Tips and Tutorials Tuesday - Pumpkin Candy Holder

This tutorial will be linked to Tips and Tutorials Tuesday - a roundup of wisdom from around the net hosted by Yvonne @ Quilting Jetgirl - visit and learning something new and interesting.

Also make sure you visit Handmade Halloween linky party hosted by Bernie @ Needle and Foot for some spooky inspiration, there's still time to make your Halloween projects.

I'm excited to show you a fun Halloween (or just autumn decor) project, with a cheerful bit of color and practicality all in one.

I call it the Candy Holder, but obviously you can use it to hold any odd stuff (including sewing supplies), or probably to store your Halloween decor elements from one year to the next.

I'll let you in on a secret - it's not really full of candy, there's fabric stuffed underneath actually...

My inspiration for this came from this tutorial for a cute fabric tea-pot, which can also be used for storing stuff and makes a nice present. Last year I tried to repeat it small-scale with orange fabrics and made these cuties that my kids now use as trinket boxes:

This year I decided to go big and made the pumpkin about life-size, it measures 7'' tall about 8'' across the bottom. I adjusted the pattern for the larger size increasing the number of segments and changing the shape somewhat. I tried out the first draft of the pattern with another pumpkin, which I didn't like shape of, so I now have quite a harvest:

And I put together a tutorial with tons of step-by-step photos. This is my first sewing tutorial, so I welcome all critical remarks and corrections, and I'd be absolutely thrilled if you made your own pumpkin and shared in the comments!

Pumpkin Candy Holder Tutorial

You can download my version of the pattern here (it's free!):

Pumpkin pattern pdf to download

To make a Fabric Pumpkin Halloween Candy Holder you'll need:

• about 1/3 yard of fabric for the "outside" (or various orange scraps to that amount)
• about 1/3 yard of fabric for the "inside"
• a scrap of green fabric
• card-stock (or plastic) for the bottom and the lid (about A3 page in all, I recycle boxes for that)
• cushion filling (hollowfiber) or batting scraps to stuff the shape
• matching thread

Here's what we do:

Quilters, Prizes and Sunday Stash

I was very excited to attend the general meeting of the Irish Patchwork Society in Kilkenny on Saturday, my head is still buzzing with all the impressions)))

The greatest treat of the day was perhaps meeting in person some wonderful quilters whose work I  admire and whose blogs I follow: Tomomi Mc Elwee of Slaney HandCraft, Ruth Bourke of Charly and Ben's Crafty Corner and Ethelda Ellis of Ethelda's Quilting Journal (she admitted she doesn't have time to update the blog regularly, but you can google the images of her works - absolutely mind-boggling!). I met lots of other people on the day as well and everybody was really nice and and friendly and the atmosphere was great.

The room was decorated with beautiful quilts by the members of the IPS South Midland Branch:

A huge highlight for me was of course the Viewer's Choice prize for my quilt in the IPS National Exhibition "Evolution" and a trophy for excellence (I don't remember the exact wording) for the same quilt. I was just blown away, as you can see below:

Paula Rafferty (IPS International Rep), the Trophy, me, and the Committee - thanks to Ruth for taking the picture!

Everybody's favorite part of the morning was the raffle with great prizes and voting for the challenge, which was a mini quilt on the theme "Witches and Castles". Choosing from all the lovely pieces was a challenge in itself:

The winner is the quilty witch with a sewing machine - very cute! Mine is in the lower right corner and you can read about it here.

After that came a really nice dinner, which was as much about talking as about eating and a visit to the shops, which is where the Sunday Stash comes in:

Reds and Greens are mostly for a Christmas project, and Yellows and Blacks for a little sunshine-in-the-dead-of-winter project I'm not telling you about yet ;))

The afternoon talk was given by a great textile artist from Anglsey - Dorothy Russel. The topic was "The butterfly has two wings", which related to tradition and innovation in her creative work and what she said and showed us was extremely interesting and very inspirational. I didn't take any photos of her quilts, as you can find much better quality shots on her website - do go over there and have a look, they are stunning (though I can testify that viewed in real life they are even more stunning). On Sunday Dorothy was giving a workshop on the "New York beauty" block, but I wasn't there.

After the meeting was over I still had some time before my bus home to run around Kilkenny, which is a lovely town with a huge imposing castle and some wonderfully crooked streets with colorful shopfronts:

I'm linking this post to Sunday Stash at Molli Sparkles and Main Crush Monday at Cooking Up Quilts.

A Study in Scarlet... and Bordeaux... and Whatever...

