Sammy L. Jackson and the Pumpkins Gone Wild Quilt

Sammy L. Jackson thinks this quilt is for him. It is made with a center panel of crazy pumpkins surrounded by an assortment of 5 inch squares from the Pumpkins Gone Wild collection.

As soon as I spread it out, he jumped on to give it his seal of approval.

Here he is beckoning me to rub his belly. If I fall for it and attempt to do so, he will bite and scratch my hand. That is the kind of demon he is.

This is a generous lap sized quilt.

Charming Halloween Purse

I made this purse using 5 inch squares obtained in a Halloween fabric swap. It is in the raggedy quilt style--each square is quilted with batting and backing. I used a total of 17 quilted squares to construct the purse. The ragged seams are clipped to fray over time. I used an orange strip to bind the top edge to finish it nicely.

Since October is just a few days away, it won't be long before I start using it.

Woolly Punkins

I made these using the neverending stash of hand dyed orange wool. I cut 6 identical leaf shapes from assorted wool and sewed them together with the seam on the outside to suggest the ribs of a pumpkin. I have used the same shape to create a round ball of fabric in the past. This differs in only that the seams are on the outside and the smooth part is on the inside. If I had turned these inside out and sewed them closed the result would have been similar to this.

I added a stem to each one made from some felted brown sweater wool, rolled up into a tube and sewn together like a felt cigar. A leaf cut from some green felted wool adds some more color.

I added some decorative stitching to the ribs with nice varigated perle cotton in a colorway that perfectly matches this wool. I also squished the pumpkins and stitched through all the layers from top to bottom to give it a squash like shape, rather than the shape of a ball.

These will be fall decorations in the windowsill of my classroom.

Owl in a Tree

This is a piece I am making to contribute to a benefit art show in Farmvegas. One of my coworkers asked if I would be interested in donating a piece to help raise funds for medical expenses for a Buckingham woman who was mauled by her livestock.

This will hang in a local coffee shop with other artworks contributed by local artists and will be sold silent auction style. All the proceeds are going to be donated to the injured lady.

Here is a detail of the quilting on the branches of the tree. This fabric is a wood paneling print which I had in my stash and thought would make a perfect tree. The grain is already printed and just needed a little more stitching with brown thread to make it a perch fit for an owl.

The little owl is cut out from felted wool and hand embroidered. Here it is pinned on to show its final placement.

Here it is with the quilting finished and the owl stitched on. Cute owl!

The tree is trimmed and framed in more of the same wood grain fabric. Before sewing on the owl, I did additional quilting of the background fabric to give it more dimension. This has rings on the back for hanging on a wall.

Amy Butler Key Fobs

I used my bias tape maker to fold these scraps of amy butler fabric to 7/8 inch wide. The base I sewed the fabric strips onto was a fabric belt in a dark taupe color.

These 2 are patchwork. I used a leftover strip of a pieced binding I made for my DQS7 quilt.

I have listed them for sale on Ebay. Hopefully they will sell.

Fall Wool Pillows

Made with felted wool sweater--very soft! The leaves are machine embroidered--these fabrics are some I have used recently in other projects. I used wax paper to transfer the design to the fabric and then cut them out by hand.

I got the idea to place the birds within a circle of fall leaves. The blue wool was a gray skirt that I overdyed with some blue fabric and it turned a nice denim blue. It is too thin to felt up, but it makes a nice background for these wool applique pillows.

This one is my favorite!

Another Pillow

I am not too crazy about the result once I stuffed this one with the polyfill. I may have to unstuff and redo it. The shape is a little off kilter it seems. Also, looking at it now, I realize I need to embroider some legs on those birds. They are supposed to be standing on the pumpkins, not hovering above them.

This machine embroidery is pretty suggestive of the ribs on a real pumpkin. I am pleased with how this part turned out. I am definitely going to do something to salvage it. It's too nice to remain a crookedy pillow!

Pumpkin Pins

These are made with hand dyed felted wool about 3 inches wide, 2 inches tall. Stitched with some cool varigated perle cotton threads. There are 2 layers of wool blanket stitched together and finished with a pin back. The "stems" are made from green wool fleece.

This one has a cute jack o lantern face!

My favorite is the plaid one on the bottom left!

These colors came from two attempts at dying a pile of wool. In the first attempt there was too much wool in the pot for the amount of orange pigment, so some of the colors came out spotty or too light. So I took out the wool that needed more color and mixed up a second batch of dye using black cherry koolaid and lemonaid drink mix. I had run out of orange koolaid drink mix and still had a pile of wet wool that was not done dyeing. So the second batch came out much more red-orange than the first-- and I love it. In this picture, the top two on the left were in the second batch.

Once all the dye was absorbed, I rinsed the pile of wet wool in cold water and then dryed it in my dryer. Then it was ready to cut up and transform into fall colored goodies.

Felted Wool Punkin Man

This wall hanging is made with wool, all of the orange shades hand dyed. The fabrics began life as garments like wool blazers or wool slacks before I got hold of them. I felted them in a hot wash and dyed the necessary colors.

The shapes are hand cut and appliqued on using the perle cotton and the blanket stitch. Then I added fun details like the stick arms and the buttons. The little bird has a french knot eye and handstitched legs. I backed it with another layer of wool and blanket stitched around the edges with some varigated wool yarn.

Felted Wool Ribbon Key Fobs

These are made with felted wool and grosgrain ribbon along with stainless steel findings. Usually these are made with cotton webbing, but I have lots of wool and wanted to see if they would be nice with that material. They are very soft inside. These are orange and black.

These are soft brown wool with leopard print ribbons.

These are red wool with red and white dotted ribbons.

Fair Winners!

Neptune Lap Sized Quilt-- 3rd place

doll sized quilt D9P design--3rd place

Quilted Table Mat--participant ribbon

Crazy Quilted Purse--3rd place

Needlefelted Eyeglass Case--1st place

Felted Wool Winter Hat-- 3rd place

Embroidered Basket of Flowers, Felted Wool--2nd place

Sewn Pocketbook--First Place

Embroidered Pillow--1st place

Bird in Cherry Tree, Felted Wool Embroidered Picture--2nd place

Dimensional Wallhanging--3rd place

Fiber Art, Crow and Sandcastle--participant ribbon

Halloween Bird Pin--participant ribbon

It is always interesting to see what the judges pick as their favorites. I am pretty pleased with these results. I am surprised that the crow with the sandcastle did not do better. Perhaps I should have entered it in another category or something. Anyway, this is a representation of a year's worth of crafting. May the next year be so productive!

Pumpkins Gone Wild Quilt and a Twin Quilt

Halloween Quilt finished--made with Sandy Gervais fabric "Pumpkins Gone Wild." It is about 45 inches squared.

I used 2 different kinds of quilting here. I stipple quilted the inside borders around the stacked coins. A lot of this quilting came out looking like the shape of oak leaves--very nice!

Here I used the free motion quilting to sign my initials and the year. Surprisingly, this came out looking pretty good for a first try at this.

For the outside border I quilted with bubbles. This is harder to do than the random squiggle stippling. I am pretty satisfied with this first attempt.

This quilt top came from my sister via a thrift store find. This is half of the top after I adjusted the pink borders to fit the new dimensions. I quilted it along the lines of the blocks and around the border.

The backing is Noah's Ark Alexander Henry fabric and it is bound with the same. I am calling this Twin Quilt because I have another one just like it to put together and quilt. They will be nice snuggly quilts for a set of girl twins.

Neither of these have been washed yet, which will give them more texture and that nice finished look.