Something Wicked----Day 7 Wicked Hop #3

"By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes."

                                                           Macbeth, Act IV,  Scene 1--William Shakespeare

What fun this Wicked #3 has been!  Such creativity and general spookiness.  This bunch knows how to represent a theme presented by our head honcho hosted as always by Mdm. Samm of Sew We Quilt and our most fabulous cheerleader Wendy of Why Knot Kwilt.  Thanks to them for the continuous encouragement and support.  Sponsors this round are Reliable Iron (an orange iron!), Windham Fabrics and Bird Brain Designs, one of my personal favorites!  LOL, you will see why in a minute too.

I have made 3 items this round and just barely touched the mother lode of patterns I have stored in the computer in that ever expanding file labeled "Halloween" and a notebook full of holiday ideas.   Hopefully there will be a Wicked #4.  Using the signup to jump start something my friend Norma and I had discussed and planned last fall, I made this row quilt.

Several pattern sources were involved. 

•  I had gotten a quilt kit from Connecting Threads last fall.  Some may recognize the fabrics or the "bones" of Spooktacular Row Quilt designed by Mari Martin for Connecting Threads.  I loved the expressions on the spider and cats faces!  Those had to go in.  
•  The twister row and bat/star row was in a picture Norma had seen online  (http://www.pinterest.com/pin/100697741639428186/)  that originated with annalenaland.com.   I emailed Karen and asked if there was a pattern but she said it was a row quilt that someone had shared at retreat. 
•  I used a re-sized bat from a Fons and Porter magazine pattern called "Bold and Batty".  The floating star idea I drew up in EQ and foundation pieced.
• I was not crazy about the candy corn row in the kit pattern so substituted one that I had made last year from Joined at the Hip Button Up #19 Happy Halloween.  Only thing was, I had given away my pattern so had to scan the quilt to make another template.  They were strip pieced and then the shape cut on freezer paper.
• I foundation pieced the Jack o' lanterns using a design in Sew Precise I believe. 
•  The phrase?  Picked a font I liked in Word, set at about 200 pt. Fusible appliqued. 
•  All but the cat and spider eyes were machine buttonholed. I did those by hand along with the hand embroidery when I was back in Illinois visiting with my family.   See a tip I posted earlier in the fabric prep HERE. 

Then the tombstones.   Those I enlarged from a graphics I found in a book called BOO by Harriet M. Wyant.  Try as I might, I cannot get a decent picture so you could read the epitaphs. Truth be told, you probably would not be able to read what they say anyway with my "old nurse and too many years of charting" handwriting.  I'll write them down here---

• "How was I to know he would take it so hard?  After all....it was only a yard"
• UPS was coming, so I raced to the door.  Bob tried to get there first, He won't do that no more!"
• "The fabric was delivered, sweet hubby paid the bill, Guess it was too much for him, He rests here on the hill."
• "The house was getting crowded and something had to go, Although I picked the fabric, I really loved you, Joe"
• Here lies Sam, a real maverick. Peeked in the closet and found the fabric."

Now, I thought those were hilarious and so did the Bama Belles the day I was working on that at the meeting but somehow DJ was not near as amused!  LOL.  The little ghostie on block 2 from the left was necessary as I accidentally cut the fabric trying to get the freezer paper out.  OOPS!  He was a re-sized sweetie from a McCalls Ghoulies and Ghosties free pattern that I had in my files.  No more slit to be found.  Lorene showed a quilt she had made from this pattern yesterday.  

Project 2:  

I will be a little briefer, I promise.  Originally this stitchery piece was to be part of the row quilt with some pieced blocks on the side, spider webs maybe.  I decided to do the "something wicked" thing as I told Norma, "there was no way I could get all that stitching done in time"  Well, turns out I did---again on my recent 6 day trip.  I only had two motifs done of the 5 when I left home. The banner and part of the last witch was done once I got home.

The Patrick Lose border fabric is what I used for backing on the row quilt and the red-orange was in the star points.  The pattern is from one of our sponsors Bird Brain Designs and is called "Witches Hooray"  She shows it was a table runner with pinwheel blocks around it.   Last week Quilt N Queen used some of the motifs on towels  shown HERE.  I went with a wall hanging instead and used the opportunity to bust more stash by backing this piece with the ghost fabric featured in the row quilt.

Lastly, I whipped up my own trick or treat bag yesterday using some yardage featuring Licorice Allsorts that Norma got me for my birthday several years ago.  She had told me about them and I was intrigued with the idea of black licorice!  I also got a couple bags of them along with the fabric and used to be able to find them at a local Rite Aid Pharmacy but sadly, no more.  Orange polka dot was used for the bags interior  a black print from  accents my wild little envelope bag.  

I don't know the pattern source for this.  One of the Belles said someone at the JOY guild had shown the group how to make them and then she was showing some of the Belles.  I just had to remember what I heard as Donna guided several of the girls through the process.   I have pictures taken to share as a tutorial in coming days if you want to stop back and see how to whip one of these up.  

One last picture since this blog is called "life, quilts and a cat too".  When I took this autumnal quilt off the hanger to put up the stitchery piece, look who crawled up under the wall hanging?   The picture I wish I had gotten was him jumping off the couch with it still on his back, looking like saddle bags.  Once it fell off, he was on to diving under it using his paws and nose like a snow plow!  Too funny.

Now that you have seen all I have to share today, please go on over and see the rest of the group and what wondrous things they have come up with.  THX for the visit!

Wednesday, October 30^th

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