Halloween Scraps

One more week of working with black scraps for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge!  I saved these for the last Saturday of the month since they're Halloween-related.

I finished up my black leader-ender spools.  These Halloween-themed mini clothespins were perfect for keeping the spools clipped together!

This week's Halloween happy, scrappy  house is made from scraps from an October baby quilt.  My niece was born in October, and I thought she should have a Halloween-themed baby quilt.  I found some wonderful fabric based on old-fashioned Halloween postcards and used that as the main theme for the quilt.  Scraps from the postcard fabric are in the door and window.  For the quilt back I found a fun monarch butterfly print, which I used for the chimneys on the house.

Unfortunately, I don't have a picture of the quilt, although my sister promises me it was well-loved and well-used.  My niece is already 10 years old; it seems like only yesterday I was making that quilt!

My New Orleans house for the week doesn't exactly fit this month's color scheme (although it has black shutters!), but it was such a good mate for my scrappy Halloween house I had to share!  This is another one of those fabulous mansions on St. Charles Avenue, but the real treat is the Halloween decorations. If you click through to the slide show, click through the ads because there are 39 punny pictures in all.

This month has really helped me develop a new appreciation for using black fabric in my quilts.  I gained lots of inspiration from the other Rainbow Scrappers every week who linked up over at Angela's blog.  I see lots more black fabric showing up in future quilts!

Halloween Fun

I have always been a fan of Halloween.  I think it's a nostalgia for the naive Halloween celebrations of my childhood.  Carving jack o' lanterns, roasting pumpkin seeds, trick or treating in a great costume - all these things are my idea of a fun Halloween!

I used to do a fair amount of decorating for Halloween, but now that my kids are grown, it's just not as much fun.  

I did bring out my collection of Halloween dolls and toys, though.

One of my favorite collectible toys (souvenirs, really) are push puppets.  You know - the little gizmos with a spring that collapse when you push the bottom of the figure.  I don't know why they appeal to me, but I always buy them whenever I find them.

Black cat push puppet.

I also collect wind-up toys.  They are irresistible!

Mr. & Mrs. Frankenstein - Madame Alexander dolls from several years ago.  It's hard to see, but they're actually joined at the wrist by a chain!

Some Madame Alexander trick or treaters.

More trick or treaters; the mini figurines are Madame Alex dolls that were in McDonald's Happy Meals many Halloweens ago!

My Halloween celebrations have grown pretty tame lately.  We have very few trick or treaters in our neighborhood, so Dear Husband and I often just go out to dinner and celebrate by having pumpkin creme brulee or pumpkin cheesecake for dessert!

Black Scraps for a Rainy Saturday

I woke up this morning to the sound of rain on the roof.  The rain, mixed with fog, has continued all morning - a great day to stay in and play with scraps!  

The Rainbow Scrap Challenge colors for October are grays & blacks, and I've had fun digging through the scrap bin to find just the right combos for scrappy house blocks and leader-ender spool blocks.

I found some bright colors on black backgrounds that made good spools.

The red pepper fabric has been in my stash for a long time.  I bought several yards of it and it has found it's way into many of my scrappy quilts!

I couldn't find a black or peppery New Orleans house to share this week.

On the other hand, a famous pepper-growing family is associated with New Orleans.  The McIhenny's recipe for pepper sauce, better known as Tabasco, is a world-famous condiment.  Members of the McIlhenny family have lived in New Orleans for years; the former president of the company was Rex, King of Carnival several years ago.

Tabasco peppers are grown on Avery Island, a salt dome in southwest Louisiana.  The pepper sauce has been made and bottled there since 1868.  I think it would be fair to say Tabasco sauce is part of the fabric of our life!

And on that spicy note, I'm going to go check out the other Rainbow Scrap inspiration at Angela's blog!

Inspiration from a Chalkboard

I always look forward to Scrappy Saturdays, because I never know how color, fabric and New Orleans houses will inspire me.  

This week I was inspired by a very unique house and some Moda Grunge fabric.

The Before I Die house was created by artist Candy Chang.  Her website does more justice to the story than I can, so I hope you'll take a look.  Scroll down to see the entire transformation process.

As always, the other Rainbow Scrappers will be sharing their inspiration today over at Angela's blog.  I'm looking forward to seeing their scrappy fun, too!

Scrappy Saturday: Playing with Gray, Ignoring the Weather

This month's color instructions for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge are to use gray to black scraps.  Since I only have a few gray fabrics in my stash (Oh No!  I had to make scraps for this week's block!), I decided to start there and challenge myself to make an interesting gray happy scrappy house block.

I expected my world would be full of gray today.  The weather pundits have been telling us to prepare for TS Karen for the past 48 hours, but my gut feeling was always that she would turn out to be a lot of nothing.  So, at noon on Saturday, the sun is shining and Karen is falling apart.  Still, I plan on staying home and sewing for as much of the day as possible!

After playing with the gray scraps for a bit, I realized a little pop of color was needed to perk things up.  Moda Grunge fabric to the rescue - a little bit of pink was just the ticket!  I also noticed photographing the gray blocks at an angle helped show off the color and fabrics better.  

I used up a few more scraps making leader-ender spool blocks.

I love the gray background in this Halloween wallhanging.  This goes back to my early days of quilting; the pattern may be from Better Homes and Gardens, but the memory is dim.  The instructions never called for any quilting, and the quilt is finished by sewing the backing and batting to the quilt top with wrong sides together, then turning right side out.  The pieced top has  always sagged a bit, and I keep telling myself to add some quilting to stabilize things.  I think that project will be another gray challenge for this month.

