Even though it had 31 days - and I blogged on every one - October went FAST! Too fast for me to achieve all of my sewing goals.

Achieved
House block for Jane
6 Halloween pillowcases
Gingerbread embroidery (Duncan)
Polaroid blocks
Low volume 'wonky cross' blocks for Kate
Embroidery pouch for Duncan
Empire State Building Needle Case for Duncan
Snowglobe embroidery 
Hot air balloon embriodery 
Repurposing a zip pouch

Not Achieved
Mystery Quilt back
Baste 'Katie Jump Kites'
Start 'Sherbert Dreams' quilt
Craftsy BOMs from June, August, September and October


Home Organisation 101

I think I achieved far more with Home Organisation 101 though.

Sorting and Tidying

Purging - off the the dump

Giving Away - toys

baby items and clothes

and, even though the last 5 days I had to write in advance and schedule, I managed to BLOG everyday of October! 

Halloween Projects

Last year my mother made a fabulous 'Halloween' quilt from a kit called "Spooks on Parade" from 'Keepsake Quilting' (Still available). The fabric is absolutely gorgeous and she kept all of the scraps. The quilt now belongs to my eldest son and he loves it.

I have 2 other kids and so I had it in mind to make them a 'Halloween' themed quilt using the scraps and some more fabric I picked up in the USA post-Halloween sales. I do want the kids to have a quilt each for the month of October this year....so I set about piecing things last month. 

I know that Halloween is not everyone's fancy. But I love the colour combinations of oranges, purples, greens and blacks....and I love the character mix of bats, cats, spiders and stars. But when I looked at this layout above, I was pretty disappointed. Thankfully my mum still had the original pattern for her fab quilt.

Surprisingly I have only made one other quilt from a pattern...the Eye-Spy fussy cut kind. So I was keen to try a pattern and this one promised to be easy to cut out and assemble. The original kit came with precut Fat Quarters in gorgeous fabrics. The pattern was pretty easy to follow as it is a 'Whack and Stack' style, however, my fabric stash yielded FQs of different sizes (Australia and the USA have different measurements...go figure!). So it was not as easy as it should have been.

Then there was the problem of 'orientation'. Some fabrics clearly had a 'right' way of facing, some were '2-way' and others were universal...the spots, stars, cats etc. In the end, I still got the orientation wrong on a few of the fabrics but it doesn't matter.

'Bats on Parade' quilt top

The bats were from precut Halloween shapes from Keepsake Quilting. I added little teeth and eys to make them more comical.

'Jack-o-Lanterns on Parade' quilt top

Likewise I made the plain pumpkin sihouettes into cuter jack-o-lanterns.

I have to piece together a back for both but I am waiting on some black tone-on-tone wide back fabric from 'Hancocks of Paducah'. Watch out for Part 2.