Quilt Reveal: October Holiday House

It's not October yet, but here October Holiday House is way ahead of the pack, ready for the new year.

I told you the story of when I bought the kit a couple of weeks ago.

 I started making the kit at the end of October 2021. I have been trying to make one small quilt a month. Using the kit which has marinated long enough was a good option.

I put this quilt away to get ready for the October birthday gathering, and kept it away for the week we met with the customers.

I brought it out to work on, but it had to be set aside again for the Portrait Representation Quilt. I did work on it a little bit that week, but this week I was able to give it full time attention to finish it.

The kit included everything you needed to make the top and the binding. I had a couple of fat quarters that had accidentally been sent to me in the mail instead of what I had ordered. I was allowed to keep them and they both came in handy for this quilt.

 

I cut out the October from one of them and did not have to make individual letters. I also used that fabric for the label. I really liked using tulle as a design element.

The pumpkins and the spider came from the other fat quarter. The kit came with buttons, but they have shanks on the back and I didn't want to use them that way. That fabric is also used for the backing.

It was a fun mini to make and helped warm up my free motion confidence to work on the Representation Portrait Quilt.

Advent Calendar

 

I posted my end of the year report earlier this morning, and am amending it to report that I finished another mini quilt before the end of the year. This is an advent calendar with 24 pockets. I like all the designs for the days.

I bought the kit at the Connecting Threads sale. I bound it by machine with a decorative stitch.

I am not used to binding on the front so it did wind up wobbly, but I wasn't aiming for perfection when making it. It is a quick and simple quilt to make. 

I want to thank Wendy Caton Reed for encouraging us to make a small quilt every month. Her posts showcase lots of inspiring small quilts and other projects. She is very talented.  I learn a lot from visiting her blog.

Quilt Reveal: Blue Ornaments

 As usual, in December, the photo quality is much diminished.  Today, I want to introduce you to Blue Ornaments, my mini quilt of the month for the month of December. 

This little quilt provided a little distraction from the Quote Quilt until I realized I am going to add fusible to the backing, and not the front of the quilt. This means, I can keep adding more stuff to the Quote Quilt while I prepare the backing and fusible. I'll show you my additions to the Quote Quilt in another post.

In the meantime, this little quilt is a wholecloth quilt made with three circles from a fabric I recently got from Joanns. I think it is pretty enough to stand on its own as ornaments. I quilted the sandwich lightly, added the ornaments with a decorative stitch, and then quilted it a bit more with a Decobob thread I got as a sample.

The backing is the same fabric as the binding. I took photos of it outside in the snow, but they were all upside down. I didn't want to confuse you more than needed in a topsy turvy year, so this photo will have to do until I can get a better photoshoot. By that time, I might have added some bows to the strings.

Chinese Coins Quilt Reveal

I finished the Chinese Coins quilt last week, but it has taken me some time to take quilt reveal photos. I wanted to try to make a nice vignette instead of showing just a flat quilt, and was trying to think of things to use. Since I am new to making vignette, I tried several different options.

When I went to Target, I saw a little scarecrow and pumpkins that I thought would be good for the display, but I didn't buy them because I decided I should be able to find things around the house that would work.  Then I went to the thrift store.  I have been looking for a doll bed.  I still haven't found one, but I found two chairs and this doll.

As you can see, I haven't quite mastered the art of the vignette.  The doll is a little bit early for Christmas, dressed in red and green. I now have enough chairs for a classroom, but still no bed.

The pattern is in Kathleen Tracy's book. It was a fun little quilt to make. I especially liked the fact that it did not have any half square triangles!

Finished!

When I let myself get tempted by the pattern Kim presented at Kim's Big Quilting Adventure, and gave myself permission to do Kim's Happy Jacks quilt, I gave myself severe mandates. "You must get it done, and you must get it done quickly. Kim's done three of these in a week, certainly you can get it done quickly as well." Well I'm nowhere near as quick as Kim, but I did keep my focus on this quilt, even to the point that other things on the to-do list were skipped, and now it is finished! Definitely one of my quickest finishes. The fabric choices were easy - the first fabric I find that works, is it. No agonizing over choices. The cutting was fine. The sewing was fine as well. Anything that wasn't, was trimmed off! The hardest part about the quilt was stopping. I wanted to make more pumpkins, and I wanted to make more faces. See, here is a photo of some scraps of fabric that fell onto the floor.