This week's New Orleans House Project subject is known as the Brown-Villere Mansion, a Romanesque Revival standout on St. Charles Avenue.  Even though the house is sort of a taupe-y gray, I wanted to share it because it's such a New Orleans landmark.  Plus, unlike all the houses I've shared so far, you can actually see some of the interior of this house!

Please stop by Angela's soscrappy blog to see how the color gray has inspired other Rainbow Scrap Challenge quilters!

Slow Down Stitching

I find myself with several hand-stitching projects to play with and wonderful fall weather to enjoy some outdoor stitching.  It's a perfect combo for slowing down and relaxing now that the heat of summer has passed - not to mention the worst of hurricane season!

This is a completely hand-stitched project - a doll quilt featuring Lemoyne Stars and some well-aged Robyn Pandolph fabric.  All the stars are pieced, now I just have to join the blocks and strips, then add the borders.  I'm excited to see this one coming together!

This baby is in the process of having the binding hand-stitched.  My niece asked if I would donate a quilt for a fund-raiser she is holding, so I need to finish this one soon and mail it off to her.  I really love this quilt, but I'm happy it will be used to raise money for a worthy cause. 

I'm going to link up with some more hand-stitchers over at Kathy's Quilts and then head outdoors to enjoy some gorgeous weather and relaxing stitching!

It's All Over Now, Baby Blue

Gosh, I've been waiting all month to use that song title for a blog post.  I hope Bob Dylan doesn't mind!

It has been a week of wrapping things up.  I finished another quilt from last year's Rainbow Scrap Challenge.  I made the binding for the Orange Confection quilt and got it machine-stitched and ready for hand sewing.  I played with and then put away all the baby blue scraps, clearing the table for next month's Rainbow Scrap Challenge color.

A few baby blue scraps were sliced into wonky log cabin blocks.  I need to pull out all the previous month's log cabins and put them on the design wall.  My vision for this quilt is to only use rainbow colors, so it's time to plan the layout and see how many more blocks are needed.

I have wanted to start working on an all blue and white quilt for some time.  This month's Rainbow Scrap Challenge color inspired me to think about and play with several designs.  I first noticed this block combination on Barbara Brackman's Material Culture blog.  I thought it would make a great combo for a blue and white quilt.  My first effort was to create 8" blocks, but I thought they were a little too big for a scrappy quilt.

Next, I tried the block combo as a 6" finished size.  Much mo bettah!  (that's a New Orleans phrase, btw)  Now that I have the blocks sorted, I'll try to make a few of these every month.  This will be a long-term, ongoing project.  If I can figure out a way to make it a leader-ender project, so much the better!

That's my baby blue report for the week.  I'm going to join up with the other Rainbow Scrappers at Angela's soscrappy blog, so do take a peek to see what other baby blue inspiration happened this week!

Rainbow Scrap Quilt 2.0

Another 2012 Rainbow Scrap Challenge quilt has reached completion!  

I was inspired by Cathy Tomm's Greek Square blocks and dug through my scraps each month to add more blocks to my challenge pile.

I planned from the beginning to give this quilt to one of my nieces.  I found out her favorite color was red, so it was a no-brainer choosing a red batik for the border.  I'm so accustomed to not pre-washing fabrics, it didn't even occur to me the red batik might not be colorfast.  I didn't think about it until it was too late to pre-wash, so I did a test on some scraps.  They didn't bleed, so I think it will be OK.  I do plan to do a quick washing with LOTS of Color Catchers!

My local long-arm quilter, Cindy Braiwick, did the quilting.  She used a wonderful fleur de lis based design that really looks great with the Greek Square blocks.

Here's another look at the quilting from the back.  She used gold thread to help pull all the crazy colors together.

I'm still experimenting with what type of label I like best.  For this quilt I did a simple, triangular label.

As always, many thanks to Angela of soscrappy for the inspiration and to all the other Rainbow Scrap quilters for their weekly words of encouragement!

Stitching Up Blue Napkins

Very little sewing has occurred this week as I've been getting ready for and entertaining guests. I've missed my usual quota of sewing therapy, but having friends come for a visit is good therapy, too!



I did need to make some more napkins for the camp, so I dug into the blue fabric bin and made these. I don't need to have matchy-matchy napkins, and this way everyone can keep track of their own. If you'd like to make your own napkins, a good tutorial is here.

Hope everyone has a great weekend! I'll catch up with everyone next week!

Lemoyne Stars Revisited

I'm still playing with the iPad Blogger app.  It doesn't have many bells and whistles, but it gets the job done.  It does have a camera option built into the program, so I thought I'd give that a try.  The camera option allows you to snap an iPad picture while in the process of typing a blog entry.  You also have the option of using a photo already stored on your iPad.

So, I snapped a quick picture of the progress I've made on the Lemoyne Star doll quilt.  I've been hand-piecing the stars during quiet moments, and only have one more to complete.  The plain blocks are ready to go once the stars are finished.  The large scale pink flowered print will be the outer border.  I'm looking forward to hand quilting this!

Grrrr!  One major drawback to this app is there is no way to put links in your blog post.  That's a big negative for me, so I guess I'll have to keep looking for the perfect iPad blogging app!

Addendum:  link to original Lemoyne star quilt added & picture re-sized via regular Blogger interface on my laptop.