September Scream: Eerie Unruly

I wasn’t planning on making a Halloween quilt this year since I thought I was good with the three Projects finished last year. As I was putting away some recently purchased fat quarters of Halloween fabrics with the remnants of the Eerie Alley stash, I heard the screams of the Squirrels yelling that a Halloween quilt needed to be made for the Grandparent House. Normally, this would be considered a DrEAMi project but since this involves Halloween fabrics, it’s the month of September and I like alliteration in my titles, I’m calling this a Scream. 

Just having finished participating with Scrappy Improv Quilting Book Tour hosted by the author, Kelly Young, I knew just the right pattern I wanted to make. Kelly’s Unruly Pattern (not an affiliate Link) is one of my most favorite quilt patterns  and I now have finally finished three quilts with two more being in the processed of being finished. I describe this pattern as an improv version of a rail fence pattern made with big strips and definitely more merrier when made with lots of fun fabric. This pattern is fat quarter friendly and as you can see from the fabric above, it was just right for the Unruly pattern. I like that the Eerie Alley fabrics from years past went so well with the newly acquired fat quarters along with the addition of some blenders to offset the prints. Over twenty-one different prints were used in this quilt and although I only needed fifteen, like I said before, the more, the merrier.

I should mention that not only the Unruly pattern is great for fat quarters or stash fabric, it’s also is a quick and easy make.  It only took three days for it to be a Finally Finish. I did modify the width of the quilt in order to be able to use a piece of batting which would not have been wide enough and someone was too lazy to pull out the roll of batting to cut another piece.

Vertical straight-line machine quilting, spaced 1” apart, with Smoke Gray Aurifil #50 thread was done to showcase the many fun prints.

Binding was a thin black and white stripe found in the binding drawer and a black tone on tone fabric was used for the backing which I did not take a pic. I will say that I was committed to using  something from the stash but had a hard time deciding which one to use since I’m always afraid it may be needed for a future project, so I think. This quilt measures approximately 58” x 75”.

It’s been almost three years since I made the darling Granddaughter her first Halloween quilt and a new one was needed since  this one is almost too short for her long legs. I just love the fun colors of orange, purple, lime green, etc and glad they’re still around.

The Eerie Unruly Quilt was a Finally Finish just before we left for the Grandparent House last weekend. I was able to take a photo of it  on the front porch along with some Halloween/Fall decor I luckily had around the house. (Do you see the squirrel on the table, most  fitting, don’t you think?) I bet you know who would look sweet with her new Halloween quilt and I definitely will take photo of her in her Halloween regalia with the quilt next month. I’m pretty proud that for someone who in previous years could not make a quilt, etc. in time for Halloween and has now done this two years in a row now. There were an awful lot of new Halloween prints this year and I did buy another collection which you may see next year for my impending trifecta of yearly Halloween finishes.

BTW, I thought I mention that for the past month or two, I’ve been indulging in some major fabric purchases and finally realize that my heart knew before my brain that this month is my 25th Anniversary or my Silver Anniversary of being a Quilter. What a great way to acknowledge this milestone is with fabric and if I was keeping tabs on fabric purchases this year, this wouldn’t count because according to my rules, fabric gifts don’t count. I’m feeling a little less guilty now and wondering if I bought enough—I think it should be 25 lbs and not 25 yards which is a whole lot of fabric.

 

Linking up with:My Quilt Infatuation/NTT

It’s an OFF (October Fabric Foraging) Month

I’m using the word “foraging” loosely in this post since the truest meaning involves the acquisition of food by hunting and in my case I’m replacing “food” with fabric which helps explains how my Finally Finish and Flimsies came to be in October.  It started with my foraging in my Halloween stash  to make face masks after having a funny exchange with Demando asking me to make him a Halloween mask, responding with a “you know you’re 38 years old look” and then realizing he meant a face mask made with Halloween fabric. I came across some wonderful collection of past purchases and decided I needed to make some quick projects with them after putting it off for so many years.  I would like to mention that fabric foraging was very frequent during the days we weren’t at the GP House.

The first project which is a Finally Finished is the Mr. Halloween table runner which I had a charm pack, a fat quarter and some yardage of this past Thimbleberries collection.  I only had a fat quarter of the wonderful focal print which I wanted to keep intact so I designed a table runner around that and used the charm pack as accent squares along with the stripe fabric.

Quilting was simple wavey lines with black Aurifil thread.  Normally I don’t back my quilt with fabric from the same collection but decided to use the orange/black argyle print since I wasn’t able to use it in the top and didn’t think I would have another use for it since I have very few pieces left of the Mr. Halloween collection now; okay maybe enough for some placemats. This table runner measures 20”x38” and it’s a wonderful addition to the other Halloween/Fall quilts adorning the house now.

