Ghastlie Blog Hop: Up and Running, Week 2!

Don't forget to check out the work of my sistahs in the Ghastlie Blog Hop which resumes today. Here are some blogs to go check out.

Mrs. Toyna Ghastlie
Mrs Tiramisue Ghastlie

Mrs. Angela Ghastlie

Mrs Pauline Ghastlie

Mrs. Karin Ghastlie

Mrs Barb Ghastlie

I also posted one more project this weekend. I was a little late getting it done but you can check it out here if you haven't seen it yet.

Need a Fix until the Ghastlie Blog Hop Starts Back up on Monday?

I made one more thing. I couldn't help it. It has been in my mind the whole time. I couldn't help myself. I had leftovers. And my door? It was calling for something....anything. I didn't want anything else I made to be specifically designated for Halloween, but I wanted just one thing. THIS one thing.

Ach! I love it so much! I had several fussy cut characters leftover and I really wanted to represent them as a family.  I did the top sign that really represented the dynamics of our family (mom, dad, son, and daughter) but my daughter insisted that I include the other two so I added two small canvases for them.

I totally think she was right. I think it helped balance it all out and put the words in the middle instead of the bottom.  Here's a close-up of the main sign.

I used a large canvas I've had for quite a while and was using as a small quilt design board. I used a piece of textured gray fabric I got in a scrap bag from Pink Chalk Studios a few weeks ago as the base. The fabrics were all Mod Podged onto the canvas in layers. I will say, wait between layers for it to dry to avoid bubbles. I used printable fabric with a spooky font for the words, and tore the edges all around the word block to give it more texture. The edges also bubbled when I Mod Podged it but I love the look because it added character.

After everything was dry I added some 'extras' to give the project some depth. I used hemp rope to create the end of the broom. Vlad got a gold glitter glue ring; it doesn't show as much as I would like so my next idea is to break the sides off of a brad and hot glue it to his finger so it stands out a bit more. Mathilda's dress has been enhanced with some black sheer spider web fabric. I actually tacked that on with needle and thread to insure it stayed where I wanted it to be. Hubby helped me pick some buttons to stack together for replacing her flower on her hat. He was a GREAT help as he has taken some art classes; he helped me a lot with balancing everything.

 Mathilda's dress and hat

One of the reasons that I have a belated Ghastlie project is because I knew I had won some Halloween fabric and I was waiting for it to arrive. It didn't get here in time for the blog hop, which ended up being fine because I don't think I would have used it on this project anyway because the colors were more traditional Halloween colors. I decided to go ahead and make the sign in the colors that were represented and I love it. I also love my new fabric! It came the day after I finished the sign.

Look at all that spooky goodness! Thank you Allegory! I can't wait to use them! I did want to point out that I may not have used the fabrics but I did use one thing Allegory sent me...

See that orange ribbon? Yup, that's my sign holder!

Winner, Winner, Chicken Dinner!

Okay, to start with, I should say that I am sitting in Chick-fil-A this morning using their Wi-Fi because I have no internet or phone service at my house. They had some trouble in my neighborhood two days ago and we had intermittent service. Plus I had to have someone come out and fix our phone modem, but then yesterday at about 1:00, all went dead. Not fun when you blog. Not fun at all.
I will do my best to respond to people's emails but I am overwhelmed with the response from yesterday; I went from 86 to 168 followers! Amazing! I know some just followed for the giveaway, but I did hear from several people who were happy to have found my blog so hopefully that means a few of you will stick around and visit sometimes! The more the merrier!
I appreciate you listening to me whine a bit. Now let's find out what you came here to find out!
Unfortunately Madame Samm has not announced the winner of the Creative Grid rulers on her website yet. She is usually very punctual so I know something has happened to keep her from posting. I went ahead and contacted the person whose name was drawn from my blog so they could keep a lookout on Madame Samm's blog (especially since my ability to post today will be spotty) so if you did not hear from me, just keep trying on my other sistah's blogs and enjoying the goodies they've created. I will post the winner as soon as I know!

******UPDATE: The winner of all three is Evelyn from Mrs Sharon Ghastlies gathering!
Congratulations Evelyn!!!

And the winner of MY giveaway of Prudence's Persnickety Pouch is...

  Result:149  Powered by RANDOM.ORG

This was commenter 149, Linda who said:

Linda V said...

Love the bags! I'd love to win your giveaway. Love your ideas and great blog too!

Thanks so much Linda! I have emailed you for your information. I finally have someone coming out to fix my internet today so I should be able to hear from you soon.

Also, if someone totally understands the whole putting a random generator widget on your blog thing, I'd appreciate some info!

Oh, and if Ghastlie Blog Hops aren't enough for you, and you need a fix until it starts back up Monday morning, start checking out the Blogger's Quilt Festival over at Amy's Creative Side. It starts today through November 4th. You can peruse to your heart's content and it will continue to be on her site, but if you want to put one of your own quilts in, you will need to post it no later than the 4th!

Hope you're feeling Ghastlie!

We welcome you all, come friend or come foe,
To view all the wonderful things we have made
From blog to blog you can choose to go
Our sewing rooms you will want to raid.

