It's almost ....

my DD's favorite time of year. I love Halloween, too, and since her birthday is so close to that holiday, I started using Halloween colors for her birthday decorations when she was little. (No wonder she likes it, lol!) And because she's so crazy for all things Halloweeny, I decided to make her a Halloween quilt for her birthday this year. In my last post I showed you a picture of a quilt that I really liked, so I gathered up all my Halloween and fall-ish fabrics and got to work. I changed the pattern a little, making it longer, instead of square, and backed it with a nice, warm, Fall flannel I had in my stash. Got it all finished and had my friend, Jane quilt it on her new machine in a pattern of spider webs and icky spiders, ghosts, pumpkins, and black cats,
all in varigated thread. It came out beautifully, and the quilting really added that extra zip. Today was DD's birthday dinner and I gave her the quilt. She LOVED it! I was sort of hoping that maybe she wouldn't like it (yah, right!) so I could keep it, but no such luck. Now I have to make one for myself before next year. Here are pics.



I joined the Halloween/Fall Table Runner/Topper Swap that the Quilted Table Yahoo group had. I sent 9 Halloween fat quarters to my partner, Joan in Colorado, and she make me a topper and sent it back with some wonderful goodies. She made me a gorgeous witchy table topper (that I had the pattern for, but hadn't had a chance to make yet--great minds, huh?). Isn't it beautiful? She also made me a darling fabric basket out of the scraps, and filled it with witchy orange-chocolate cocoa mix, a Pez Halloween dispenser, a note pad, and some black and orange tea lights. Plus, she sent me a really cute spider tealight holder. I'm really enjoying everything she sent; she's a wonderfully generous lady. And she makes beautiful quilts.

My other partner, Linda in Canada (no blog) sent me 9 fat quarters of Fall-ish fabric and I had to make her a Fall runner. I had just bought a Connecting Threads runner kit, so I used my pattern with her fabric. I got sick right at the end of my deadline, so my friend, Mary helped me out by stippling the runner and binding it for me. I think it turned out really nice, and Linda emailed that she liked it, so I was happy. I think Mary's stippling really made the applique stand out.



There's a new swap going on over at Aunt Pitty Pat's. Stop over and sign up for her new Holly Jolly Christmas Block Swap. This should produce a beautiful Christmas scrap quilt for next year. And thank goodness we don't have to have the blocks mailed until January! That means no pressure to finish all those blocks before Christmas. There's still room for more swappers, so go on over and sign up. The more the merrier!

Until next time....

Happy Quilting from Sharon and Katie