Halloween, getting ready

 Did a few things for Halloween to decorate around the house.  Take a look:

It was fun doing this one.  I got the instructions from Flamingo Toes.  The instructions are easy to follow and complete.  Everything you need to know is there as well as the templates for the pumpkin and the spider.  Great job Bev, I really enjoyed making this.

After this one I decided that I needed some table mats.  I saw a lot of them online, and I didn't want to buy a pattern when I knew I could make my own, so that's what I did.  Here they are, stem and all.

I had some left over Halloween material, about 1/2 meter each which worked out well to make these.  The stems were scraps.  Really like how they worked out and notice the quilting.

That's it.  Next week another painting for someone's retirement, and continuation of paper piecing a christmas quilt.  Have a great day.

Keeping busy with painting and quilting

 Life is getting better and more busy.  It's Thanksgiving here in Canada, and that means that it's a long weekend.  But last week I joined a painting class for $40 a month that teaches a very distinguishing style.  I love Ali Kay's style.

See her at work here.

I love this style of painting and I wanted to try this, so I signed up for a week with Paint Week with Paint Fresh, an online course that also goes live with Facebook.  Take a look at Ali Kay's site to see what she does and her explanation

Here are some of my work from Fresh Paint

It's in order from the latest to the first one (just above).  I got better.  Feeling good, made 3 pictures, but now I'm thinking, I haven't sewn anything in a week....  I felt bad so today I received an email from Flamingo Toes showing a quick tabletop for Halloween.  It uses applique.  Take a look, especially with the spider which has spun a web going down from the web at the top.

It's gorgeous, and looks great on my table.  See this link to an explanation from Flamingo Toes.   I also cut a pattern out for Halloween.  It's my goal this week.  That goal and also to paint 2 more painting.  Wish me luck.

Just under the wire...

Well, it's hard to miss when I posted my November's entry for what I wanted to complete in the November's "Lovely Year of Finishes (it was my last entry), but I did it, I did complete one of my goals.  I am not making excuses but it's been a very bad month for me this month, and very trying.  I won't go into it with details but I'm sure many of you out there have gone through bad times and needed quilting to get through it.  In all honesty, I only had two weekends to complete my goals and I'm very happy that I was able to do one of them.    I started from this (all the material saved up).

To this......

Who doesn't love a Christmas quilt.
The quilting was spiral with fillers in between and I love the final results.

 

The pattern was free from Jolly Jabber.  It's called Little Joys and all the patterns are free here.  It was a block of the month (short one), but absolutely beautiful, simple, and easy to do.  For those of you interested in doing a similar one and has more options click on this link for a Christmas "Deck the Halls".  

As I said previously, many things happened to me this month, most of them very trying, and painful.  I didn't do much sewing at all, and truthfully, in the last two days it's been my salvation, to get my mind back.  I'm sure we all have times in our life like this, but I'm still working through some trouble times, and it's coming out in my sewing.

Although this other quilt was not the one that I said I would complete this month I did receive as therapy a pack of fat quarters that were Halloween in style.  Now I know, Halloween is over with, but I still wanted (no needed) to sew, so I started the blocks, added some black and here are the results.  The quilt is made of 12 inch squares, with lighter orange around each one, and then dark orange borders.  But it looked too plain so I thought I would add some applique.  And the results are the pumpkins and the leaves around the quilt for interest sake.

So this is the results....

That's it.  I did make one goal and I'm submitting this to a Lovely Year of Finishes....