Tag Archives: halloween

2017 My Modern Round Robin

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Late last year I signed up for a round robin being run by @cedacanthus on Instagram.
I’ve never participated in a round robin before and I jumped at the chance to tick this off my quilting bucket list.

We had to make our own centre – designing something that we loved and would help the group add to it. We are in groups of 7 quilters, and each of us will add a border of our choosing to 6 centres. Each centre that we receive will mean we add a different border on at each stage – meaning so far I have added a first border and a second border.

My centre, as usual Halloween related –

We posted off our centres at the start of the year. We’ve received the first person’s centre and attached the first border, then posted it to the next quilter in the queue. And at the beginning of March we received the second centre which is currently being worked on and is due to be shipped on the 1st of May. We get two months to receive, design, and sew before the next shipping deadline.

This is @red_flossy’s hot air balloon centre that I added a polaroid block border and continued her request for the film strip edge –

I’m currently working on an appliqué border for the next one. But I’m keeping it under wraps until I’m ready to send. 🙂

This year has brought me some different opportunities and I’ve taken them because life is just too damned short. Last year reinforced that lesson and this year I’m making changes. I’ll be sharing these exciting things with you this year, on this blog, now that I feel like writing again.

Marni x

Kona Solids Curated Block

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A little while ago I was asked by the fabulous Emily from HandmadebyEmily to curate a selection of 5 colours from the extensive Kona solids range for her Aussie Kona Club.

Having not really worked with Kona solids before I did have a bit of trouble choosing from over 300 colours, but as I love Halloween colours and tones I decided to run with it and see what happened.

I chose more muted tones rather than my usual brights and worked out a block that could be used for any colour way but still had enough of a Halloween ‘feel’ for me – using the hourglass blocks to represent little bats. 🙂

Instructions are below to make one block but I will be making a few to make a table runner.

Materials
Kona Solids: Parchment, Peapod, Charcoal, Orange and Eggplant

Cutting:
From Parchment cut one 3 1/2in strip and cross cut four 3 1/2in squares
From Peapod cut one 4 1/2in strip and cross cut five 4 1/2in squares
From Charcoal cut one 4 1/2in strip and cross cut five 4 1/2in squares
From Orange cut one 3 1/2in strip and cross cut four 3 1/2in squares
From Eggplant cut one 3 1/2in strip and cross cut eight 3 1/2in squares

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Hourglass Blocks

Pin the right sides of one solid Peapod square and one Charcoal square together. Draw a line across the diagonal on the lighter fabric. Stitch a 1/4in on both sides of the drawn line. Cut along the pencil line. Press the seams to the darker fabric. Pin the right sides of the opposing fabrics together, abutting the seams. Draw a line across the diagonal. Stitch a 1/4in on both sides of the drawn line. Cut along the pencil line. Press the seams. Makes 10, but you only need 9 units per block. Trim blocks to 3 1/2in square, checking the angles with a 45degree marking on your ruler.

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Next lay out all of your squares in the following rows –

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Piece together in rows. Then once all rows are pieced, press the seams in alternating directions per row. Eg. rows 1, 3 and 5 press to the left and rows 2 and 4 press to the right.

Pin rows together abutting the seams and join.

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Press the seams and trim up the block to ensure a 15in finish raw edge to raw edge.

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Ta da!

As I’m writing this tutorial I’m thinking that now I might even embroider some little Halloween motifs on the Parchment squares. I have a few in my stash that will work perfectly. 🙂

For those who are interested in the runner or even taking it further and making a larger quilt –

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As you can see the secondary and even tertiary designs made by this block create interesting effects. I’d love to see what everyone makes so feel free to post me pictures.

I love making this block and curating a set of solids for Emily – loads of fun!

Happy Quilting!

Marni x

October!

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October is by far my favourite month of the year.

It not only has my favourite holiday Halloween but is also the birthday of the shop and this year for the shop’s third birthday I’ll be doing all sorts of wonderful things to celebrate.

