Thursday, October 27, 2016

It's Fall Inside


Here are my decorations for fall that are on the inside.  This Dresden Table topper is Halloween and made from my pattern available in my Etsy shop here.


     

My friend Pam gave me this lantern for my birthday a few years ago.  I always enjoy decorating it for the holidays.  It sits in my entryway.


Here is another Dresden table topper done in fall fabrics.  


This was my Mom's corner china cabinet.  She loved this cabinet and always decorated it like this with a garland hung over the top like this.  I'm glad that there is a place for it in our new house.


This is also in the entryway.  The little quilt is made of fall thimbles.   I won the thimbles from Stephanie......the name of her blog escapes me even though I was a regular reader.  She no longer blogs, and her blog has been taken down.   I love this little quilt and hand quilted it.   The thimbles are 1 1/4" finished.




This is a small Halloween quilt on my island.  The lacy candle holder is from a great trip to IKEA in Cincinnati with friends Michele and Barb last month.

This quilt is from an Edyta Sitar pattern.  


I machine quilted this one.  I echo quilted around the center applique' and meandered the rest.


I won the witch embroidery pattern from Gay at Sentimental Stitches several years ago.  The pattern is for sale on her web site.

I did more echo quilting around the embroidery and a decorative machine stitch on the diagonal seams of the pinwheels.  


This is Fall Foliage Spectacular from Judy Martin's book Cookies and Quilts.  I set my blocks a bit differently than the pattern.  I love the fabrics in this quilt.  Most are batiks.  If the weather permits, I always bring my quilts outside to take photos.  They just look so much better in natural light.  


I like to display some of my smaller quilts in baskets.  Here are some smaller quilts and a table runner in a basket in the entryway.  

It will soon be October.  I don't know where the time is going.  The weather is definitely cooler here, and a lot of days we need a jacket.  It's nice to get out and enjoy the weather, but some days it's too cool so more time spent in the sewing room.

I hope you are finding some time to stitch today!

Thanks for stopping by for a visit.  

Monday, October 24, 2016

It's Halloween Outside

It will be Halloween in a week, and we have been doing some decorating outside.



I love fall and Halloween.  I have decorated for both fall and Halloween at the same time.  I kind of went into panic mode when I saw someone on Facebook post that there are only 10 Fridays until Christmas.  

The cellulitis that I wrote about earlier was really shingles.  I got a wrong diagnosis from the nurse practitioner.  The Dr. is treating the nerve pain.  I feel a bit better and haven't been doing a lot of sewing until lately.  I'll show you what I've been up to later.  

I love these pumpkin topiaries.   I don't have any real pumpkins and haven't for several years.  These are mostly from Hobby Lobby.  It is probably late enough in the season that they are on sale now.  You can read an earlier post on these pumpkins and see what I did with some of them here.

Here is a better look at the pumpkin topiary.  You can see my tutorial here.  My husband put holes all the way through the two bottom pumpkins and part way through the top one.  Then he ran a dowel rod through them that is long enough to hold the pumpkins and stick into the dirt in the flower pot.  


I've had these lighted jack-o-lanterns for several years.  My husband ran the cords to get everything working.  If you look in the photo above, he has something that works with a remote control.  So all I have to do to turn everything on in the evening is push a button from inside the house.  

This pumpkin is in my sewing room window and is from my days working in ceramics many years ago.  

I changed out my fall door swag for a scary wreath with spiders.  


I've added another tomato cage ghost this year.  I had used one of the cages as a Christmas tree in a flower pot, but it is so top heavy that when the wind blows the pot and tree both overturn.  So I'll do something else on the porch at Christmas time.

The ghost is made from a piece of fabric approximately 2 yards X width of fabric.  One of mine is from fabric, but the others are cut from old sheets that either had a stain or hole.  

Here's a quick tutorial, but there is a better one in an earlier blog post here and another one here.    The last link shows how I decorated faux pumpkins with duct tape.  

I used 100 indoor/outdoor mini lights and wrapped the tomato cage.  


The other tutorial doesn't show this, but over the years I've learned that in a strong wind, those cages don't stand by themselves.  So I bought a package of tent stakes available at one of the big box stores where you would buy camping equipment. 


