You Shoulda Coulda...

And once you see these you'll wish you woulda!!

Awhile back I showed you a sneak peak of my block for Aunt Pitty Pats Halloween swap.   The swap was complete and I got all my blocks last week!!

Here's what I sent out, for my part of the swap...

 

 

And these are what I got back!!

I love that "nose"!

 

Haunted House with the coolest background!

 

"Eek" is right with all those little eyeballs lookin at me!

 

Any great witch starts with a fabulous pair of shoes!

 

Just crazy batty & I love the metallic background!

Itsy, bitsy spider. The background on this crazy wild. It makes my eyes roll!

I LOVE IT!

 

Give me candy!!  :-)

This block is so cool looking.

With a schnoz like that!!! She even has a bow with ghosts attached!!

Is that just the cutest??

Hoo Hoo Who-ty Owl!

Trick or treat!!

And lastly, my Boo block!

 

My block theme was Pumpkins and I was delighted to find this pattern in my collection of old quilt magazines. This guy, named "Happy Jack" was in the September/October 2009 issue of Fons and Porters Love of Quilting magazine. I enlarged him a bit to fit the 12 1/2" block requirement.

 

So like I said, "don't ya wish ya woulda????

 

It's not too late for the next swap.

 

 

 

Click HERE to hop right on over to

 Aunt Pitty's blog and get yourself signed up.

Now you know, you don't want to miss another one!

 

As for me... I need to put my thinking cap on, and decide how to put my Halloween blocks together...  I sure would love to hear your ideas!

Who knows, there just might be something in it for YOU!!

But I'll never tell. Well at least for a little while!

 

 :-)

 

Thanks Aunt Pitty for a delightful swap!

 

 

 

 

 

 

My Turn for Leaf's Me Happy

 

 

Hummm........... They wanted us to name our blocks????? How about Oaky Doaky!!! That's pretty corny!

Fall is my favorite time of the year. I can finally shake out the quilts that have been stored for the summer.

Watching the trees change to the beautiful golden yellows and oranges. Whew, does it get any better than that?

Our leaf theme is perfect for the season, and it got me to thinking about a technique I hadn't done in a few years now.

Unlike the fabric dying that I so much enjoy, this technique actually discharges color. You won't believe just how easy it really is. You don't need anything fancy. Just a bottle of liquid dishwasher detergent with bleach in it, a foam brush and a stencil! :-)

Put a little dishwasher soap in a dish to start.

Carefully apply to the fabric making sure your stencil doesn't slip while you working with it. Just a note of caution. Less is best. My tendency was to glob a ton onto my fabric, but that just makes it easier to push under the stencil, which is what you don't want.

 

Set your fabric out in the sun until the dishwasher soap is dry and then give it a good rinse. There are assorted bleach stop agents on the market. I didn't use any for this little project.

The options are endless when it comes to discharge. You can create some very unique and one of a kind fabrics by playing just a little bit. Experiment with those big foam stamps, or those brass stencils they use for scrap booking. Heck you can ever put it in a bottle with a glue "type" tip on it, and write with your dishwasher detergent. The sky is the limit.

You will find that you will get different results with different fabrics. Here I used 2 different black fabrics. You can tell how different they discharge.

 

It's not uncommon for a fabric manufacturer to over-dye a fabric with black, if it didn't print, or dye correctly. I've seen some stunning blue's come thru with discharge, but unfortunately haven't found any for myself yet. I do enjoy picking up a variety of black fabrics to play with, and see what I get!

 

 

And just in case you were wondering...

Laura Murray Designs is where the stencil I used came from. You might know Laura for all her fabulous work with Paintsticks!

Just as an FYI, I did try Clorox Bleach Pens...

 

 

One might have though that this would be perfect, I did anyway...

But to my dismay this is all I got. It seemed to dry on top of the fabric, and when I rinsed it, there was no trace of anything on the fabric. It seemed to have just washed away???? I guess that is a good thing for our clothes now isn't it. As along as it takes out the stain! :-)

***********************

Now for the border around the blocks. I am a "Pinterest" fanatic. I just love finding things and storing them with a photo. A few weeks back I found a tutorial on making a scrappy border. You can click HERE to see it for yourself. It's called the Boston Block from Bits N Pieces Workshop.com

I loved it, but knew that I wanted to keep my border colors consistent through out my quilt. I am going to share with you how I did it for this project.

I started with 2, 2 1/2" strips pieced together and pressed open.

 

 

Sub-cut that into 2 1/4" pieces

 

 

I made my triangle template by using painters tape and my ruler.

 

 

 

 

Now we are going to take another 2 1/2" strip and stitch down all our triangles.

Just keep adding them as you sew.

 

 

Once your done with that side, you can add in additional triangles on the opposite side. There is almost no waste that way! :-)

 

 

Cut them apart...

 

 

Press open, and this is what you have!

 

 

 

You can see from the block how it goes together from here!

I had so many of these little leaves, that I put together a table runner, and made a few of these fun, free standing (or hanging) leaves, like the ones on my block. They will make for some fun package wrappings!

 

 

A big thanks to Madame Samm, and to Cherry for stepping up and keeping us all in line! We couldn't do it without either of you wonderful girls!

Now you all know how much I love give-a-ways!

I have a lovely layer cake from Connecting Threads.

 

 

24 delicious tonal colors!

Yummm, just think of the things you can do with em.

So be a follower, leave me a message and tell me what you would like to do with this layer cake. I will pick one winner on

Friday Oct 12th.

