Catstar {Quilted Pillows}

The only way a cat can ever come into our home would be in this form.

 I'm severely allergic, but utterly fascinated by them!

 

I wanted to make some pillows for our family room couch and I didn't want to do pumpkins or bats.

  I thought about cats and instantly remembered my good friend Janda's mini she made for a swap a couple years ago.

 

Super cool, right?   

Janda doesn't have a blog, so Kristi Schnitzel and Boo's offered to write a tutorial for her.

  Her finish is a bit different than the original with fabric placement, but the pattern design is the same.  

I copied Janda's radiating square quilting and just love it.  

I attempted to start with them closer together and have the space gradually wider towards the edge.

I'm not sure if it worked, but I gave it try!

The solid cat faces were begging for some embroidery.

 

 I had some leftover witch fabric from my Monster Bash Quilt to use for the hidden zipper backings. 

 And I couldn't resist the dotted fabric for the binding.

 

 The background fabric I used was certainly a bit more busier than I normally like to use, but I felt like it went with out drastically traditional family room furniture.

Quilt Stats

Measures: 20" square

Pattern: Catstar block by Janda Wilden

Fabrics: Various Halloween fabrics by Moda, Riley Blake and scraps from stash

Quilted: Radiating Squares on Babylock Emore

I keep telling myself I'm done making Halloween quilts and pillows....but who am I kidding??

Checkmate {Quilt}

Introducing, the Checkmate Quilt by Fat Quarter Shop!

How beautiful is the flannel version by Fat Quarter Shop? 

 And how different are mine?!?!?!?! 

I chose Riley Blake's Lost & Found Halloween line.
 I liked that it had some darker colors and the lighter/low volume selections.

Just like the pattern, I split (3) Riley Blake 10" stackers into light and dark:

(note: Riley Blake's layer cakes have 21 prints, 
the original pattern calls for 24 dark and 24 light layer cakes.)

I cut my Lost & Found Halloween Black Spider Web yardage for borders and prepped the Lost & Found Halloween Black Stripe yardage for binding.

I started laying out my darker blocks....and quickly had a change of mind. 

I wanted two quilts.  Twin quilts for the two chairs in my family room.

To make that happen, I then had to change course and change the layout.  Instead of a 6x8 rectangle layout?  I chose a 5x5 square layout.  It meant I had to cut some more borders and binding out from the yardage.

The pattern came together very quickly and I had two quilt tops!

Next came the backing.  I ADORED the Halloween Cream Newsprint for backing.
Because of my decision to make two, I had to quickly come up with a pieced backing plan.

Confession:  My edges are wavy because my binding is pinned to the back...I was running out of photo daylight!  Binding is officially complete now!

And if anyone knows me by now?  I avoid pieced backings at all cost.  They were probably the most time consuming part of the entire quilt. Scraps from some remaining yardage and layer cakes mixed in with a black and white ticking and solid black from my stash.

Excuse the missing binding......I promise, they both are finished now!!!

 After I loaded each up on Ole Betsy Longarm, I knew I had to keep the quilting pretty tame since the fabrics were so busy, but I wasn't really feeling like I wanted to do a pantograph pattern.  I chose Superior Threads Omni Medium Gray for the quilting since the backing was cream and black and the front fabrics seemed to hide it well.

For the border, I did a squiggly line that just didn't show up in the photos.  But I'm okay with it.  I know the texture will arrive after they are both washed.

Because of that, I wanted to do some fun things in the bigger blocks.

Spider webs.

Pumpkins.

Bats.

 For the low volume four patch squares, I simply did a curved square quilting. 

The binding didn't pop out as much as I had pictured it against the spider web,
but I still loved them together.

I'm just super excited to have to matching Halloween quilts and Button agrees. He was determined to be in the photoshoot this time!

Layer Cake Checkmate Quilt Kit

I think that the original in the blue is fantastic for a masculine quilt, but the pattern is versatile enough to handle the fun novelty fabrics.  Especially the holiday ones!

Quilt Stats:
Measure: 61" x 61" 

Pattern: Checkmate by Fat Quartershop

Fabrics: Riley Blake Lost & Found Halloween 

Batting: Warm & Natural

Thread: Superior Threads Omni Medium Gray

Quilted on: Handiquilter Avante 18"

Check out all the other quilter's versions that joined in the fun!

Peta from She Quilts a Lot

Melanie from Mostly Crafty

Connie from Freemotion by the River

Melissa from Happy Quilting

Heidi from Buttons & Butterflies

Amanda from Jedi Craft Girl

Tina from Emily Ann's Kloset

Sherri M. from A Quilting Life

Andy from A Bright Corner

Anorina from Samelia's Mum

Sherri F. from This & That Patterns

Brooke from Silly Mama Quilts

Barn Bat Pillow {Quilted Pillow}

"When witches go riding, and black cats are seen, the moon laughs and whispers 'tis near Halloween"

I think I've mentioned it before, but my love for Halloween decorations can probably be correlated to the fact that I grew up in a No Halloween/ No Trick-or-Treat house. Every year I end up making a pillow or a quilt for the holiday.

I thought doing my nails would be enough. But it just didn't satisfy my need for a quilted thing. 

Thankfully I had this special stack of scraps that my friend Lindsey had sent me. I really was trying to stay strong and not buy this amazing Witch Hazel line from Riley Blake. I'm still sad I didn't buy any. 

I knew it would have to result in a pillow or some abstract quilt. Luckily, I stumbled onto Elizabeth Hartman's Barn Bat Tutorial. I had the right dimensions and only needed to add four solid black blocks and one Essex linen block.

I adored the bats with the very first strip.   

Before I knew it, I had made a pillow top, hidden zipper back, and binding. 

I decided to just outline the bats in black thread on my domestic machine.  Stitched the front and back together and attached the binding. I love using the binding like a piping. 

I'm already thinking about next year's Halloween project. 

Potholders Galore

Confession:  I have never made potholders ever.   Never.  Ever.  

And I am not sure why because they are so fun and satisfying!

Fun, right?

I had zero plan and no tutorial other than using some of the Insul-Bright material I bought over a year ago.  I decided to just piece some Halloween prints with other scraps first. 

 I layered one piece of Insul-bright and one layer of batting so they would be nice and thick.

I used a modified Quilt-as-you-go method by piecing the pieces onto the batting as I went along, but I actually did not do the quilting until after I had the entire squares pieced.

 I used a different pattern for each potholder.  However, before I did the binding on each potholder, I decided that I needed to add loops and couldn't quite figure out how I wanted to do them.  So I went on a google hunt to see how others looked. I decided to just go with my original plan because I really didn't find any loop tutorial.  However, I did find the idea of making a pocket to put your hand in in at O'Frannson.  

I thought it was brilliant, because a plain square was dangerous for this burn prone gal!!  I burn the back of my hands ALL the time!  It also gave me an opportunity to do a different quilting pattern on the back piece!

Enter in the leaf potholders.

 Ironically, while I was on the hunt for a loop tutorial, I found an image of a leaf shaped potholder.  Hubby happened to walk into the room and stated that we needed "Fall" potholders when Halloween was over.  Please, honey, don't twist my arm!

They were so fun to make!  My second confession?  It has been a while since I made bias binding (don't throw rocks at me).  I forgot how nicely biased binding wrapped around curves!

 I stripped some scraps and cut them so they had the angle out.

Quilted them with a swirly movement.  Straight would be fine, but I was having a bit of fun!

 If you are in need of a pick-me-up on a grueling project? 

Go make some potholders!

UPDATE:  LEAF POTHOLDER TUTORIAL HERE 
By popular demand!