Jack-O-Lantern Runner and Mats Finished

I have finished my pumpkins but made them Jack-O-Lanterns. My kids thought they should have faces. I kind of thought they were cute before I put on the faces. They will be ready for using this weekend for Canadian Thanksgivings.

When I started this last Saturday, I made six pumpkins, thinking I would make 6 mats. Then I thought maybe a runner would be nice too. We are a family of four, so four mats and one runner. The runner is totally done.

This mat is totally done. The other three mats still need binding. I will finish the other three tonight. If you want to know more about the piecing and how I did it please check my post Wednesday Pumpkin Mats How To. And  big thanks you to Vicky Welsh at Field Trips in Fiber, She has put a link in her newsletter to the tutorial.

I sewed the binding on with a zigzag stitch. I was not going to hand stitch and I am really rotten at the normal machine stitch the binding back. I have trouble getting the back caught. I think my problem is my bindings are tight, even to hand stitch ( mom complains about mine when I get her to hand stitch the bindings).

I machine quilting in many many spider webs into the background. The black faces are stitched with a ruff edge applique.

I have added today's post to Crazy Mom's Finish it up Fridays and Felicity Quilt's Friday Felicities Thanksgiving Edition and Naptime Crafter's Friday Favs Party 83 and Magic Onion's Friday's Nature's Table and Confessions of a Fabric Addict's Can I get a Whoop Whoop
OK I am being a link up junky this week. But there is so much to see on Fridays. It takes me all weekend to check them all out.

WIP Wednesday Pumpkin Mats How to

I have been working hard at using my scraps up. The month of Sept was Orange for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge 2012. On Saturday I really wanted to make some Pumpkins, before the month ended. But into what? I got making six pumpkins and thought maybe place mats.

From my Orange 1 1/2" strips I made a 6 1/2" square. You would need 5 strips measuring 1 1/2" x 6 1/2".

Then the corners I used Purple scarps. Start with a 2 1/2" square one dark purple and one medium purple, and cut then on the diagonal once each.

I then pins the triangles to the orange square in each corner. Make sure that you have the tips of the triangles over lapping by at least a 1/4". Sew 1/4" from the bias of the triangle

The purple triangle should cover all of the orange corner. If you have it correct, trim off the orange corner and press. Trim up your pumpkin square again to 6 1/2".

For the stem I used 2 inch strips and free cut them with a little angle. make sure your three pieces have the same angle.

When sewing the angle, I just eyeballed the little 1/4" to hang over. Press and see if your new strip is straight enough to get by.

Add your stem to the top of your pumpkin. I like to keep the medium purple on the top. Yes I did some one with the stem on the dark end and ribbed to fix it. 

I then sewed some purple 2 1/2" scraps to make up the frame parts. I quickly went to my longer strips and did strip piecing with my 2 " wide strips. I cut off 2 1/2" strip piecing at this time. I used all dark purple on the bottom. then the sides have a little shading to medium purple.

This block is now 8 1/2" wide and 8" tall. Not a great size to keep track of but I was being a little free at this time.

I made the word "Boo" with all yellow scraps that were 1 1/4" wide. I had all this yellow hand dyed in my scrap box and did not cut any extra. The B started with a 2" purple square for the top of the B and a 2" by 2 1/2" unit in purple. The O's started with a 1 1/2" by 2 1/4" purple unit. I then just added the yellow were needed. The top of B needs a little strip of purple, to make it as wide bottom. I added narrow strips between the letters and some purple on the top and bottom of the Os to make them as wide as the B. Lots of 1 1/2" purple strips were used to get what I needed and then I would trim of one was to big. I am sorry I did not take photos of the Boo in process.

To get both the Boo's and pumpkins together I added 2 " strips to the pumpkin top and bottom. the Boo's got 1 1/2" strips around it. I trimmed if one was to big.

There one place mat top done. It measures 12 1/2" tall and 17 1/2" wide. I thought that was a good size for my place mats. I can not lye I had to cut a few dark purple strips to finish the place mats off, but I used so much up. Now for some quilting these up.

