This is Halloween

Welcome!

If you were to visit me this month (or last month and a good part of next month), Slither Eek Boo would be the first thing you'd see.  I actually don't have a good place to display a large wall quilt here, not since I put up my design wall instead.

Caution, here be spiders:

 

I love having most of my Halloween decorations here (more are in storage - sigh)

The buttons from repurposed shirts, plus a few eyeballs and spiders:

Bad to the Bone:

My shelves no longer look this tidy. I need to figure out something creepy to hang from the rod here. I tried a ghost, but it just disappeared into the wall. Blooming Horrors amongst a couple of crusties:

Pokey and Cranky Witch:

And that's not even all the Halloween quilts I've made. Definitely my favorite quilty holiday.

I got incredibly distracted while writing this post. First I wanted to find a video of This is Halloween from Nightmare Before Christmas. I stumbled across this version by Panic! at the disco, which I like much better than the original:

unfortunately you can't buy just the song, it comes as part of an entire album. I don't like it that much. But the search for the song got me looking at Halloween compilations at iTunes. There are all sorts of songs I'd never even heard. Usually it's just Monster Mash... Anyway, now I'm looking for songs to add to my own mix. What's your favorite song(s) that would work for Halloween?

Since this is a Halloweeny post, you need a picture of a black kitty. Howler enjoying the cooler weather we've been having (woohoo!) and the fresh air:

Of course today it's hot and muggy and cloudy again, drat.

Halloween Lapquilt

When we moved to Cairo in 2003 I was thinking: it's going to be sunny and warm - we won't need quilts to USE. Fat lot I knew. Buildings are all made to stay cool, not retain heat. Lots of concrete and marble - brrr. So I had to make a couple of lapquilts in a hurry.

I decided to make myself a Halloween-themed quilt, thinking I'd make something to use for the rest of the year later. I got out a couple of jack o'lantern prints that I absolutely love - their grins glow in the dark. I didn't want to cut them up, so I left all the pieces as they were, except when I had to cut them down to join them to something else.

Here's my husband holding up my quilt (this is all you'll ever get to see of him). As it turns out, I use this year round - makes me smile no matter what the season is.

Yes, it's long. A "lap" quilt for me has to tuck under my feet and chin with some extra to spare. This quilt is the perfect size for that.

Even better than a cozy quilt and a cup of tea? Adding my sweetie girls sleeping together peacefully. They woke up when the camera came out, but at least they didn't start squabbling - at least not right away.

Lily and Pokey:

Now when I look at the fabric, I wished I had more of the jack o'lanterns to use in other quilts and this purple fabric that also includes ghosts and bats is a hoot. And some of the others I think, why did I ever buy this?

The rest of the post is geeking out so if you have no interest in sf/fantasy tv, feel free to skip.

I've been on a Buffy the Vampire Slayer marathon. It's finally the right time for me to watch all of them, though I have to admit I've discovered a fondness for the fast forward button. I know, it seems wrong to not watch all of every episode, but quite frankly I can't stand Drusilla - all the face twitching and growls get old real fast. I'm so crazy, I'm so crazy - boring. Don't want to see anyone tortured either. Okay, I know it happens, that's enough.

Plus you have some episodes that are dogs. Third Season first ep, Anne? Boring. At least the bits with Buffy in NY. But the bits with the Scooby Gang are great. After watching Dead Man's Party I've realised I really must watch Shaun of the Dead this year.

Yesterday I watched BtVS' Band Candy - definitely one of my favorites. That's the one where the grownups all regress to teenagers. Then my sweetie and I watched a season two ep of Eureka where a bunch of the physicists all became dumb. Hee hee hee - fun to watch them close together like that.

I had the urge to start watching Buffy after getting the BtVS season 8 comic book, vol 2. Xander looks great in his eye patch. I just need more more more Buffy. Hope someday they'll do a few tv movies or a mini-series. Not just a big screen movie - don't get nearly enough character development in those. That's one of the joys of rewatching the series - all the tiny early fragments of Jonathon. So fun to see him young and innocent. What he becomes later wouldn't have meant nearly so much without this.

Ya'all have seen Buffy right? And Eureka? If you're still reading this post you should at least try them.

Announcing the House, Home, or Pantry Class

It's gotten cold here - finally feels like fall. Seems like the trees never turned pretty colors, they just lost leaves. I've decorated with my Halloween quilts - woohoo! Kinda ridiculous how many of them I have AND how many more I want to make.

