Mwahahahaha! I lured you in here with a promise of Christmas goodies. However, I really just wanted to show my Halloween finish! Yes– the creature lurking in my closet for the last twelve years has finally become an FFO top and it really didn’t even take that long.

After that, I will show some upcoming Christmas goodies just to keep my promise. I have so many great things started. I am hoping to release a new set each Friday through Christmas. NOW is the time to get started for some lovely handmade gifts!

So let’s begin. Yes, I am still working on Halloween. This was surprisingly quick to stitch up and I wonder why I waited 12 years. All I had to do was stitch up four easy quilt blocks, add the faces, then the borders.

I am not a panel girl– so I will say, I was surprised there was absolutely no room for error on cutting these faces or borders apart!

The faces had to be cut apart exactly between each one in the green area, with no slop. Whoever cut my panel years ago did not know this and cut about 1/8″ too much off to one side between the faces. So I drew in the seam allowance, and set my stitch length down where the seam was scant-ish.

Then, on the borders, you also had to cut exactly between them, but it wasn’t obvious where. It was above the pumpkin heads, but not on the line. The top border along the selvage was cut off, so I had to use the white selvage as part of the seam allowance. Not ideal. My pumpkin stems are still a little close to the seam, but why obsess? Time to git ‘er done!

The hardest part was mitering the corners. I really didn’t want to cut off any of the big faces. I thought it through. Measured this way and that. More out of luck than anything, it worked out with the word BOO meeting in the corner. Happy dance.

I initially blamed the designer for this. Honestly, some part of any face would be cut unless they were really far apart. Even then, the next row of owls and then of pumpkins would be a problem. Those aren’t three separate borders; they are all attached.

So all in all, a great finish– I am so confident now I can go back and make some of these wonderful things that have been waiting for love for too long! And I still really want to finish a couple of bat blocks from another project before I give up on Halloween. After that, I’m going to review what I did this year and make a plan about what to work on, one at a time, for the rest of the year. I still have my eye on the “Barn Dance” J. Wecker Frisch quilt from this year, but the price went up instead of down after Halloween!

Now here’s some upcoming Christmas machine embroidery. I work on my quilt projects while the embroidery machine does my tests– it is wonderful to have two machines working at once!

For my cross stitch lovers, I have:

Christmas ABCs
A few years ago, we put out a large on that was done in five hoopings– this is a 5×7 size– so much quicker to stitch, and makes it a perfect display piece or mug rug– it’s ready to release and will be out this morning!

Joybirds Ornaments
I have a couple of different sets of smaller 2″ cross stitch ornaments, but every year, people are looking for larger ones. So this set finishes into 4″ hoops. I can’t wait to stitch them out and finish them off– should be another quick project for you all.

Teensy Ornaments
If you’ve stalked the cross stitch aisle in Hobby Lobby, you may have spied these adorable mini hoops– so cute!

For a long time, I’ve been thinking how easy it would be to miniaturize cross stitch with an embroidery machine, so I designed these teensy 32ct ornaments and we will see what happens. The problem is that machine embroidery thread may be a little too thick for these oh, so teeny stitches (1/32 of an inch!). I’m going to give them a try today and I’ll report back next week.

December Village of the Month
Then there is the Final Village of the Month– we’re almost there! This year’s FREE Christmas stitch-a-long will be a tiny bowl filler village, similar to the Halloween upgrade kit. Stay tuned!

I think I’m going to use the “St. Petersburg Christmas” FREE stitch-a-long as the model for it. Do you remember it? So pretty!

Then, for those of you who aren’t cross stitch fans, this set has been in the works for quilt awhile!

Winter Alphabet
I came across it in my Christmas 2020 folder– we all remember that nightmare!– so I totally give myself grace on not finishing it. The good news is, it’s all digitized and stitched about 1/3 of the way. I just have to put myself on some foolish schedule of doing one a night.

Reindeer Quilt Block
This beautiful guy has also been waiting for a couple of years to be born– a large reindeer which I intend to make into a quilt block. He’s big– that diagonal rectangle is me, trying to fit him into a hoop!

Crazy Quilt Ornaments
This has been hanging from my office lamp for awhile– spring, summer, winter, and fall! I’m working on a set of crazy quilt stuffed ornaments that will be perfect for craft fair sales. The technique is a combination of a little piecework and a little machine embroidery– two of my favorite things to do.

Christmas Mug Rug
This is just an idea so far– I’d love to add some holidays to my set of birth month mug rugs. This was a format I’d love to work in again. Instead of December, it would say “Christmas,” obviously, The flower could be a poinsettia– what would replace the birthstones if this was made into a series? My first thought is– CANDY!

Quilt Labels

Finally, we need labels to finish up all these projects! There are a couple of designs I made in past years to finish up free stitch-a-longs– they all need updating but I could pull together a nice set. Such a great way to make the ultimate finish for all of your gifted heirlooms!

For the next few weeks, I’ll be testing while stitching– and for now, it’s still Halloween! I pulled out my Night Flight quilt just like I promised myself and ripped out another block in about an hour and a half. If I could spend about 16 hours for the rest of the month plugging away on this, I’d have another ancient project in the books. Let’s see what happens.

xox
Carol