He’s called Chillingsworth

I’ve had a tiny scrap of Chillingsworth on my small design board since finishing my last Halloween quilt last year.  Suddenly while sewing I felt I needed a handy tiny pin cushion.

His severed head was perfect for that!

The next waiting project I pulled from the stash drawers were two Chillingsworth panels.  They’ve been languishing for a couple of years while I collected more Halloween fabrics in anticipation of a clear idea of how to use this panel.

I knew I did not want a throw quilt.  But all plans kept leading to a quite large wall hanging also.  I spent 4 days looking through Pinterest for inspiration.  I finally came across 1” Scrappy Strips by Leila Gardunia.  They are paper piecing strips.  Now, I could have sat and drawn them myself, but for $10 I could just photocopy what I needed and get started sewing right now.

Anyone familiar with these Chillingsworth panels might notice that I cut down the sides of the panel.  I worried about doing that not being sure those top and bottom corner designs would look too odd.  It just had too much blank space around him for me.  So I cut anyway.  The corners don’t look odd to me.  OR if they do, they just add to the already oddity of Chillingsworth wearing only a top hat.

I started with this strip design but it looked too ... something.  I didn’t like it for a border for him.  So I chose the straight piecing design strip.

Here is where that awesome little plastic steam(less) roller became my best ever buddy.  It made pressing those hundreds of strips quick and easy.

The paper is so quick to pull off of these simple strips.

The trash is proof of the fun I had making these strips.

While I was making the borders I wondered how to quilt him without having to freemotion quilt around him and without having straight rows of quilting going through him.  So I drew my quilting lines.  (Forgot to take a photo).

I finish the back of my hanging quilts with strips to run a flat stick through.

Each of my kids will get one of these Chillingsworth guys.  I think the cream color one can be left out all year for creep-loving people...like my kids.

Stash busting!  It’s so awesome to get some of these older purchases made into “things”. 

An early-ish Happy Halloween!

Blitzen Snowman

Don't faint... I've been sewing again.

And now I am enjoying this wonderful Winter guy this year.  

I found him at the Madison, WI Quilt Expo this last September.  I NEVER buy quilt kits.  NEVER.  But I loved the fabrics he was made up with.  I immediately asked if they had him in a kit.  YES!  And of course it was the last one.  They didn't need that sales pitch because I was going to buy it no matter what.  LoL

I thought he was wearing a ball cap until I gave the pattern a good look.  This is when I discovered he is a basket.  

I don't much care for the basket idea so I changed him up giving him his top hat.  I adore him!  I love that he's festive enough for Christmas and not-so-much Christmasy that he can remain hanging all through Winter.

The fabric collection is blitzen by basicgrey for Moda

The pattern is Sue's Snowman Basket by Jan Patek Quilts Inc.

He's out of storage now and all made up.  That fits right into my plan to get stuff out of storage and all made up.  

Happy Winter!

xxx

Annie

Ghastlie Inspiration Projects

Welcome to this Ghastlie Blog Hop

Madame Samm one day said, "let's have a Ghastlie Blog Hop" (or something like that), so here we are, doing just that!  How fun!

My project ideas started with this Ghastlie Tea Party

Which is right now currently serving up a tutorial over at Sew We Quilt.  I'm over there giving away all my little secrets for rubber stamping on fabric.  It's quite easy and extremely fun...check it out when you're finished here.  You can find my paper piecing tutorial and this fun border stripe tutorial over there on the right side of my blog listed under Tutorials.

I can't really even take credit for this next project.  In my tutorial  for that fun stripe border I showed how I use one of my mug rugs as an ironing pad while I do small paper pieced projects using my "iron on a stick" for pressing the seams.  Madame Samm honed right in on that!  So this ghastlie ironing pad (larger than a mug rug) is for right next to your sewing machine for those mini pressing jobs...well, soon it will be right next to Samm's machine for her mini pressing jobs.