Here's Pokey with Halloween Faces in the background:

I've finally decided on the theme for the fall/winter class (not that I'm calling it that). It's House, Home, or Pantry. I've started the class blog and explained it all there. I hope you'll join me. You can make the quilt as silly, holidayish or serious as you like.

I was thinking that I'd make a Wooooohoooo haunted houses quilt. Buuut I do already have a Halloween Houses quilt. This was the third quilt I made using Gwen Marston's liberated houses method and this was where I realized I could indeed free-piece letters.

Instead I'm making a Witch's Pantry inspired by the great quilt that MamaSpark made. Mamaspark also inspired Dote: look at hers. All of the jars for our class have to be free-pieced and I bet some of you can figure out how to do that on your own. But I AM working on the tutorial to make wonky jars and bottles - I'll have it posted soon.

I'm such a procrastinator, figured I'd better announce that I'm working on the tutorial though so that all of you could pressure me to get it done.

Please come play with me! That class blog is awful lonely at the moment...

Skulls in the Mail

Ooh, I got skulls in the mail yesterday. That's compared to the head that I mailed a couple of weeks ago. hee hee hee.

Look at what Jovaliquilts' Cheri sent me:

Aren't they a hoot? Love them. And just so you can see them lifesize, here they are on a shelf along with Robot Lilliput and a beautiful mug that Siobhan got me on her Polish pottery expedition.

Cheri also sent this fun Tibetan hand quilted pillowcover:

Meanwhile, Pokey checks out the quilting job on Orphan Train:

I'm feeling much happier with the world today. Knee is definitely improving - slowly - but improving nonetheless.

Halloween Candy

Halloween here is nothing like it is in the states, where it's very commercial and you can't walk into a grocery store without seeing aisles of candy and stores like Wal-Mart with tons of decorations. The candy definitely seems to be left to the specialty chocolate shops. Here's a wonderful display I found in the 17th arrondisment.





I think I'm going to have to treat myself to some Parisian chocolate Halloween candy this year and see if these wonderful items are as good to eat as they are to look at.

I spent some time yesterday photographing a display of my Halloween art and the few horror/ creepy/odd books we own in order to enter Library Thing's 20 Million Books/Halloween photo contest. Habibi checking it out:

Made me realize I don't have many books classified as horror. Movies yes, books no.

"Anonymous" has fessed up that the identity impersonation was meant to be a joke. D'oh. Really made me realize how easily someone could cause damage if they wanted to. If you get a comment from someone that just doesn't seem right, think twice about who it might really be from.

Yesterday I watched The Ring. Naomi Watts is impressive and she had a great American accent, but can't say much for the movie. Remakes of Japanese horror movies just don't do it for me - The Grudge was lame too. I don't recommend either.

A friend is in town and we have sun - woohoo! At 56 degrees it's going to be positively balmy out there. Now I have to go get the apartment whipped into shape although I'm still undecided about whether or not I'm going to let her in to see the place. I don't need Howler freaking out even more than he has been.

Links Galore

Since I haven't posted any pics of my cats in ages, here are a couple of great photos that Morey took. Habibi:

And Pokey:

Lily and Howler were both too skittish to hang around for their photo ops.

Howler was scarce for the first couple of days that we had guests, but by the end he wasn't hiding any more. He is however marking the couch like crazy; that is, he's marking the strategically placed towels. I've been doing a load of towels in the laundry every other day. Crazy cat.

I've got a long list of links to share with you. Too long in fact, so I'm just doing the Halloweeny ones now.

First off is Loco Quilter Kymberly who's been making up some of the faces that I've drawn. They are a hoot. This link is for her October archives, so you can see Witchy Woman as well as Frankie, the Mummy, and the 3-eyed Monster. I love these - go give her lots of encouragement.

Dordogne Quilter Clare has free-pieced a witch (Bellatrix LeStrange in fact) and she's got a great free-pieced Halloween quilt in progress. This is her October Archive so you can see them all. Very fun.

Persnickety Diane made a fantastic liberated jack'o'lantern way back in 1997. She's a long time Gwen Marston fan too. Liberated Jack is wonderful, plus there's some great Roberta Horton fabrics in there.