The next project is the door quilt made with Robert Kaufman’s Eerie Alley which I’ve accumulated some fat quarters and yardage. Again, I had just a fat quarter of the focal print and sort of used the same layout as the Mr. Halloween table runner but I’m calling it a storm door layout.  As I’m writing this post, it is still in a flimsie state and the plan is to quilt it the same way as Mr. Halloween.  This door quilt measures 28”x62”. Sadly, 31 days in October may not have been enough for me to finish in time to hang on the door for Halloween enjoyment.

As I was working on the above projects, I remembered the 8” appliquéd and embroidered Cat block designed by Half Pints made several years ago and waiting to be made into a pillow using the the fabric pictured above.  I am not a pillow person and can only see this in between the mouths of one of our dogs and not sitting pretty on the couch or shelf.  

So, I thought to finally finish this long waiting project, I would make a wall hanging instead by bordering with with a Thimbleberries black print and a wonderful fat quarter of a Simply Spooky print by Indygo Junction foraged once again in the Halloween stash.  Easy straight line quilting with Black Aurifil thread, which is getting a lot of use with these Halloween quilts, paired with the black and white mini check for the binding made this 20” square quilt what I thought was going to be my favorite finish of the month.  But it’s not, it’s the next quilt.

October was #6 for the Country Threads Dirty Dozen Challenge which was my Wizard of Oz flimsie made in 2006.  On a side note, that was the year I returned to the office workforce at the community college after taking a brief hiatus when I quit working at the local quilt shop, one of the reasons being I was accumulating too much fabric. I was then trying to balance working and quilting and made this flimsie after feeling bad that the fabric was sitting in my stash since 2000.  A simple quilt of double four patches with a plain block of the focal print which was also used in the border was made.  It was a flimsie for so long, I added it to the Dirty Dozen Challenge so it could be finally finished.  This flimsie, sad to say, was more of an annoyance and something I thought didn’t have any fondness for and was I wrong.  After quilting it with alternating diagonal straight and wavey lines starting at the border with soft yellow thread, I’ve become quite smitten with the many prints in this collection, especially the focal print.  The collection was designed by Beth Bruske, David Textiles and I don’t know the source of inspiration for the prints.  Even though it was approved by the L. Frank Baum Trust these are not from the original books.

I was ready to bind this quilt with a yellow print, not from this collection, but decided to use the perfectly pink gingham I found or foraged in my pink stash. I needed to offset the green and gold to make this quilt a little sweeter. For some reason, I did not set aside the binding in the drawer which I usually do. This quilt measures 40”x50” but it feels and look larger.

Some mysteries surrounding the making of this quilt is that I cannot find my remaining stash of this fabric which I know I had. After several time foraging around the studio I decided not to make myself crazy and just go with the thought that I must have donated it when I wanted to stuff the box full and made a mental note that I would remember doing this.  I don’t do good mental notes. But I’m hoping it will appear since I still have 1.5 yards of the blue fabric used for the backing left.  I’m also wondering why I didn’t make a Yellow Brick Road by Terry Atkinson with this fabric which would have been cliche’ but cute.  I know she just celebrated the 20th Anniversary of this wonderful pattern and guess I could commenorate or commenomake with the second collection of Oz prints from the MGM movie but right now I’m not liking these prints so much.  Maybe a little more fabric fermentation or another 10 years will make my heart grow fonder over them.

Some more finishes made possible with more fabric foraging:

A simple Ernie quilt made from Two Canoe Scraps given to me from Kathleen after sort of whining from me and foraging through the Cotton+Steel, Zen Chic and Crazy Mom stash so I would have enough for this 40”x50” quilt.  Right now it is in a flimsie state, but the plan is to quilt it with horizontal straight and wavey lines and then donate it.

And look at the fun greens I foraged from the many green bins for October’s College Challenge hosted by Patterns by Jen for the Ruby Crown Kinglet.  Olive Green was this month’s color and I think it looks awfully wild with the lime green, almost Citronickle print.  If you’re wondering what Citronickle is, it’s a yellow green which I call Citron and Wendy calls Pickle and she came up with this name which is quite fun as the color.

Since I used the word “forage and foraging” so much in this post, I thought I would include a photo of the many acorns I foraged in the park at the GP house during the past weeks to feed my squirrels.  I’ve collected at least three full boxes and am still feeling some aches but it was worth it.  Acorns and fabrics feed my squirrels.  I’m hoping one of the studio squirrels will tell me where the missing OZ fabric is.

I hope everyone has a safe and Happy Halloween.  Also, please remember to VOTE! I already did.