After a disastrous start, the tiny scrap quilt is finished. Having to redesign a project can be stressful. However, I’m glad I wasn’t happy and stepped back for a few days. Removing the white binding around the four square block was the right idea. I combined the four squares to make an 8 x 8 larger block.
I then a 2 inch white border was added on all sides of the block. The new frame in white is more proportional to the block from the original idea.
I had always envisioned this quilt floating in a light Kona Ash gray. It’s the perfect color to distract from the boldness of the Cameo scraps.
For the quilting I went with free motion quilting in an overall loops pattern. My husband timed me and it took 40 minutes. Holy camoly, can you believe that? While digging through my stash during my clean out I found the backing print. I thought it would be a nice compliment.
Bonus was finding Kona Pomegranate already made into binding. This quilt is all scrap and stash. Happy dance.
It’s now ready to head to it’s new home and snuggle a baby girl.
While trying to get some photos the other day, this happened. The quilt fell over onto my head as I was taking a picture. Real life.
The photo I did end up posting on Instagram was a hit. Thank you everyone for your comments and suggestions throughout this process.
As we approach Halloween weekend it may be time to bust out some of our favorite Halloween movies. Being the film fanatics that we are, it’s got to the point where we should probably be looking for some home cinema designers in london to make our movie nights even more special. Since P is obsessed with Halloween, we watch “Spooky” movies year round. We also have some Halloween decor up in the house all year too. This year, I finished the quilt below to use while watching movies. You will probably find us snuggled up this weekend enjoying these movies and eating giant bowls of popcorn.
Ghostbusters
The original Ghostbusters from 1984, not the remake. P thinks it is hilarious and walks around quoting the movie. “Back off man I’m a scientist!” The other night he re-created the ending scene of the movie in his bubble bath. “Look mom, I’m covered in marshmallows,” as he pretended the bubbles were marshmallows. Good one kid.
As a parent the language isn’t terrible, but there is one scene that can be hard to explain to kids. It’s the scene that Dan Aykroyd is having the “dream” with the ghost and she unbuckles his belt. I’ve just told P it’s a dream and later I will have to have a better response. The movie still holds up on the comedy for the adults as well.
Hotel Transylvania 2
This has to be a favorite movie of P’s. Maybe it’s the music, the banter, or the scary monsters, but he loves this movie. Hotel Transylvania 2 provides comedy for the whole family. The movie encourages kids to be themselves and not have to fit into the mold of your character. Also, how people can interact on various levels even with differences. That’s my super high level parental take away. My kid just sees the monsters being silly, that works too.
Hocus Pocus
Our final favorite is Hocus Pocus. Follow the Sanderson sisters as they come back to life and try attempt to steal the souls of children. Okay it’s not that scary. They just run “Amok, amok, amok, amok.” Again, the comedy holds up for adults. Winifred is my favorite character. Her sarcasm is just my style. “Another glorious morning. Makes me sick.” – Winifred.
Additional movies to consider viewing
Addams Family – We haven’t introduced P to this movie yet, but it’s on the list. Plus down the line it could make a fantastic family costume idea – P may become pugsley addams from addams family for a party down the line.
Spooky Buddies – The plot is terrible and can be hard to watch as an adult. However, my kid thinks the dogs are funny.
Nightmare before Christmas – I am not a huge Tim Burton fan so I try to avoid this one. P kinda of dug it. He may like it better as he gets older.
Casper – That friendly ghost can be quite entertaining. I had the biggest crush on Devon Sawa when the movie came out in 1995. My kid could care less, he just likes ghosts.
What is your family’s favorite Halloween movies? Do you have any Halloween traditions to share?
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Woodland animals have been a trend for some time in nursery decor. Amazingly, this is the first baby quilt I have made with that theme. My husband says it doesn’t look like woodland creatures and I’m okay with that. It’s there, but you have to look closely.
Inspiration
Scrap packs from Crimson Tate were purchased months ago. When my client suggested outdoors and animal for a boy, these fabrics immediately came to mind. I had envisioned a string quilt when I first picked up the bundles and the idea had not faded.
Posing on Point by MyTeaandBrie was quilt design inspiration. While I didn’t use her tutorial, I use more of the general layout. Note: the mailing list request is for My Tea & Brie, not my site.
I pressed and starched all my fabrics before cutting.
For my blocks I cut the following string sizes:
Center white strip: 2 inches
Grey strip: 3 inches
Other fabrics 1.5 or 2 inches in width
Chain piecing the blocks made it pretty easy to bust the top out. I worked in 30 minute chunks then took a break. Tip: keep the iron nearby to make chain piecing more efficient.
Layout
In laying out the quilt top I was not overly picky about where things went. An effort was made to keep too many colors from the same square. Overall, it turned out great.
After completing the top, it was time to rip off all the little papers from the back. My mother-in-law was in town for Fall Break. I asked if she wanted to help and she joined in. It was great to have someone help out, this part was going to take forever and I was on a deadline. If I could get it to the client by X date, they could hand deliver. Well, I had to get this sucker quilted and bound quickly to make that happen.
Quilting, Backing, and Binding
A couple of backing options were auditioned but this black and white dot ultimately won. Doesn’t it play well with the front?
In the effort to meet my looming deadline, free motion quilting with loops won for quilting. Seriously the quilting took an hour. My mother-in-law and husband were watching something while I knocked this out. They were surprised when I entered the room with the quilted piece. I was pretty proud of myself.
