Currently Stitching: Summerween Sewing
A few weeks ago I was preparing for a quilt retreat. These retreats are always a great opportunity to stay focused and get projects done you've been avoiding or struggling to complete. It's also a good time to get ahead on seasonal projects and gifts. In an effort to meet some of my project goals, I decided to bring this Halloween quilt with me!
I always prefer to pre-cut as many projects as I can before I go, so when I get there I can spend my time sewing. This particular quilt focused a lot on repurposing directional and border fabric. It also called for a lot of tiny pieces to make the bats.
I am so glad that I took the time to label all the piece sizes as I was cutting them. It made it much easier to get going on this project. I just took it out of the organizer bag and got to work!
I started out by sewing the smallest pieces, which was mostly a lot of little triangles that would make up the wings and ears. After I sewed the pieces it was time to trim and press all the squares.
After they were all ready to go, I lined them up in the order they would go into the final blocks. It's always so nice when you can see the parts coming together. Sometimes when I'm working on a quilt and it hasn't started to take shape, it can feel disheartening to make the same pieces over and over again without seeing results.
But I was filled up with glee once I got to watch these adorable little bat blocks come together so cute! I like that these fabrics have a little bit of sparkle and movement, but mostly they're letting the pattern speak for itself.
Here she is all buttoned up!
They looked so perfect hung up on the board. I will admit I was glad there were no other teeny tiny pieces in this quilt. Sometimes when there's an excess of tiny blocks, there are so many seams it makes the quilt very bulky.
I showed the cut up parts of the border fabric at the beginning of this post. This is what it looked like off the bolt. The instructions lead you cut up the cats and the houses to specific measurements to build the borders around the panel.
I took a quick timeout for a ginger spice cupcake with cream cheese frosting. No matter the weather or season my sister is always baking. She even used these Halloween cupcake liners to make these festive spice cakes! I was working hard and felt I deserved it. I was going to eat it either way.
Back to the project at hand! You'll have to forgive me, I did not show the step by step process of putting the sashing, bats and border strips together. But the instructions and diagram were clear and it went together really quick!
It was then that I realized the orange and black final border had mitered corners!
Full disclosure, it took me a few tries to get them right. Everyone has different tips and tricks for getting perfect mitered corners. I'm sure there's a tool out there somewhere that makes it easier. I've only done them one other time, and much like then, I just had to do it a few times until it was right. I will say, I am happy with how they turned out!
sewing from longarm.
From there it was off to the longarm! We decided to do a haunted house edge-to-edge stitch out. I was kind of torn between a darker grey color and an orange. But I decided to go with the orange! I chose to use an orange widleback for the backing too.
picture of binding strips
It's a bit bolder than I usually do, but I think it's fun! The only thing left to do now is sew on this wild striped binding. I hope this inspires you to do some spooky sewing to celebrate Summerween! Check back and see what other projects I'm working on before happy haunting season gets here! 