Priceless Stitching

I am so excited to share my first quilting blog post! I started quilting almost 4 years ago and have made several lap sized and full sized quilts so far. The Fat Quarter Shop has the most beautiful monthly quilting kits and I am most drawn to the seasonal ones they make for Halloween and Christmas each year. This year I decided to purchase the Halloween Spooky box and I am so glad I did! This year's box included beautiful fat quarters from Riley Blake and an exclusive FQS pattern, Driving Me Batty, to make this super cute bat themed Halloween table runner. Also included in the box was a adorable Meori, an exclusive Bat Binding tool and an iron on label to attach to the finished table runner. The pattern was published in color and very easy to read and understand. The directions showed what sized blocks were to be cut from each fat quarter if you wished to follow the exact look of the model. After I finished sewing the top I quilted the piece using a fabric I had...

I am finally sharing my small Boo! Hands on Design Chalk Full piece! Life has been hectic and I wanted to post this earlier. I am trying to wrap up all my fall and Halloween posts before Thanksgiving, but we will see how that goes 😂 As mentioned in my previous post where I shared my finish of the larger Chalk Full Boo! design, my whole kit came from the Fat Quarter Shop Chalk Full Club. I had made some color substitutions in the larger design (which you can read about here ) and I used the same color changes in the smaller design as well. I really enjoyed stitching this smaller piece! Note I forgot to fill in the green on the pumpkin stem. I may get around to going back and filling that in, but maybe not 😉  After stitching the small Chalk Full Boo I mounted it to a piece of PresOn self adhesive mounting board then hot glued black mini pipping around the edges. I found this super cute vintage jack-o-lantern at Dollar General for $3.50. I love his black and white l...

I think my Halloween Holiday Hoopla is one of my most special Halloween cross stitch pieces I have stitched up this season. Before I started stitching this design I hand dyed some Monaco fabric in a beautiful shade of green. It was in one of my project bags off to the side until I had time to work it into my WIP pile. A couple weeks later I was going through some emails and had one from Kirklands. The daily special was this simple, but cute wooden Halloween house for nearly 50% off. As soon as I saw the house I instantly knew I wanted to use it to display my Halloween Holiday Hoopla. I completely scratched all my previous ideas of fabric and displaying. I had a new idea! Since the piece is finished in a round shape I envisioned a beautiful fall full moon and the witch flying across it.  First, I dyed a new piece of fabric. I used a combination of orange and yellow Rit dye to create a shade that resembled a fall colored moon. After it baked and dried I then use a tiny bit of Charcoa...

I finished up Boo Chalk Full by Hands on Design just a few days ago. The Chalk Full series are inspired by Priscilla Blain's beautiful hand drawn chalk designs she changes through the seasons on a chalkboard in her home. Cathy Habermann from Hands on Design transformed them into fun cross stitch patterns. I am enrolled in the Fat Quarter Shop Chalk Full Club . Each time a new Chalk Full design is released I get a complete package from Fat Quarter Shop to stitch up each piece. The kit includes the chart, fabric and threads. The Boo design is the second in the series (blog post coming soon on the first design, Harvest, that I stitched up several weeks ago!) and so much fun to stitch! The kit came with Chalkboard Black 14 count Aida. I have really been enjoying stitching on this fabric and it is the perfect color to mimic a chalkboard. The floss colors included were Gentle Art Sampler Threads Chalk and the Classic Colorworks threads Pumpkin Harvest, Dublin Bay and Pea Pod. When ...

I am so excited to share my first ever Halloween cross stitch finish! This design is Snail Slime from the Scary Apothecary series by Hands on Design. As soon as I saw this design I had to purchase it and stitch it up for the Halloween season this year! I love snails and think they are just adorable. The kids and I love looking for snails in our front flower bed where they have lived for a few years. We have had some as big as a nickle, which we have nicknamed Daddy Snail when we see him 😂 Needless to say the kids thought this design was pretty cute too. I chose to hand dye a piece of 28ct DMC Monaco fabric to stitch on, but I knew I didn't want to do white as shown on the design piece. I am really drawn to dark gray and other typical Halloween colors. I dyed my fabric using the Charcoal Rit Dye and baked it dry. Then  I used a bit of left over coffee to soak it once again. I baked it a second time even longer than before to make the coffee marks really darken up.  It re...