Sleep Like the Dead

I love Halloween fabrics. On the weekend I put the 'on parade' quilts on each of the kid's beds but felt like the pillow cases from their sheets were a bit out of place.

I dove into the last large pieces of my Halloween stash and spent 2 days making them 2 pillow cases each. I used this great Burrito Style Pillow tutorial from Twiddletails.

I did have a few stuff ups...

I made the first one too long and wide.

The second one too wide.

The third I had to use fabric that did not match.

The fourth was perfect.

The fifth was too short.

And the last I sewed the contrast fabric on the wrong way after bumping out the width with an added strip(the unpick and I were good friends).

But they certainly make the beds look better.

I am linking up with...

and LAFF at Richard and Tanya Quilts.

Katie Jump Back

The back of my Katie Jump Kites quilt is finished!

I switched around a couple of the bricks and added 2 new rows with some other Denyse Schmidt prints. There not many yellow prints in her collections but there are plenty of greens, blues and oranges.

I am very happy with this quilt back. I have been following the FREE Craftsy 'Creative Quilt Backs' with Elizabeth Hartman (who is not only talented but good looking too!). 
I highly recommend this course to give you some very helpful hints about calculations, sewing practice and piecing a quilt back. Elizabeth makes very modern and unique quilt backs that tie in with her clever tops - so there is plenty of quilt candy for the eye.

There is a lot of maths involved with calculating a pieced quilt back and unfortunately I cut about 1.5" too short on the left hand side of my quilt back's light grey top section. Golden rule : round up not down. Be more generous than miserly. I may end up adding a strip but the quilt back is a good 4" bigger on EACH SIDE than my quilt top.

Now my problem will be to baste this quilt with only a week to go before the 2 week school holidays begin. It is going to be the largest quilt I have attempted on my Janome DC2101. Thankfully I am going to do some kind of straight line quilting.

So here is the top and the back.

Top - width 65" x height 74"
Back - width 74 x height 84"
(in the photo above, some of the light grey is folded over the clothes line as it is quite tall)

Belatedly linking up to...

and Link a Finish Friday #32 (LAFF) with Richard and Tanya Quilts