Spiritcloth Jude recently made a wonderful free-pieced jack'o'lantern. Jude so inspires me with her willingness to mix fabrics. Velvets, linens, cottons, silks, she puts them all together and they look fabulous.

Master of Patience Lynda made an improvisational jack'o'lantern quilt too. wheee.

Magpies Nest Sue has been showing off bits of her Halloween quilts and decorating this month AND she's done a really fun journal piece as well. Go visit and scroll through her October entries.

By the way, I hope it's clear when I provide these tutorials that I want you to make them up! No exact copying (you better not be using rulers to measure!), but "inspired by" I LOVE.

It's been raining here all day. yuck. At least the weather held out for our touristing.

Skeleton Tutorial

I can't believe Halloween is almost here already. There is still so much I wanted to do before the holiday arrived.

One of my favorite quilts, Bad to the Bone. I've blogged about it previously here.

This is the second skeleton I made, from the quilt Happy Howloween:

This is a rough drawing of the Bad skeleton. You know how to do everything in here. That skull is done exactly like I explained in the Faces Tutorial. The rest of the body uses the insertion method as explained in the Basics.

For the middle row, cut the ribcage first, then follow the lines of it make the angles on the background fabric. You should have three pieces for the middle row: background, ribcage, background. Set aside the ribcage, it goes in last.

Cut the slice for the top part of the arm so that it is a quarter inch down from the top of the strip. (I actually drew it wrong, so look at the darker line on the left side.) After you've inserted that strip, slice for the bottom half of the arm, making sure to cross over the top arm so that you get an elbow.

You can add hands by sewing a bit of fabric to the top of the outermost bit of background before you attach it. The final step is to sew the ribcage in.

These skeletons look like they're dancing to me. I've always wanted to do a chorus line with them, but not enough time in the day. I'd love to see what ya'all can come up with sewing skeletons! Let me know if you need any clarifications.

Trick or Treat

Steak Frites and Paris at night. mmm.

Danielle S. recently sent me photos of her Halloween quilt. She's done a great job, but what is especially marvelous is that this is only her second quilt project ever. Her first was a Ohio Star quilt from a kit. I love that she just dove in and tried the letters - they're fantastic.

And the quilt top which she intends to hand quilt. I love it.

See, you can do these letters even without much experience.

I have found a bit of Halloween here in Paris. This is a chocolate shop in Montmartre:

As is this lovely fall chocolate:

I made sure to take a picture of the chocolate mushrooms for Kristin L:


Pylones, which sells fun, brightly colored items, has a skull sugar bowl and black cat tape dispenser and stapler:

And a kitchen store:

Voila, Blooming Horrors

Blooming Horrors is finished at last. It measures 24.5" x 29.5"

The spiders and the year are stem stitched with perle cotton 8 or 3 strands of embroidery floss. The background spider webs and some of the quilting details were done with regular quilting thread.


I wove some perle cotton thread through my quilting stitch to get this interesting effect on the spiky flower:

What do you think? Is it out of balance? I'm wondering if it needs more down in the lower left corner.

It still hasn't gone up onto the wall yet. I'm behind on my Halloween decorating.

Two of my favorite people in the world, my aunt (who quilts) and uncle are arriving in just a couple of hours. Woohoo. Of course I've put off all sorts of cleaning and tidying because I work better with a deadline. I think that's NOW. You won't see much from me in the next 10 days. Take care and cross your fingers that the French don't get too strike crazy.

Jack'o'lanterns

It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. From the quilt Happy Howloween:

Close-up so that you can see the seams:

An orphan jack'o'lantern that didn't make it into the quilt:

Just sketching some different ways to piece jack'o'lanterns. I seem to have a thing for giving them just one tooth. Wonder if that means anything...

Now that you've seen the face tutorial you know how to piece jack'o'lanterns. They're really quite easy. Give it a try.

I figure one of the best reasons to make Halloween or monster quilts is that it gives you a chance to play with techniques and if they don't come out right, oh well. They're supposed to be goofy, remember. After you've made a few spooky faces, you'll have more confidence to make a self-portrait or one of your children...

Here are a few more Halloween faces, just for fun:



The sun has come out for my birthday, woohoo. I'm going to take a marvelous walk, even though Netflix gave me three "presents" AND my gorgeous beautiful Craft in America book arrived yesterday. Ya'all take care.