The Halloween theme this year at Paige’s work is Christmas Vacation. They each picked a character and gathered some props. This is just the thing to turn my frown upside down for the day:)

Squiirrrrelll!!

Oh, Aunt Bethany….

Shitters full!

Fried pussycat…It’s Christmas and we’re all in misery!

I got a chance to relax and enjoy our monthly sew-in this last Sunday. We all went out to Pattie’s new home. It was fabulous! She has great taste in decor.

She had a chicken salad ready for us and Watermelon Mojitos…yummy.

Kelly worked on the binding for a Halloween quilt made from charm square scraps.

This is a quilt Pattie had over a sofa in her living room. Stunning comes to mind. I think the kitty liked it too!

Pattie has four kitties. But Pete was our favorite. He insisted on helping us out at every turn. He happened to love the Cosmo floss. I’m pretty sure he thought I had brought it just for him:)

We decided to start a group project next year with all the SewMod girls. Each of us will make a 15″ to 18″ “house” block, whether it be pieced or applique. Anything goes. In January we will pass our block to one of the girls and she will add her own creativity to it, such as beads, applique, embroidery, buttons, etc. In February, it will go the next girl to embellish. I’m really excited about this project and I can’t wait to see the finished blocks. We really have a very talented and diverse group so the end results should be interesting.

So that’s what I worked on during our sew-in. I chose to do an embroidered gingerbread house from a pattern I purchased from an Etsy shop called BigBgd. Very cute stuff! I enlarged one of the designs and embroidered the outer lines so the girls could have fun with the landscape and “candy decor”.

I still have the side candy canes left to embroider but I made some pretty good progress this Sunday. Now gotta get back to embroidering the Witches Boot before another month sneaks by and it’s October.

Thanks Pattie for being a great hostess. We all had a great time and look forward to coming back.

I hope to post a couple of new quilts we’ve recently finished soon, so be sure to check back with us!

I switched the moon to the other side and added a witch’s hat to Birdie. She had to have a costume for all that trick or treating she plans on doing!

What kind of candy is she hoping to get the most of this year? Reese’s cups seem to be my, um, her addiction right now!

Paige drew up a spooky house

And I thought I’d add retro kitty to a giant pumpkin. She’s so sassy, isn’t she?

I usually cross stitch something for Halloween but didn’t have time this year. I’ll show you some of those projects next week. Embroidery work is so much faster for me to get done.  So, to get my Halloween fix on this year, I added retro kitty to a tea towel and used giant rick rack to embellish the bottom.

Now for my reward…the cupcake!

We finished the Pick A Bunch and the Fluttering Butterflies quilts. We made 2 table runners. All will be kitted for the show.

North Garden Dresden Table Runner

And Which Witch Table Runner. The purple comes off really blue in the pics but it’s really a perfectly matched purple to this line. This turned out sooo cute!

A couple of Gumdrops …A couple of friends joined in on the Gumdrop fun. Kathy made hers from the Artful Home fabrics. We love how she fussy cut the green daisy for the top.

And Janet and Paige both picked the Groovy Bugs fabric with aqua Ta-Dot tops…fun, fun fabric!

Several last touches on patterns…all available soon in Etsy.

Summer tweets, which we showed you a few weeks ago.

Fruitcakes

And North Garden Dresden Table Runner

And we had countless ideas and brainstorming sessions and planned out this weeks projects. I’ll be working on the Hoo’s In The Forest quilt. I see a cute appliqued deer and big appliqued strawberries for this project so I’m looking forward to starting this one. Of course that all depends if we can keep the power on in the neighborhood. Lots of outages here..:(

We also had our 1st SewMod meeting in the new studio. It was nice and relaxing. We celebrated a couple of the girls’ birthdays with some wine and I made a cheesecake….I forgot to take a pic…I wish I had though because it was beautiful & yummy! They’re always yummy, but not always beautiful:)

Paige will probably be mad at me but….. everyone wish Paige a Happy Birthday today!!

I’m thinking of making this in the orchids, using the small daisy doodle with the white background as the top portion and the large daisy on the bottom. Sooo sweet!

Or maybe some p.j.’s from the blue daisy doodle would be cute. Lot’s of ideas for this line.

All of these are available in the Etsy Shop. We have lots more patterns too. And this wonderfully, whimsy book …Hatched and Patched’s Some Kind of Wonderful by Annie Downs. Punch needle, applique, embroidery, and patchwork all in one book.

A couple of the projects from the book…

Check ’em out!

And for my personal use..more Halloween fabrics that I stumbled upon at Hancock Fabrics. I kinda went nuts when I saw this cuteness! It’s not that made in China stuff either. It’s soft and good quality fabrics and it goes with some of the Riley Blake Halloween I’ve collected.

These cats are crazy cute!

More cats but my fave in the green print are the little black owls.

And I can’t resist a Halloween party that involves martinis!

Have a great weekend everyone!

I love waiting for the UPS guy. Too bad he doesn’t bring them inside for me though. They’re too heavy to lift so I have to unpack them on my front porch. My neighbor’s probably think I’m just so excited to get packages, I can’t wait to bring them in before I unpack them!

It’s Trick or Treat from Riley Blake. We ordered 7 bolts.

Some ribbon and buttons to match.

And some charms squares.

I think Daisy needs a new Halloween leash out of the tossed candy fabric. That would be so cute!

Have a great weekend everyone and be sure to check back on Monday for the giveaway winner!

And I wouldn’t want to forget to show you these from the same line.

And would you just look at these prints from Riley Blake coming out soon called Trick or Treat.

There’s even trim and buttons to match!

Oh my cuteness!!

Now the challenge will be to set the rows so that everything flows together. I can use sashing and borders. And since Kelly made the row with the spooky appliqued tree vertical, I get to come up with something extra special to fill in the space. Maybe the tree could use some creepy roots with bones buried there?

I also brought home these rows…

I’ll be putting this quilt together as a charity quilt. In August the area will be having a pretty big shop hop,the Northern Illinois Quilt Fest,which includes Fons and Porter coming to Quilt In Joy for Quilts of Valor. The SewMod girls will be hosting our own quilt show in one of the neighboring buildings. I’m really excited about this! We’re going to hang our row quilts and other things we’ve made, and we’re using this row quilt as a raffle quilt with the proceeds going to a charity.

I’m feeling pretty busy lately! …yet as I write this post I’m watching Matlock..seriously Matlock? Ok , I’m off to be productive!

Have a great day everyone!

Instead of leaving you hanging, I thought I would just show you some of the fabrics I can’t seem to stop thinking about.

Up 1st is Knitty Gritty from Michael Miller. I love this with the scissors under the skulls. The other piece to this line has knitting needles crossed behind the skulls.

It comes in lavender too. I can see a cute wallet or a coffee cup cozy out of this.

A novelty print from Michael Miller that I saw recently made into a bag.

I don’t know how old this Halloween fabric is. I think it’s Maywood Studios. I know Paige will like this one.

You didn’t think I’d leave out Christmas did you?

Here’s a peek at the new Kate Spain’s line Flurry.

And the Basic Grey line Jovial, which I’m just counting the days for. Although I kinda wished they had named it a Christmas treat like the last two, Fruitcake & Figgy Pudding. Those names were so much fun.

Have a great SuperBowl weekend everyone!

And Happy Birthday Mom!!