However, while I was quilting, I found an error in my quilt. Can you spot it? If you’re a quilter probably, but most didn’t notice it. There was a frantic post to my guild’s page and texts to a couple of friends. The consensus was it’s a design element. Ha! If I wasn’t almost done with the quilting when my eye caught it I would have fixed it. Sometimes you have to let the little things go and accept them. It wasn’t the way I envisioned the quilt turning out, but it works.
Deep in my stash was the gray houndstooth flannel. The piece I had was just enough to bind the quilt. Everything to make this quilt was scraps or stash fabric which is a positive in my book. Makes working against that looming deadline even better.
After thoughts
Pretty sure I want to remake this quilt in a bigger size to keep. The colors are lovely, I am digging the jade. Despite a tight deadline, the quilt made it to CA in time to be hand delivered. The precipitant loved it. Making a baby quilt that doesn’t scream baby is always nice too.
If you like the quilt, save it Pinterest for future reference. I have it under Scrap Busting Projects.
I truly appreciate when a customer asks me to make a quilt and gives me a general guideline. For this quilt, the only guideline was girly, more traditional girly than bright. I had an idea already in mind but not being as bright really made me re-think the design. There were some scraps of Marmalade buried in my bins and I thought they just work.
Looking back, I made these quilts five years ago. Goodness.
Five years these scraps have been hidden away in a green tub in my sewing room. No more. There were just enough to create a scrappy Irish Chain quilt.
It was therapeutic to chain piece the blocks while binge watching something on Netflix. It’s easy to get lost in a series when you blocks to piece. This stack is lovely.
If you haven’t made a scrappy Irish Chain quilt, add it to your list. With 2″ scraps, your block finishes at 5″. I tend to keep a stack of Kona White 5″ blocks around for just this situation.
The quilt top came together easily. I struggled to pick the right backing for this project. As I started this quilt I envision using Kona Robin’s Egg blue on the back. While digging around for another project’s scraps, I found a pink and green stripe that complimented the front. What to do? Thanks to Instagram and Facebook, my original idea won.
Kona Pomegranate was also found while digging around. It was perfect dark pink to coordinate with all the other colors.
Let me ask again, “Why did I wait so long to try free motion quilting?” Being able to quilt something in just a couple of hours is liberating. It’s not perfect and that is okay.
My original vision came together into this lovely quilt. Girly, colorful, and scrappy. There are now just tiny pieces left of Marmalade in my scrap tubs.
Thanks for coming over to my blog from the Blogger’s Quilt Festival. I’m Tisha of Quiltytherapy. Sewing is my therapy and the only creative outlet I’m good at. Unless stick figures can be a creative outlet, ha! Making quilts from scraps and my stash is what I strive for. Scrappy Unicorn Rainbow Sprinkles is a combination of scraps and pieces from my stash.
It’s hard to truly have a favorite quilt, but this one is in the top 10 that I have created. It is still for sale on Etsy here.
The center blocks are paper pieced using scraps from my guild members. Center triangles are trimmings from Lindsay’s quilt she made during our Winter Retreat. Erika and Lisa brought bins of scraps that they let us raid. I had pulled some scraps together in this color palette before the retreat but their generousity rounded out my collection.
While I wanted to make the entire quilt out of the blocks, they started to look too similar. In my stash was a bolt of Kona Robin’s Egg blue that really brought it all together.
Look for a tutorial on paper piecing these scrappy blocks to make your own version.
This was the second time I ever quilted the organic wavy lines. It created so much crinkle once it was washed. The purple polka dot binding is perfection. As I noted in my original post about this quilt, I hope it leaves behind a trail of rainbow sprinkles wherever this quilt goes.
Read more about creative process with Scrappy Unicorn Rainbow Sprinkles here and here.
It is time to start planning my Halloween decorations. Halloween may trump Christmas in my house as a favorite holiday. Seriously, the kid is wearing a Halloween shirt and pirate pants in July.
Since P is still little, we prefer spooky over scary. As we acquire new decorations, I let him set the boundaries on what he’s comfortable with. He has created an idea of a Spooky Ghost Pumpkin. We have no idea what that is, but try to run with that. If you have any ideas, please share.
With decor in mind, I turn to Pinterest. Maybe I should add more ideas to my Halloween board? Do you have any family fun activities you like for Halloween?
This year I will be adding a quilt to the decorations. My wonderful bee mates of the Blossom Heart Bees made blocks for this quilt last year, using the Tic Tac Toe block. My theme was Halloween in orange, lime green, purple, and teal for the X’s. Also black with white prints for the corners. The blocks turned out great and better than I would have imagined. My bee mates had some good prints in their stashes. P loved getting them in the mail.
A few more are needed to finish the top. From my stash I pulled more green, purple, and teal to balance out the top. Even a fun zombie print.
There are a couple more blocks in the works then I can layout the top as I want. It’s going to need some balance from all the orange.
P was excited each time a new block arrived. He realized they were for him and gasped with excitement. Hopefully he’s still as excited about the quilt as I finish it. Maybe we can watch scary movies and snuggle on the couch under it?
Links
The rocket above is from Amazon, best money we have spent on a toy. He loves it and exploring how to make the rocket go faster, higher and aiming at things. Great gift for a four year old.
Check out #tictactoeblock on Instagram for other versions.