Next, is a mug rug for your mug and snack.  Somehow I've ended up with an extra mug rug so, when you make comments here today and you mention you'd like to have this mug rug,

you will have a chance to win this ghastlie mug rug...and I doubt that it will travel alone.  In fact, it will travel with this ghastlie postcard of the Ghastlie Knitters.

And here is finally my quite involved Ghastlie project that is still a work in progress.  I've no clue what possessed me to create this tedious applique monster.  Yes, every letter is individually cut and raw edge appliqued to the background.  It had to be done, I'd already decided.  All the while stitching I kept wondering what I was punishing myself for.

Each character was cut from the orange background fabric and fused to that fun thin line black and white fabric and again, raw edge appliqued. 
It's a 36" circle and intended as a table mat.  I suppose it could be placed on the floor as well, but I don't at the moment have a floor that nobody walks on.  This is not the design that I started out with.  That one didn't work out.  So, this one is still evolving...there will yet be some bats and pumpkins for color and maybe another bird, and after that...well, who knows at this point.  I just keep plugging along with it.

The ghastlies are not necessarily a Halloween themed fabric, but that's how they always play out in my mind.  They live amongst us every day, but they really fit in during our Halloween fun.

Now don't forget if you leave a comment here for me, I will draw one name to send over to Madame Samm to enter in today's grand prize drawing on her blog and I'll draw another name as the winner of my Ghastlie mug rug and postcard.

I'd love it if you'd add yourself to my collage of followers at the top of my blog...you'd look so cool up there!

Here is today's ghastlie line up of blogs to hop:

                          Mrs. Annie Ghastlie (You are here) 

Mrs Doris Ghastlie

Mrs Brandie Ghastlie

Ms. Alidiza Ghastlie

Mrs. JudyC Ghastlie

Have a ghastlie good time on this Ghastlie Blog Hop!
Thank you so much for visiting today.

It's Me In Fabric

I'm #9 in Carol's (mamacjt) Ladies Series! I'm so flippin' honored to be included in these awesome fabric creations! Thank you so much Carol!

Don't I just look absolutely wonderful?!  She got my age exactly right - 26!  My body might not agree with that age, but it's all mind over matter...and my mind says I'm 26.

Carol told me while I was traveling across the US in a little postal truck that she wasn't real happy with my hair color because it blended into the white background too much.  Well, when I arrived yesterday afternoon...looking absolutely fabulous, I might add...I thought a little trip to the sewing machine beauty parlor and a bit of a medium brown thread outline just might do the trick to separate my hair from the background.  I think it worked.  Carol thinks it's better but a bit on the wild side now....well, that's me!

To top off this package, she included a book, "Out Of The Box with easy blocks" about free-form piecing.  This looks quite interesting.  And a couple of fun fabric pieces...look at that strip of selvage on that bright stripe!  Fun! 

Again, thank you so much, Carol!

Have a great day everyone!

Annie

All In A Row wall quilt inspiration

I made this little quilt for the Little Quilt - Sew, Vote, Swap Group

I was inspired by these quilt as you go blocks by Marianne Haak, MariQuilts Strips On Stripes.  Marianne's style for quilts is so awesome!  I could look at her quilts all day long.  Anyway, I started with a favorite piece of fabric of mine...the black and white stripe.  I cut through it to insert the black and white check.  Since it's a quilt as you go (QAYG), I layered the batting and just a muslin back since it's intended to hang on the wall.  Then I started choosing fabrics to sew/quilt between the stripes...making new colorful stripes.  I loved the way the strips were making the check look.

This little quilt was always intended for the swap.  But I really liked it and did not want to let it go.  I hung it on the wall thinking I'd get tired of looking at it.  Then the more I looked at it, the more I thought I'd like maybe the same thing with a bit more white in the background and less black stripes.  So I went scrounging around for a different b&w stripe.  I found this:

It's an inexpensive grade of fabric (you can tell when you work with it it gets fuzzy looking) but it would be good for a trial run as a mug rug.  I could let my husband use it and not care when it turned coffee stained.  It came out looking like so:

I liked it, it showed more white, but I wasn't real happy with the stripe.  I  

decided the background fabric needed to be white with a black pinstripe.  Well of course I decided that...I could not find that fabric anywhere local or in cyberland.  If I wanted that, I was going to have to make it myself.   

