Blocks for October

The Vancouver MQG held a Friday night sew-in last Friday and I took the opportunity to sew with Agatha  for the evening. Agatha is my trusty Singer Featherweight that belonged to my late MIL and was generously given to me by my SIL. I just love piecing with this little machine.

Tonight, the VMQG will hold it's annual Hallowe'en block draw.  Guild members can bring as many blocks as they like (blocks must have a finished dimension of  6" or multiples of 6"). You get one entry for every block you put into the draw and if your name is drawn you get to choose a number of blocks to take home. Last year I made 6 blocks and came home empty-handed. This year I've made three 12 1/2" blocks, but I won't be able to attend tonight so I'm sending my blocks with Berene and counting on her good luck to bring a set back to me!

I free-pieced both of these pumpkin blocks with scraps from my orange box. I love free-piecing because you never know what the end result will look like until you get there.  I'll also send along a duplicate of this Great Granny Block that I made for Cindy in the Stash Trad Bee this month.

Have you got any spooky stitching going on for Hallowe'en? I've always wanted to have a Hallowe'en quilt, but never made one. Maybe this'll be my lucky year for a set of blocks to get me started!

Carving Pumpkins

Aneela did a lovely fall post the other day and I was smitten with her sweet pumpkin table runner. It inspired me to immediately dig through my orange scraps and make these three amigos for my VMQG Hallowe'en block raffle coming up later this month!

Wanna know something so awesome? When I clicked on 'edit in picnik', those of you familiar with flickr and picnik know that these little turning cogs come up on your screen while your photo loads in the editing program. Along with the cogs, the smartypants picnik people always put silly little excuses for why the program takes time to load; things like "setting the table....", or "picking daisies..." Well, this time, and I kid you not, when I clicked to crop this photo of the blocks, it said "carving pumpkins..."

I might have snorted.

If you're in the mood to stitch up some quick improv pumpkins, Kaelin just posted a sweet tutorial for a log cabin pumpkin table runner here. I'm done stitching up the squash, now I'm going to roast one. I love making pumpkin pie from roasted sugar pumpkin and there is always lots leftover for a batch of muffins, too.

It's Canadian Thanksgiving this weekend. There will be pumpkin pie!

Feelin' Hallowe'eny?

Are you itching to get busy on some fall sewing? If my Christmas tree skirt post a few days ago put you over the edge, you may want to start off slowly and tackle your holiday sewing in order. So, next up Thanksgiving (for us Canucks) and for everyone, Hallowe'en.

I've got some amazingly talented blog friends and I want you to know about their work. First up is 'e' of pinksuedeshoe. I know her real name, but you have to crack a few good jokes before she'll tell you. She just posted a fab tutorial for making the cutest pumpkin pillows ever. Head on over there for your FREE (ahem, personal use) pattern. Honestly, I told her to make us pay, but she wouldn't hear of it. I plan to make a set of three for our dining table!

If you'd like to make the funkiest Hallowe'en wall hanging ever (or your kid is so into ghouls that they want a whole Hallowe'en quilt of Awesomeness) then visit Sonja's blog to see samples of her patterns all sewn up. Not only is Sonja a member of the VMQG, she's an incredible photographer and designs fantastic foundation patterns (with some help from her husband!) right here in Vancouver. You've never seen Hallowe'en patterns like these: Mumford Mummy, Chuck the Wolfman, Carl Frankenstein, Larry the Creature from the Black Lagoon or my fav, the Vegan Vampire.

Chuck the Wolfman, by Sonjartisania

Carl Frankenstein, by Sonjartisania

Hmmm, I think Sonja's quilt needs a Hallowe'en Heroine....but a witch is so last year....maybe Carl needs a Belinda Bride, or maybe Mabel the Mad Scientist? Sonja, are you reading this?

Sonjartisania's block patterns are available for a ridiculous $5 each, but only until the Wolfman howls...so hurry here. While you're there, check out Peeping Horse: A. Door. Able.

Deck the walls....

...with kitty scarecrows, fa la la la la, lalalala. Or should that be Mwah hahahahaaaa, ha ha ha haaaa? Now that (Canadian) Thanksgiving is behind us, it's time to bust out some spooky decor.

I've been pretty forthright of late regarding my love of pumpkins. These pillows are no exception. I just LOVE them. If you do too, the pattern is available from a B.C. designer called Bella Moon, available here. They did take the better part of a weekend quilting retreat to finish (but the decorative stitching just makes them, so it was well worth it).

We don't go too crazy, but I've made these few things for Hallowe'en that get us in the mood around here. Most of my October sewing time in the past has been busy with costume-making. Speaking of witch, I mean which, we need to get going on that! There is talk of D being Elvis (not too difficult for a skinny, almost 11 year old, blond girl - Yikes!). T's thinking of going with a friend as Ernie & Bert. I love it! This is T (on the left) and his friend last year - this was totally their own idea, but I did have to help with the booties and boxers...

Check the ears. Cutest. Christmas. Elves. Ever!

Edited to add: HEY! There's another awesome giveaway in blogland! check out Jenny's generous giveaway at cutsewironrepeat

Tank-Full....and mystery fabric reveal!

That's me. My tank is full. Of turkey, cranberry sauce, apple cake, pumpkin tarts and ferry food. We had a wonderful weekend of relaxing friendship and fun in Victoria (and got very lucky with the ferries, considering the massive crowds, line-ups and waits due to an engine room fire last Friday on one of the boats). Didn't dampen our weekend in the slightest. Don' cha just love it when you can stay with another family, or have them to your place, and it all just works without seeming like work? That's what Thanksgiving weekend should be all about...and it was.

While the turkey was busy cooking to perfection, we enjoyed a crisp fall bike ride to this farm:

So you know I was happy! D loved seeing the orange fields, too. "There must be a kajillion pumpkins out there - are they all going to get carved???!!!" A stop in an incredible local bakery for pretzels, organic chocolate rolls (need I say more?) and spelt bread was another highlight. Look as this amazing centrepiece they were auctioning for charity:

On our last morning, we took the dog, kids and a soccer ball on a neighbourhood walk, over a hill to the beach. Check out the amazing colours! Aaaaaah, fall.

Now, back to quilting! Remember the guild mystery quilt I told you about here? Well, the final two fabrics arrived by mail last week, so they are all now beautifully folded across Amy Butler's scrumptious Lotus which I plan to use for my border. You can see that I've wavered slightly from the bubble-gum pink, but I think that's allowed.

The instructions were to buy specific yardage of a light, medium and dark fabric in both your main (in my case, pink) and contrasting colour from the opposite side of the colour wheel. Finding lights was the hardest - most quilt shops are full of medium fabrics with a section of 'background' fabrics in the ivory/cream/neutral family. I lucked out with an Amy Butler quilting solid in palest pink, along with her Daisy Chain print; both were found at Hamel's, an excellent Canadian online source for older, out of print fabrics (and new ones, too!). Both of my darks are Dimples by Gail Kessler (Andover fabrics), my current favourite solid-but-not-so-solid fabric.

So, now all I have to do is launder, press, cut and await further instructions! Those will come next week at the guild meeting...I can hardly wait to see this quilt come together!

Are you enjoying the online quilt festival? I've had lots of visitors, which has been very exciting. If you haven't had a look yet, click on the Festival button in my sidebar and take a peek at quilts around the world....I think there are more than 450 of them now - better brew a big pot!