Also, in a strong wind sometimes even though the tomato cage is anchored the sheet blows completely off of the cage, so I fasten the back of the sheet to the tomato cage with binder clips in a couple of places.  These are found at one of the big box stores or office supply store.


I use a permanent marker to draw the face.  I never know quite how they will turn out.  This guy looks a bit angry, I think.  Maybe it's his eyebrows.  The ghost in the earlier photo just looks surprised like he can't figure why anyone would put him out in this chilly, rainy weather.  






Thanks for stopping by for a visit. 

I hope you are finding some time to stitch today. 

Wednesday, October 5, 2016

Sewing, Road Trip and Shopping

Hello Dear Readers
 A lot has been happening since I last posted so thought I would give you a quick update.  This Sunburst Dresden Table Topper is made from my new pattern.  This is a quilt as you go table topper, and it goes together quickly.  This is my go to pattern for gifts, and I have one for every holiday that I use on my table.  The Dresden plate is made using the Easy Dresden ruler.  



Last week, I drove south to Kentucky to stay with my friend, Michele.  She, Barb, Meredith, and I were planning to head out on an adventure on Wednesday morning.  We had mapped out 6 or 7 quilt shops that we wanted to visit down in Tennessee, and were going on a road trip/shop hop.  Before the big road trip Tuesday afternoon, Michele, Barb and I drove up to the north part of Cincinnati to a shop called Home Grown, Home Sewn.  Diane has a cute shop, and I bought the Farm Fun animal panels to sew.  There are 4 different animals with 2 babies each.  The Handmade charm pack is called a treat and measures 3 1/2".  This is the first time I've seen this size.  It was a nice shop, and I plan to return next time I'm in the Cincinnati area.


The trip moved to IKEA.  We don't have an IKEA in Indianapolis yet, so Michele always takes me there to get my fix and buy some goodies.  I bought another cart to put "stuff" in.


We started out bright and early Wednesday morning headed for Greenback, Tennessee.  That's about 30 miles south of Knoxville.  The first shop on our list was Mountain Creek Quilts.  Michele and I both had been to Teri's shop before at different times, and we didn't want to miss a chance to get to stop there again.  Here are photos from the shop.



If you look closely, you can see my pillow pattern hanging there on the side of the thread display.

Here's the display of Sue Spargo thread.  I had stopped at Mountain Creek quilts when we were in Tennessee on vacation last May.  I bought just one spool of the thread then to see what it was like to embroider with it.  Well, it was really nice, and I couldn't wait to get back to buy more thread.  (I know you can buy it on line, but there is something fun about going to the mountains to buy thread.)


The wool was just beautiful, and I think each of us came home with a nice little bundle or two.


This is the Christmas room.  Mountain Creek has lots of fabric including lots of Moda lines.

Here is what I bought.  I bought Sue Spargo wool and thread and a few other things.

We were headed for shop number 2 over toward Pigeon Forge when a car pulled out from a side street, and we couldn't avoid hitting it.  Michele was driving and did a great job of defensive driving because we all walked away from the accident.  The other car had four 20 something year olds.  The girl that was driving and one of her three male passengers were taken away in handcuffs.  She was arrested for DUI....drugs.  She couldn't walk the center line of the road or even touch her finger to her nose when the State Trooper asked.  Passersby saw her run from the car and throw a bag into the weeds, and they were kind enough to stop to wait to talk to the police.  Several officers and a K9 unit were called.  It was a long wait to get it all straightened out and get someone to bring a rental car to the scene, but we were lucky even though Michele's car was totaled.  

Meanwhile, I had some sort of raised places on the side of my face that looked like bites before I left home.  It was either go to the doctor to get it looked at or go on the road trip.  Of course, I chose the road trip.  I've never had anything that looked like this before, but most things like this have gone away on their own.  I got to the Dr. as soon as I got home, and I have cellulitis.  It is pretty painful, and there is still swelling in my head and neck.  I feel a bit better and spent today cleaning up my sewing room a bit so I can get back to doing some stitching soon.

I hope you are finding some time to stitch today!

Thanks for stopping by for a visit!

Print This Post

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...