Halloween catch up

Ha! Well predictably since my folks got here I have been spending much less time on the computer. That doesn't mean that I haven't been making things - in fact we've done lots of crafty things (including some festive Halloween masks!) in the last couple months. I'm going to round up the Halloween bits in this one post and then the rest of the things are wips that I can write about as the holidays approach. 

First things first, I finally finished my set of spooky pillows. These were really fun to make and they were good opportunities for playing with some more complex quilting. First the large ones. The one on the left got a geometric square spiral treatment across the whole pillow while the one on the right got some nested diamonds in the big arms of the X's. It definitely takes a lot longer than just straight line quilting but it looks really cool when all is said and done. 

I backed those pillows with this very appropriate print from Ruby Star Society. I'm not sure it was meant to be a Halloween print but it certainly plays the part well. It also works really well with the dusty blue zippers I used. An unexpected color given the holiday, yes, but that bluish purple moon pulls it all together and makes it look like it belongs. I've got just a little bit more of this print and I can already say it's going to be a precious commodity.

The set of smaller pillows look a little more "fall" and a little less "Halloween". They got a lot of different free motion quilting treatments on them. Unfortunately I was lazy and didn't put a back on the quilt sandwich when I did it (i.e. just the block on batting, no third piece of fabric) and I think the texture suffered. Instead of pulling the fabric down from the front, the threads just sunk into the batting from the back to relieve the tension. 

Kind of a bummer, but again fun to practice different shapes and swirls - and to realize how difficult it is!! I had a bear of a time getting my curves to look nice. Somehow I thought doing all those fun wavy lines and circles would be easy. Psh. Once I survived the quilting, these got a heavy gray canvas backing and some bright orange zippers. 

Possibly my favorite Halloween project was this wreath. Mom and I were out at Joann's and couldn't resist the pretty fall picks they had on sale. Well, we picked up a handful of those and a grapevine wreath and had some fun. It didn't take long at all to get this together and I looooove it. It was a nice addition to the decor upstairs

Along with our pack of pillows, our house had Halloween covered.