I can hardly believe it's fall already! To be honest, any weather that approaches cold is NOT my favorite season. But I do enjoy the rainbow trees that pop out this time of year. I also enjoy Halloween, visiting the pumpkin patch, and the accompanying seasonal quilt projects!
Speaking of Halloween (and quilts), we live in a New England town that was settled in 1639. The photo shoot below was taken in one of our town's historic graveyards. The engravings on the headstones are fascinating! It was lovely visiting our town's former residents and including them in our activities. I'm pretty sure they also enjoyed a good quilt on a chilly autumn night!
The above quilt was made at the request of my husband. We both loved Tula Pink's "De La Luna" line when it released and he wanted his own quilt made from the collection (one of the many perks of being married to a quilter!) Hubs really liked the idea of a picture wall highlighting the De La Luna sisters, along with floating frames that added to the haunted imagery.
As a custom design, I did quite a bit of experimenting on this quilt. The floating frames have an extra layer of batting giving a trapunto (3D) effect. I used five different quilting designs for the thicker frames. Some of the inner designs are quilted as glow-in-the-dark spiderwebs. The sisters' portraits and skulls are quilted by following their outlines. I also used glow-in-the-dark thread in the white borders. For the outer border and backing I chose a fabric that gave the appearance of stone, lending to a graveyard / headstone / haunted castle feel to tie it all together.
The "De La Luna" quilt is probably the warmest one in our house with two layers of plush 100% cotton batting. The weight of the batting also made it a MONSTER to move under the needle of my domestic machine. In later endeavors, I discovered wool to be a much better choice for achieving texture and warmth. But overall, no regrets! I love taking this quilt out every October and it stays out until Thanksgiving.
After finishing hubby's quilt, I stumbled through a dark, lonely forest and came across a house made of candy. I went in to find the house was occupied by a witch! I took out my magic wand, zapped her into oblivion, and made off with her hat and shoes!
In truth, I found the above AWESOME patterns in my usual quilty web-surfing; "Halloween Witch Hat," (left) by Soma Acharya of InkTorrents Graphics, and "Witchy Toes," pattern by Caroline Press, TrilliumDesign (right). These are foundation paper pieced patterns, both brilliantly designed.
Soma's "Halloween Witch Hat" has fewer sections and came together quickly. I absolutely love the turned up brim which adds dimension to the finished piece. Caroline's "Witchy Toes" pattern has significantly more piecing, but the result is well worth the effort. Those shoes are fabulous!
The table toppers above and below were created from Edyta Sitar's (laundrybasketquilts.com) "Pumpkin" pattern, from her book "Pillow Talk" which has become one of my "go-to" favorites.
I've made this pattern twice so far. One was gifted to a family member as a party favor (above) and the other was gifted in my guild's fall quilt swap (below). But this year I will be making one for my very own!
It's taken some time to build up a good collection of fall and Halloween-themed quilt projects. I made the below spider web table topper from a pattern by Scrapatches a few years ago. At the time, I didn't have any rulers so I used the guide lines on my cutting mat and a pizza stone to make the pattern shapes. It is yet another project in my collection of fall favorites.
I hope you enjoyed this fall quilt-peeping. I look forward to the next few weeks of projects and wish you a creative and colorful season!
Happy stitching!
- Liz
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