Monday, November 5, 2012

Another Charlotte

The Hubby took me on a ride last year and we stopped by a cool quilt shop in Livermore. (CA)
While there he said that I should make a small quilt for each holiday and hang it in our family room on the tall wall adjacent to the shorter kitchen ceiling.
I thought, "Sure, now you are adding to my to do list that is already a couple miles long." But I didn't think it was a bad idea, so I stashed it in the back of my mind. My home isn't the type that would lend itself to hanging quilts on walls, but I do make my share of different kinds of quilts, and although I don't want a country or farm house decor, the small quilt off by itself will probably work.
So this October I finished my first small holiday quilt.

*I already have one that my sis made me for Christmas, so now I've got 2.

Here is a picture of the quilt in the making. I first made a stop sign shaped black center and then started adding strips or a different black fabric all the way around. Choosing several patterns of black fabric I continued more rows outward until the desired octagonal size was achieved.  I used silver thread to quilt it to a backing and batting creating the web.

Now time to make spiders. A bunch of bright halloweeny colored circles were cut and I made yo-yo's of various sizes out of them. I used
2 circles that were 7 inches in diameter,
2 - 10 inches and
1 - 15 inch yoyo.
These fold gather to approximately half of the original size of circle.

The legs were made from narrow ⅜ inch ribbon. Take a 8 - 14 inch piece of ribbon and fold it in half, then fold one side over the other at the fold. Now take the ribbon on the bottom and fold it crosswise over the top, fairly tight to the first ribbon. Now that 1st ribbon is on the bottom so you fold it over to the top. Holding the ribbon so the top is the center and newly folded ribbon, continue folding the ribbons alternating them back and forth over the center. Pin together the two ends when they are too short to go on further.  Continue, making 8 legs for each spider.

Then I glued these legs onto the fabric under where the spiders would be sewn.
I put googly eyes on each spider. (don't look close, this was a sloppy glue affair) Large and medium eyes make for some interest.
The small spiders are just small yoyo's with colored cotton string for legs.

 Walla! My Halloween quilt. Up high on the wall that stops where the kitchen ceiling begins.
Not too scary, but still October 31ish.

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