So I did.  I sewed fat white strips of fabric to black strips of fabric so that the black strip would end up being 1/8".  I really hate when my plan of attack doesn't work out!  That wasn't straight no matter how careful I was.  You guessed it...you're NOT gonna see a picture of that!

For several days I "mused" on this seemingly impossible want.  It finally hit me!  The way to make my own stripes and have them straight was to paper piece them!  Geezelouise why did that take so long?!  so I did these paper pieced stripes:

and then stitched in the checks:

and then stitched in some colorful stripes and added the binding for this end result:

All three of these little quilts turned out different looking.  I'm considering taking the black binding off this last one and trying either white or one of my other b&w tiny tight stripe bindings.  But at the moment, my first one is still my favorite.  I guess I have to call it Julie's now, not mine...it's been mailed...it was so hard to let it drop into that big blue box knowing I could not get it back out.  hahaha.  I've teased on flickr that if my partner seriously doesn't really like it, she could send it back to me.  Which she can, but if she does want to keep it, I COULD make myself another.  I'm just not good at making the same thing more than once...so it'll probably never happen.  I hope you enjoy my little quilt, Julie.

I received this meticulously created little quilt in exchange.   It was created by Martha Wolf (moogiequilter). 

I love this little creation so much that I'm not missing mine quite so much anymore.  Thank you Martha!

Thanks for stopping by today,

Annie

I can't believe I'm a Blogger now!

In the end, do we all attend a 12-step program for this?  Well, until then, I am Annie.  You may know me as freezeframe03.  I've had a flickr photostream for three years.  I kinda treated it like it was my "blog" and diary for my photography, at first, then my sewing/quilting, that I'm better at than photography.  So far I've managed to stay under the 200 photo limit (always deleting the lesser photographs and sewing projects) to keep it a free account.  I see no need to pay until there is a need...which is beginning to sneak up on me.  There's a button or some sort of block thingy over there on the right that you can click on to visit my flickr photostream, if you'd like.

And now I've decided to join the life of blog owners.  I've followed, I've visited, I've bookmarked and now I want to speak...oh goodness, help you all!  I have opinions and I'm not afraid to speak them!  So, what will you find here on my blog?  All kinds of stuff.  Like...

my sewing,

fabric postcards are my absolute favorite small project to make.

And wall quilts are a favorite.  I only have 3 throw quilts under my belt because I only just figured out that straight line quilting is ok.  How dense was I being - eh?!

You'll find fun photos of our 2-wheeled outings,

most will start with "At 60 mph..." because there is no stopping for pictures.  I also love riding my pedal power bicycle but it isn't happening in my current situation.

You'll find what I've read lately.

I'll chat about this book soon.  Very interesting.

And probably most frequently you'll find my musings and opinions on just about anything in this life that catches my attention and makes me think about it.  Good or bad.  There will be no wearing of rose colored glasses at this blog!  And be prepared to participate, because when I want to know something, I'll ask anybody anything.  I've embarrassed many a friend with my blunt curiosity.  But if I don't ask, I'll never know.  I figure if it's none of my business, I'll be told so.

I love it when I learn something new...even if it's something I should have known all along...like straight line quilting is ok...geezelouise I can't get over that one!  Once in a while I've even changed my opinion or musing when someone puts forth a logical/reasonable rebuttal...nothing is ever one-sided.  So, follow me if you like and feel free to comment and participate on my musings with your thoughts of whatever the subject might be.  You may even trigger a new musing in me.

I'd love to know how you found me, and if you decide to follow me, welcome!  If you have a blog, leave me the info so that I can come check out your blog and follow you if I don't already.  Thanks for visiting.

Make every day memorable!

Annie