The autumn is officially here and I have a new wall hanging to create the seasonal mood.

This very simple piece (a study rather than a proper picture)))) started with three pieces of ice-dyed fabrics from the IPS Eastern branch workshop I took part in. They looked like they came from an autumn landscape all along, but they spent quite some time on my design wall before I saw what exactly was in them - leaves of a bush that I think is called "burning bush" (not that the exact species really matters)))

This is the only in-process photo I have. Wonder if anyone else can see the bush? (tip: it's actually marked with a blue marker here) I wanted the fabrics to star in this show, so I quilted the branches and some "focus" leaves in a black topstitch thread and then added some very simple "organic" quilting with beautiful variegated YLI threads I got from Wendy of Fabric Matters. The branches and "main" leaves were then touched up with fabric crayons to bring them out more.

Love the little patch of "sunshine" in the top )))

I'm still not sure about that quilting - probably I should have done something more interesting. I chose a really beautiful batik for the side panels (so beautiful in fact, I fear it steals the show) and quilted them with a simple free-hand leaf motif (that is only visible with a side lighting).

Here is a full view with sidelong sunlight for texture.

On the whole, this piece took longer to plan than to make (hiding the ends of the topstitch thread was the longest production stage))), but it's all about the mood I think.

Linking up to Off the Wall Friday at Creations by Nina-Marie
Free Motion Mavericks at Lizzie Lenard Vintage Sewing
Finished or not Friday at Busy Hands Quilts
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Firebird - Applique Quilt at BQF

Jumping on the bandwagon of the Bloggers' Quilt Festival, I want again to say a great big thank you to Amy Ellis of Amy's Creative Side for all the time and effort put into organizing this event!

With my second entry to the Bloggers' Quilt Festival I was at a loss as to the category it suits best, being a small quilt (32'' by 44''), an appliqué quilt, an original design and something of an art quilt, too (quilt show categories generally seem bewildering to me). Well, I decided on the Appliqué Quilts category, because raw edge appliqué was the technique used, and I find that it did a good job creating the feathery texture.

Firebird is a character in an old Russian folk tale that became famous due to Igor Stravinsky's ballet. This colorful and appealing image and has been used by artists many times, illustrating the tale, creating ballet costumes, other works of art as well as symbols and emblems. Here is an article with lots of Firebird illustrations by various artists from various times. What appealed to me in this image was the opportunity to play with color/value gradation to create an effect of glow.

I had some scraps of yellows, reds and oranges left from my sampler, but I also asked my brother to bring some more from a shop in Moscow, which in addition to by-the-yard and precut quilting fabrics stocks scraps and remnants - ideal when you're doing appliqué. I also asked for "something dark green or dark blue" for the background and my brother brought me this beautiful piece which fitted the bill perfectly.

I worked on this piece in Kharkov, Ukraine, under the supervision and with advice from my dearest teacher, Svetlana Kachalova. I made a life-size sketch in color pencils to see where I'm heading, but didn't have any templates or piece-by-pice plan. I chose the fabrics for every feather and then just cut the shapes free-hand, layering and stitching them to the assembled sandwich. I started with the tail - the lower larger feathers that had to appear underneath the others, then moved on to the wings, the body and the head.

Love how the fussy-cut design embellishes the eye

To enhance the glow (and heat))) effect, I quilted the background in shades of yellow, orange and red as well, then added some seed beads to represent fire sparkles.

In the tale the firebird was stealing apples from a garden, so I bordered the quilt with appliquéd apples and leaves and some leaf-shaped quilting to fill in the remaining space.

The leaves are mostly dark, being in the shade, but those that come close to the bird's feathers are lit up.

Once again, don't forget to visit the Festival and vote for your favorites next week!

Dublin Daffodils - Mini Quilt at BQF

I've only found out about Bloggers' Quilt Festival when it started, but it looks too great a fun to miss, so I'm taking part! The Festival is hosted by Amy Ellis at Amy's Creative Side and I want to say a huge thank you to her for all the time and effort invested in it! I've looked at the quilts that are already there and I'm amazed. Definitely this even could rival any "off-line"quilt festival)))

My first entry is in the Mini Quilts category. It hasn't been featured here on the blog, because it was made before I started the blog, but not long before))) The incentive for its creation was the Easter challenge at the Eastern branch of IPS on the theme of "Shades of Yellow", and my immediate (and obsessive) idea was - daffodils.

