thebrassknuckles

I made some appliqued pillows for the couch, a sinister vampire grin and orange sateen bats. I made them to go along with the awesome vintage design pillows we got from Target (I always love a Target Halloween!). Sewing a pillow cover for inserts is always the way to go, because it’s so easy to change out the cover on your pillows when the occasion calls for it.

The little pumpkin in the middle is a costume I’m still working on for a 9-month-old baby girl, made from the same velveteen I backed the throw quilt with. Nothing is cuter than babies in sparkly tights, so I’m adding some hand detailing with metallic embroidery floss around the eyes, nose, and mouth of the jack-o-lantern to give it a shiny glow to go with the tights. It will have a tiny tulle skirt to go on the baby so the pumpkin puffs out more. More photos when I’m done with the costume!

I’ve been slowly spooking up the house this month and my favorite handmade thing this year is the quilted blanket I made from a single piece of cotton from Alexander Henry’s 2010 Halloween Collection. The fabric is just too beautiful and interesting to cut up, and so I decided to do long stitches around the images to quilt the piece, attaching it to the backing (made from luxurious orange and green cotton velveteen). The binding is a creamy white with small patches of black interspersed. It is a lap blanket/throw size, perfect for cuddling up on cool Autumn nights! Nothing beats the softness of velveteen.

I made a skirt this weekend for a 4-year-old little girl that prefers to wear pink and purple exclusively. She only wears comfy clothes so I opted for a simple corduroy skirt that she can easily wear with tights or her favorite purple leggings. I hand-stitched the tag because I’m still getting my kids’ line logo in order, and thought it would be cute to coordinate it with the fabric on the buttons. The fabric I used is a Robert Kaufman hot pink cotton corduroy, very thin cord so the skirt isn’t stiff at all.

I’m teaching a sewing basics class at Intown Quilters in Atlanta/Decatur now, and just decided on and patterned out three projects I’ll be teaching. The first project is a super simple snack tote made from plastic coated cotton that can replace disposable snack bags (e.g. ziploc bags) for the environmentally-friendly stitchers in all of us. The second is a fabric lunch sack designed to look like a paper sack (the one we might have used growing up? I know I did!). The third more time consuming project is a zippered carry-all bag that can tote your lunch & other daily essentials. I’m really excited about these!

Custom skirt I made recently for a 4-year-old  whose dad studies rockets — awesome.

I finished my first quilt ever a few weeks ago, for our soon-to-be niece, expected to be born right around Halloween. Of course Thomas and I are obsessed with Halloween, so our baby gift had to be Halloween-related, how could we pass up this opportunity? This baby will be so spoiled for Halloween/birthday time, that’s for sure.

I did different quilting stitches around the different fabrics, to go with the pattern/images. Since it was my first time quilting on my machine, the stitching isn’t perfect by any means, but it turned out awesome. I’m really proud of how it turned out! The fabrics are mostly by Riley Blake, Boo! To You! collection — purchased from Intown Quilters (they have the best selection of fabric in Atlanta, maybe anywhere). The back is made with a green cotton Minky Dot that gives the quilt all the thickness it needs, so I left out batting for a more natural drape. So cute!