Firstly there will be the ongoing competition.

To enter all you need to do is place a mail order (or orders) during the month of October. For every $5 you spend you will receive a numbered ticket. At the end of the month everyone’s numbers will go in my lucky witches hat and I will draw out a winner.

The prize: a $50 gift voucher to spend on fabrics (or it could go towards quilting costs if you prefer), a blue size 16 singlet top that has a screen printed black bat on it that I made in my screen printing class in September and some of my quilt patterns.

I will also be doing an overhaul on the store section of the website – this is more from an inventory standpoint so that all future sales are easier to track. There will be a heap of quilts listed on my hand-made store, all ready to be posted and perfect for Christmas gifts.

We’ve also passed 1000 likes of FB and 100 followers on IG so I’l be doing a little something to celebrate those.

Also if you would like to join in my fabric swap please drop me an email – frankensteinsfabrics@hotmail.com. The cut off date for sign ups was today but life go out of hand so I’m extending it for October.

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There will be more details on the competition as well as a picture or two of the singlet top and the patterns etc so stay tuned!

 

Marni x

A bit of info…

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Hey all!

I’ve been busy the past few months catching up on life and things in order to make sure that as we hurtle towards the end of the year and Christmas everything runs nice and smoothly. 😀

So…

Custom quilt orders will be cut off as of midnight the 5th of October. There are 2 spaces available between now and Christmas.

Custom orders for other items (cushions, runners, placemats, hair accessories, aprons etc) will be cut off mid-November to ensure Christmas delivery.

Machine quilting will be cut off on the 8th of December with the last day for quilt returns being the 19th of December. There are spaces available just contact me to find out more.

I am in the process of looking for a suitable venue with dates and times for some basics classes (understanding your machine, patchwork basics, patchwork patterns and binding). If you would like to be popped on a mailing list for class information please email me: frankensteinsfabrics@hotmail.com

As always – any questions just ask. 🙂

 

 

Yippee!!

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I finally finished my Classic Horror Monster cross-stitch!!

I’m really bad at finishing cross-stitches so this is a personal best for me…all in the one year!

Top Row: The Mummy, Wolfman, Dracula

Bottom Row: Frankenstein’s Monster, The Bride of Frankenstein, The Creature from the Black Lagoon, The Invisible Man.

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I’ve also been working on some English Paper Piecing. I’m doing some clamshells at the moment and also working on a video for hexagons.

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This quilt – that this first clamshell block will go into – will take me a while, as I am determined to do it by hand as you are meant to and I’m a very slow hand sewer. If you’d like to follow along just bookmark this post, but I’m warning you now that it will be ages in between updates, I’m that slow a hand sewer.

I’ll be using up all of my halloween scraps as I love the vibrant colours and I hate waste. And a girl can never have too many halloween quilts. 🙂

As of tomorrow the shop move goes into full swing so there might not be a post for a little while. Excited to have this all over with as I hate packing.

I have several sales happening as well at the moment – you’ll need to check out my Facebook page and Hand-made store for all the goodies.

As always if you have any questions… please ask.

Marni x

 

 

Works in progress…

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A few days ago I started work on the St Pius X 75th Anniversary quilt. I cleared off my workbench and placed all the blocks in rows to try and get the best layout in terms of colours and patterns. There is a terrific mix of blocks as some families had theirs machine embroidered professionally and some have done blocks using mixed media. There are cross-stitched blocks, hand embroidered, appliquéd and a few patchwork ones as well. I do have a few favourites –

The quilt is coming together really nicely. I spent Wednesday trimming everything to size to ensure the accuracy. As each family was given a 24cm (9.5in) block but due to the very nature of the fabric there was some shifting, fraying and warping.  Trimming everything means that I know where I’m at with the layout and helps keep it all neat in the preparation for quilting.

The centre panels with the school’s crest, a list of the headmasters and the school prayer will be framed with yellow peepers to highlight them. Then the surrounding blocks attached with some key blocks – such as the school colour house crests – will radiate out to the border.