Because never before had I seen so many daffodils as here in Dublin - growing in the gardens, parks, on roadsides, apparently of their own accord, untended, trampled by kids and dogs, swept by wind and rain and still lighting up the whole city.

I took out my green and yellow scrap baggies and improvised, consulting the photos I had taken. The technique is raw-edge appliqué, which is my first choice for free-hand artistic expression.

I start with the "farthest" pieces, stems and leaves in this case, place them on the background, pin or glue with a gluestick and stitch down. Then come the flowers - those that are farther away first, then the nearest. With edges untreated, I stitch about 1.5-2 mm from the edge and I don't mind some of the threads unraveling, I like the casual effect.

As I lay out the appliqué on an assembled quilt sandwich, stitching the pieces down is also quilting, that's one of the reasons why I love this technique (especially for last-minute gifts ;))).

I was lucky to have a piece of fabric that in itself fitted the "Shades of Yellow" theme, so I used it for a wide frame/binding. I like how it creates a kind of glow around the picture.

Preparing this post, I went though all the pictures of daffodils I took in spring, and I really want to share with you a couple more. These were taken in the Botanical Gardens in Dublin and they show some varieties of daffodils I personally couldn't even imagine existed)))

With that - do visit the Bloggers' Quilt Festival to see all the amazing works there and it's not too late yet to take a part!

Also linking this post to Off the Wall Friday at Creations by Nina-Marie

Witches and Castles - Crafted Appliqué Magic

I'm a member of the Irish Patchwork Society, which is going to have its AGM in early October. The challenge for the meeting has the topic "Witches and Castles" and a size limit of 15''.  So, the way my brain works (do as you're told) I squeezed both witches and a castle into 15 inches and here they are:

UPD: You can check out the other challenge quilts (including the winner!) in this post. I'm also linking this post to the Handmade Halloween linky party hosted by Bernie @Needle and Foot. Make sure you visit it for Halloween inspiration!

I played with several variants of the scene, basically Little Witch + Cat, Big Witch + Cat and Little Witch + Big Witch

My husband chose the two witches variant, but I found a way to sneak a cat into the picture, as he brings a feeling of Drama (or should I say Doom?) with him - because you know what's going to happen next, right?

Another source of inspiration for me was our last year's Halloween window display (for which I found inspiration somewhere on Pinterest):

My idea called for intricate detailing to make the silhouettes look interesting and I knew I had to master the Crafted Appliqué technique for that. I had heard a lot of buzz in the quilting blogland about it and finally got to try it myself. You can see my rehearsal piece here. Fortunately, this idea meant that only one piece of fabric had to be treated, so that wasn't a problem (incidentally, the two fat quarters for this project were bought in Limerick, as well as the backing fabric).

You can see that the method worked - the edges are crisp, although I stitched quite close to the edge.

The busy detailing in the bottom half left the upper right corner rather empty, so I filled it with a ghost...If you didn't see it immediately, it's OK, that's often the thing with ghosts...

It twinkles mysteriously, being quilted with gold metallic thread, and seems also to be up to something mischievous... That left very little background free, so I did some quirky quilting to fill in the gaps.

I'm pleased with the result, as it has a kind of glow and a kind of mischief - season appropriate))) And I also consider my #BraveQuilter challenge and September OMG completed, so the post will be linked to these link-ups at the end of the month. It is also a New to Me in 2016 technique, so I'm linking to Celtic Thistle Stitches.

I couldn't wait till the end of the month to show it, so I'm also linking up to Main Crush Monday at Cooking Up Quilts and Linky Tuesday at Freemotion by the River )). Lara Buccella, the author of Crafted Appliqué book, also has a linky party on her blog for the projects made with her method, do check it for more inspiration!

Rehearsing Crafted Applique

I've set mastering Crafted Appliqué as my challenge and goal for September. Before starting "the real thing" I decided to try it out on some batik scraps, because I'm going to use a batik for my planned project. And to make it the toughest test possible I chose a mini-mini format))

I'm happy to say it worked well on the tiny pieces (the stems are about 1/8'' wide and the petals 1'' by 1/4'', the whole thing in just a bit larger than 6'' top to bottom). The most difficult thing was to finish the mini-mini, binding and everything, instead of starting the new project)))

I chose dark green and light blue scraps, so the subject came naturally - squill, the first flowers to appear in spring on the forest floor, sometimes amidst the remnants of snow (I decided to add some snow after I finished the flowers))). The flowers are almost life-size. I had to fight the temptation to play with different colors, because that would mean pre-treating lots of different scraps, and just stuck with the chosen ones.

Without further comments: