Whatcha Workin On?? (Halloween Frenzy!)

I've been a busy girl lately!   Making progress on multiple projects!   Most recently, I've committed to doing free motion Quilting on my Vintage Singer 201.   It took a bit to find the right, needle\thread\speed combination for perfect stitches, but I think I got it!   I spent the entire weekend on a Quilt retreat focused on getting comfortable doing it.    Here's the border quilting on my Scrappy Jewel Box quilt!

FMQ on my Vintage Singer 201-2

I've also made UNBELIEVABLE progress on my Halloween Frenzy  (grin).  Here was the first post on this project!  Click HERE.

February 2015 retreat

Current State February 2016

Doesn't it look like complete Halloween Chaos???   I LOVE it!  Yes - there are TWO complete quilt tops there. Why?  Because I'm going to baste them together for a completely reversible quilt!  

This quilt has TEN years of collecting Halloween fabrics in it.  I think I started cutting into my stash for it in 2013. There are 153 different fabrics and the Big Triangles in each block are NOT duplicated.  

Here's what I came up with to put it all together. Each strip of fabrics was worked up on phone book paper (can be easily torn off later) to keep the shape before the borders went on the block.   The strip-piecing is done with NO rules.  Diagonal, wonky, straight, whatever.   Just get em in there.  Then all these flappy long strips of fabrics were trimmed to 4.5" wide.    1.5" CONSISTENT fabric border added on each side.   Then - using a 12.5" square ruler, I measured a 4" width on the diagonal and marked it with full-adhesive post it's, so it would be SUPER easy to line up and slice off the tops!

Customized Square up ruler

Then I slice one side off the long way (all the way through), and the other short flap afterwards. 

Cutting off the tops

Why so precise you ask?   One long, one short?   Because THOSE pieces are getting used in this quilt too!   NO WAY am I wasting any of this precious collection!   Finally we add the nice big triangles to the sides to complete the blocks.    I had already precut a 10 inch square from EVERY Halloween fabric I have.  Sliced on the diagonal so that that bias edge is on the INSIDE of the block, I pinned one to each side, sewed em on and squared up the block!

Now let's get back to what I did with those leftover triangles we lopped off the tops.  I had a small set and a larger set leftover.

You end up with two sets of triangles!  

Using my EASY ANGLE RULER with the bigger triangles, I trimmed them up to the 3 1/2" line.   I put a little blue tape on the bottom of the ruler so I didn't get myself turned around or line it up on the wrong line.

Once those are nice and trimmed, it was easier to put them together and run them through the machine to make 3 1/2" squares!  I spread them out to make sure I didn't sew two of the same inner fabrics together.

SOOO scrappy!

Then I sewed the squares into manageable strips.  These strips became my INNER border!

SO fun!

Next up!   The BIG border!   Wonky Piano keys!   I cut more phone book paper to 7 1/2" wide, and glued the ends together to get 25" Strips. 

Trimmed up those sides to match the phone book paper, Trimmed the length down to 24 1/2" and added them to my inner border strips.    3 sets of these on each side of the quilt!

Back side view so you can see how they went together!

Now let's get back to the smaller set of triangles that were left over.    Those, I decided, were too cute to toss out too.   So using my little 2 1/2" x 6" Hummingbird Highway ruler, I cut them into 1 1/2" (2-patches)

Smaller triangle scrap

I could get 1 1/2" 2-patches!!

And THEN, I made itty bitty 4-patches!!    

So I made 4-patches!!

Those sweet little patches are likely going to end up in the corners once all these borders are on!  I know the quilt looks like sheer MADNESS...but I will never forget how much fun I had petting EVERY single Halloween fabric I owned and getting every single one into one quilt!

Halloween FRENZY

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