Day: October 27, 2007

Using Liquid Paper to Satisfy a Child’s Halloween Dreams

How to Make a Halloween Costume

Supplies and Tools

  • Picture of child’s dream costume
  • Felt (of appropriate color(s)
  • Sewing machine
  • Scissors
  • Shoelaces
  • Timtex
  • Liquid Paper (correction fluid)
  • Aleen’s Craft Glue

The Halloween costume, except for some decoration, which are drying, is finished. The Darling Child is happy and I didn’t have to buy anything except 2 yards of black felt. I like using felt for Halloween costumes, because the raw edges don’t ravel. You can also just cut it off, glue things to it and cut strange shapes out of it with no problem. The costumes are a bit fragile and don’t usually last long. You can see the cloak that I made by looking at this picture from Wikipedia.

I didn’t have any white paint, so I used Liquid Paper to create the whorls on the red emblem the Darling Child needed.


I only had enough red to make five of the emblems, so we had to place them carefully for maximum effect.

It is kind of fun to make the Halloween costumes – to make a child’s Halloween dream come true. It is also fun to kind of figure out how to make something work with what you have on hand. I always buy enough felt to get through the main part of the project, but inevitably, I don’t think farther than that. One costume I made needed a fat tail that stood up. I used a paint stirrer to keep it stiff enough. That was before I knew about Timtex.

More Hiatus Progress

Here is an update on the progress I made while the 9K was in the shop.

  • DONE: 6 baby blankets: two colleagues and one person I want to impress are having babies: 2 each

: I made all the blankets I set out to make and then I found out that another friend was having a baby, so I made an additional two as well. I didn’t have the 9K as mentioned, so I just used a zigzag to hem the blankets. Not the way I normally like to work, but I wanted to get them done.

 

– I made the binding and sewed it on and am almost finished with hand stitching it to the back of the quilt. The sleeve is also made, but does need to be applied.

  • Binding for Serendipity Puzzle -I made the binding, but am waiting to finish Sharon’s quilt before I apply it. The sleeve is also made.
  • Gift bags: I have lots of fabric for bags, and Christmas is coming. Not done.
  • Cut out fabric for test blocks. I am going to start looking at new machines soon and I want to have some piecing in my own fabrics, which I can use to test the machines. Not done.
  • DONE: Wash and press new fabric.

 

– The Fabric Queen did this for me.

  • DONE: Replenish Pineapple strips

 

– This is partially done. I cut some last week as I worked on the most recent Pineapples.

The Baskets of PIQF

One of the themes I noticed at PIQF was baskets.

There are a number of things I like about this quilt, which I think is unusual. First all of the baskets are unusual. I didn’t examine each one separately to see if they were all different, but I think they might be. In looking at the photo I saw a couple that were slight variations of each other, but different enough to be considered unique. This is the kind of detail that makes quilts great and shows that quick quilts aren’t everything.

Second is the setting. The maker (and if YOU are the maker, I will gladly put your name here). This is a very clever way to setting the blocks. It also gives the quilt a lot of movement without buying into the whole primitive wave that is moving through the quilt world.

Third, is the fabric. Although there is a lot of black in this quilt, it does not look depressing. I also like the fabric that she used, especially the different yellows to sash the blocks. Much more interesting than using all the same yellow. The light colored background in the blocks really makes the baskets show up.

Fourth, the size of the blocks put them almost into the GAL* quilt department, but the details are so finely done and perfect for each block, including not adding them when they weren’t needed, that I think the blocks were done out of love and not because the maker didn’t have anything better to do.

Finally, the quilting is great. I think there is a lot of in-the-ditch quilting to keep this quilt together, but the gentle curves of the quilting that set off the blocks in a subtle way are perfect for the overall design.

This is another basket quilt. As you can see, the baskets are also small, and in this example, very girly. I remember the name being something having to do with girly handbags.

The pinks in this one were definitely the strength of the quilt, but notice the lavender that the maker added as the background for one block. I like it when the maker has the foresight and confidence to add a completely different fabric to the mix in order to add interest to the quilt. I think the brown looks ok, but it makes the quilt, overall, look a lot darker.

*GAL – get a life