 

Can't wait to hear from you!

 

Here is the list of todays bloggers!

 

Insanity Defense

Michelle May and the Bunnies

Sparrow In Flight

Quilted Delights

Quilting With a Marmalade Cat

Traveling Quilter

A Stitch in Time

Cherry Blossoms
Tea Time Creations

Moose Stash Quilting

Stitchin By The Lake

 

Happy Hoppin!

 

Just in case you missed it, I posted a fun litle leaf project last Monday...

:-)

 http://moosestashquilting.blogspot.com/2012/10/leafs-me-happy-blog-hop_1.html

Elkfest

This past weekend was Elkfest in Estes Park. I've never been, so I decided to take a little road trip.

With the hoards of people that accended on the town, the elk managed to hide themselves pretty well, but we managed to find a heard, hiding out in a playground behind a hotel.

 

 

 

 

Unfortunately we were not the only ones to spot these guys...

 

 

Once they saw all the people, they headed for the hills!

 

 

 

What a beautiful sight to have seen!

 

 

 

 

 

Leafs Me Happy Blog Hop

Fall is here, the leaves are falling, and the blog hop is starting. Can it get any better?  :-)

Not that I am looking to steal anyone thunder, but I want to start this hop off with a little project I put together.

 

It's very easy and starts with a package of floral leaves.

I found these at the Dollar Store. So as you can tell this is going to be a really pricey project... NOT!

For most of us in the States, the good ole Dollar Store is a staple of life! Yes just like it says, everything is $1. Can you really go wrong with that? :-)

 

 

I then dug thru my batting scraps, and found a piece that should work out just fine. That and a base and backing. All scraps of leftovers! My favorite thing to start a new project with.

 

 

Leaves and leaves! You did notice the package said there were 90 of these  things?

 

 

I scattered them across my fabric, but it was kind of a snooze...

 

 

So I dug thru my cabinet of things I just "had" to save!!

It came from some kind of produce I purchased, I think.

 

 

Now this is looking a little more like it, so I pin down my leaves.

 

 

Just stitch down the veins of the leaves.

 

 

 

While I on a recycling kick, I went out and found a nice tree branch for my quilt hanger!

 

And there you have it.

It "Leafs Me Happy!

 

 

You can check out the master schedule HERE, over at Cherry Blossoms.

As for me, I will see you on Friday! That's the day I get to share my post, with 10 other fabulous bloggers. I can hardly wait!

 

 

 

 

 

Putting the PIN in Pinterest

Do you have a folder (or two) full of free quilt patterns you've downloaded, that are PDF files?  I sure do. Nothing is more frustrating to me than looking at a file like this...

 

While I might have an idea what the file could be, do I really know what file 10091 really is????? And honestly, I have so many, files that I really have no idea what is in any of them anymore.

 

With all the technology that is going on, you might think that someone would have figured out how to display photos instead of the little PDF icon on these darn files, but NO. At least not that I am aware of.

 

So I got to thinking about that wonderful Pinterest site that I am addicted to. Nothing makes me happier than actually having all that eye candy at my finger tips. Have you found yourself surfing thru all the photos there? Gheez, can I burn a lot of time dreaming!  :-)

 

I could "pin" the website that the pattern is on, and give the photo a name that would match the name of the file on my computer. Gheez, how easy would that be? Instant identification!

 

I started with my Angies Bit's & Pieces patterns. After many hours at it, I have finally managed to get all my Angie patterns loaded into Pinterest.

 

I was so delighted to see just how wonderful it was to be able to see what all those little icons really were! I have reacquainted myself with many patterns and have a new found direction on what I want to work on next! Happy Dance!

 

Then, off to start of the mass of other patterns I seem to have felt were too good to pass up... whatever they might be!  :-) :-)

 

There was the hickup. Many of the free patterns the fabric companies offer us, won't allow us to pick up the photo from their web sites!  Rats, foiled again.

Do they not realize just how much more exposure they might open themselves up to, if we could actually see and share links with the free things they offer us???? Maybe one of you has an insight on this????

Please do share, if so!

 

So after 2 days of playing on my computer, I really don't see me making the kind of progress I had hoped for. My suggestion is to start from this point on, adding your downloads into your Pinterest account when possible. It's a great way to bookmark blog posts that you want to remember, and with Print Friendly PDF maker, it would be a good idea to go ahead and make a PDF file for your records. You never know when it might be pulled offline. If you have your own copy it won't matter. That being said though, never never share that file with anyone else. It's all a part of the copyright issues that none of us want to get into trouble with!

 

For those who might be a little scared of all this opening an account, having a Facebook account, etc, etc. I try to not be too concerned over privacy issues. Be smart and don't post things you don't want anyone else to know.  There are plenty of privacy blocks you can turn on in Facebook, and I don't think my pinning anything to an account on Pinterest, is going to compromise my security. I have read the ups and downs for them, and am comfortable with my choices.

 

Pinterest itself has been a source of conflict with folks. Be courteous, give credit where credit is due, and don't post incorrect information. It really boils down to just that. Keeping that in mind.... I suggest you go forth and prosper. At least give yourself a treat with the great eye candy out there!!  I can loose myself in the fabulous quilt patterns, delicious recipes, beautiful photos, etc etc etc.

 

Yeah yeah, we all know I should be sewing, or cleaning, or grocery shopping, but what the heck... it can wait til tomorrow!!

 

:-)

 

 Right??