I have added today's post to WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced  and Needle and Thread Network

Blogtocberfest is going on this month and I am going to make a creative post every day this month.

Design Wall Monday Oct 1

Today is the start of Blogoberfest over at "I saw you Dance". I am committing to blog every day this month. So to kick it off, I have my pumpkins on the design wall in Halloween style. I got started on this Saturday morning and worked on them again yesterday. I am think they will be place mats.  I am hoping to finish them soon.

However I am having machine trouble. I have been stitching on my featherweight and thought I would oil it. Now the tension is wacky. I am starting to think the timing is out. I had a number of threads in behind the bobbin case. I keep getting loops on the bottom. No matter what I do to the tension setting. The machine sounds better. I may have to get out a different machine to sew. 
Edited at noon hour: I got it working correctly. I had taken the plate off the bed to clean around the feed dogs and did not get the hook in the correct place when I put it together. Surprised it would even sew at all. Now I am happy it sounds and runs so much better. Some one asked "you have more machines? yes I have 8 machines in total if I count all of them.

I have added today's post to Patchwork Times Design Wall Monday.

I looked back at Sept's goals I did OK. For Oct here we go.
1) In Sept I got my Spider Wed quilt top all pieced together. For Oct I need to get the backing done.
2) Adam's quilt work on at Retreat.
3) piece together the second Ugly quilt maybe at retreat and backing pieced together
4) My pumpkin place mats - plan to work more on this week
5) Rainbow scrap challenge (thinking it is Brown)
6) Maybe quilt 1st ugly quilt get mom to do binding
7)

See you Tuesday

Halloween Bracelet

Here is the bracelet that I have made after getting my charms back from swaps. I was in two charm swaps, The Halloween Fiber Charm Swap and the Vintage Halloween Charm Swap. I could not use all the charms. Some were a little larger than I wanted or to fragile. If you made one and do not see your, please know I have plans for it. I am hoping to make a mini book of Halloween and plan to use some in my book and book spin. Happy Halloween.

Vintage Halloween Charm Swap

Here are two charms on the right that are finished for a swap on Two Peas in a Bucket. The left has the 20mm shell disk beads that I started with and still show on the back side. I thought they looked like the harvest moon.
I printed small images of an old postcard. Sealed them with Mod Podge (Glow in the Dark). When dry, I used the light table and traced the circle on the back side and cut it out. Then glued the images to the 20mm shell disks. When dry again, I used Diamond Glaze to cover over the image for a good raised glaze. You have to try not to get bubbles in the Diamond Glaze.
Here are the many disk images drying before I can add more beads. I placed the disk bead on a 1 1/2" jewelry pin head and added the gold moon and star bead.
I love to put the charms together using my muffin tins. I have bought a few old muffin tins to use for project trays. I look for them at the second hand stores. This can then sit on my lap in from of the TV or at a table.

Pumpkin Charms

Halloween Fibre Charm Swap. Here are the little smiley faces. I am so pleased with how they turned out. This is the first time I have tried Felting. I dyed the wool then started to wet felt the wool into balls. It takes about 10 minutes for each ball. Start with a chunk of warm wet wool and some soap in you hand. Then roll softly and slowly adding more presser to the wool. Rolling Rolling. I could speed up the rolling when it was looking round and starting to stick together.
When the orange balls were made and dry, I got out my jewelry findings. I had some trouble getting the jewelry pin into the balls of wool. I sewed the black beads on for a face. I made the stem out of green beads. I added a silver leaf at the top with the lobster claw clasp. I have a few extra and plan to make some earrings for myself.
I bought wool last week to dye. Here are the dye supplies set out to get started. Below are the pots simmering on the oven. I dyed green thinking I would make the stem from wool but it looked like Florida oranges not pumpkins. I had to dye twice as I did not dye enough the first time. I was surprised how much wool is in a little felt ball. To do my 25 balls I should have dyed two oz of dry wool.