Quilts like this are a fabulous way to celebrate something so momentous. It is a great way to showcase the participants, with each block be so unique, but also combining with important elements that need to document the journey that the group has taken.

Many of you who know me know that I am not the religious type might think this project a strange undertaking for me, as the school is a Catholic one. But in fact this is exactly what quilting is all about – commemorating something, people coming together, sharing and having fun.

Seeing as the weather is a little on the wet side today, it will be the perfect opportunity to get stuck into joining the rows. There are 105 blocks in total plus the three central panels.

I’ll keep updating on the quilt’s progress as I go.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In other news I’ve started the bat nappy production for the BatResearch Centre in Queensland. They put a callout on Facebook the other day looking for sewers to assist in the making of bat nappies or bat burritos to help look after the orphaned bats and flying foxes that will turn up this season. I couldn’t resist making some Halloween themed ones for the little guys and also some banana ones for the flying foxes. Dawn from Hello Dollies dropped off some that she’d made this morning and if any one else local has made some I will be collecting them up until 4pm on Wednesday the 17th of October so feel free to drop them off to me at the shop and I will send in one parcel to the centre.

Dad is doing much better and has been moved closer to home so it’s now saving us the wear and tear of travelling to Sydney to see him. We just have to get him strong enough now to get him moved to the rehab clinic so that we can get him back to normal.

The shop will be shut from 1pm on Friday the 12th of October – I have a meeting to attend that might mean a few changes in my life.  Nothing that will affect the shop just some personal things that I need to sort and Friday afternoon is the allotted time for it to happen.

The shop turns one on Monday so if you are looking to help me celebrate please go to my Facebook page – there will be some games, prizes and some other fun stuff from 8pm AEDST.

I’m still feeling the birthday fun so I’m going to make the 20%off fabric until the end of October to celebrate not only the shop turning one but also my favourite holiday Halloween.

Hope you all have a fabulous weekend!

Marni

Inspiration

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A lot of people ask me where I get my inspiration from.

Most of the time something will just pop into my head as if sucked out of the ether. Sometimes I have to work for it, and sometimes I will spot something that will trigger off a thought and the inspiration surfaces somewhere along the way.

This afternoon as dad and I were driving home from the shop (in the most circuitous manner) I spotted a cluster of trees. Now even though it was lovely and sunny and clear blue skies, these trees felt a bit spooky. I think mainly because they had leaves higher up and so the more exposed gnarly trunks were spooky because of their lack of foliage.

So I whipped out my poor battered camera (which lives eternally in my handbag) and snapped a couple of shots.

 

I’ve been looking for a good set of spooky trees for an art quilt for a while. I think that these guys could be what I want but I will have to test them out with my sketches and see if they fit.

Over the last few days I have been slowly going through the things in my craft room at home. It has been a real eye opener to all the things I had  forgotten. Its good though because there are lots of UFOs that I can finish and put up for sale. I have also discovered many of my beading projects from the last few years – I will get them all sorted and loaded onto my jewellery FB page. Some of these will be for sale too if any one is interested. I’ll reveal the page details when I have it all sorted. 🙂 Plenty of things suitable for gifts and perfect timing as Mother’s Day isn’t far off.

A customer brought her quilt in today for me to quilt. So I am busy with another on the machine at the moment. I like seeing what people are making. That’s inspiring in its way too. I especially love other people’s take on colours and patterns. I’ll put some photos up soon of these customer quilts. I’ll make a new page in the tabs for them.

Oh… just some housekeeping – we will be closed for the Easter long weekend. And Anzac Day as well.

It’s funny but I’ve been really looking forward to winter this year. I have ordered some hand-dyed yarn to knit myself a scarf. The lovely Belinda at Fairythread is doing a custom dye on some cotton for me in my favourite halloween colours. I’m still in the process of making my vintage halloween lap quilt for this chilly season.

I’m off now to do some more writing for my beading magazine.

Marni