Everything I'm showing is, oh, so Ghastlie
A pouch, some baskets, a carrying case
From the first of the first to the very lastly
and upon each one a Ghastlie face.

So let's get started without further adieu
Come peruse the things made by my hand
I'm ready to show all my projects to you.
I hope your time here will be grand!

Prudence's Persnickety Pouch

First off, there's a pouch with plenty of room
With a daughter on front with her hammer
Only Mathilda ever carries a broom,
But her daughter can sure make you stammer!

Some treat bags are next to hold goodies galore
Mathilda and son both are present
Their faces you may choose to love or abhor
But some treats inside would surely be pleasant!

Beastly Bitty Baggies

Some fabric baskets line the wall

For holding some odds and some ends

These are not too big but they're not too small

And they're waiting right here for some friends.

Fraidy Cat Fabric Basket 1

Fraidy Cat Fabric Basket 2

A group of witches plans their spells

The way I plan what I sew.

A book, some pencils, a few pastels

I'm packed and ready to go!

I am giving away the Persnickety Pouch at the beginning of the post. Leave a comment below to be entered. You must be a follower to win. I will also be choosing a name from my comment list for the daily grand prize giveaway over at Madame Samm's blog.

Today's prize from Madame Samm is Creative Grid Rulers.

and don't forget to check out my Ghastlie Sistahs today!

Mrs. Katherine Ghastlie

Ms Sharon Ghastlie

Mrs. Gooden Ghastlie

Ms. Selina Ghastlie

Good luck and have a dreadfully Ghastlie day!

WiP Wednesday

Okay, how did it get to be Wednesday again? I just don't get how that keeps happening. And tomorrow is MY day on the Ghastlie Blog Hop! I'm so excited. I'm even a bit nervous, truth be told. People have been showing some amazing pieces. I hope my projects hold up. There will be a giveaway too, so be sure to return. A giveaway by me, and a bigger giveaway by Madame Samm herself. She's doing that every day of the hop. Lovely Ghastlie things! Where was I? Oh yeah...

Okay, so what have I gotten accomplished this week... Oh! Well, I made a ...no, I can't talk about it cause it's in the blog hop. Hmmm, I made a...., no, can't talk about that one either. You'll see it tomorrow. Man, what did I do this week that I can talk about? Oh yeah!

I finished my Embroidery 101 quilt top!

I also made a new laundry bag for the kids. Tutorial can be found here.

Again, I have been making some slow filler progress on my red and white hexie quilt you see at the top of my blog in the banner but nothing is connected yet so it seems rather dumb to show it again. I had rather hoped to get it done before the Blogger's Quilt festival but that is looking unlikely unless I just show the top. But I would still have to work like crazy just to get the top done.

I am also working on another tutorial and this one is going to be cool for quilters. We had a visitor do a show and tell at quilting guild Monday night and she showed her version of this particular item she'd made which was extremely cool, so I was much inspired. After finding some ideas online and deciding what I MUST have in it, I'm working on putting together a tutorial for you guys. Hopefully that will be up by the end of the week or next week at the latest. I have to go pick up some more interfacing since I ran completely out. Why is it that interfacing comes in such short widths?! That is so frustrating!

Don't forget to go check out what everyone else is working on....and don't forget to check out the Ghastlie Blog Hop ladies; I have the schedule in my right sidebar. My turn is tomorrow so please come back and visit then as well!

It's Beginning to a Lot Like a Ghastlie Blog Hop...

And you can find links to all of the blogs in my sidebar on the right. Don't forget to comment because someone will be chosen from each blog to go in a daily drawing at Madame Samm's blog at Sew I quilt. Some of the individual blogs are also having giveaways (I am on Thursday!) so make sure to check those out as well. I have also started a Ghastlie board on my Pinterest so check it out by clicking that little red Pinterest link on the right sidebar or just clicking here. Need a Pinterest invite? Let me know!

Today's prize at Madame Samm's? One of these lovelies! Ooh, I want one!

Good luck, drearies! Have a positively Ghastly day!

Embroidery 101 Top Finished! and 200 Posts!

Well, it looks like today's post is number 200! I also passed 10,000 hits this week so I had two bloggy milestones! I would do a giveaway for them, but I'm about to have one with the Ghastlie Blog Hop so I'll just call it an all in one!

I finished my top for Embroidery 101, though I am still debating adding a darker colored border to help ground it a bit. It's a bit more 'light and airy' than I normally make.

Or I may just use a darker binding and call it done. It is approximately 60x60 as is. I love how the embroidery turned out. I'm still contemplating how I want to quilt it. I did 3" sashing and used my scraps to make mini blocks in each of the corners.
Hope you're having a nice weekend!

A Laundry Bag Do-over! A tutorial

When hubby and I first moved into this house, I went from having a large wonderful utility room to having a laundry closet. See that door?

Yeah, that's my laundry room and it's not much bigger than that door.

Pay no mind to the dirty laundry; that's not the point. My point is, where do you think I separate laundry? I didn't want one of those pieces that sits in the hallway because there was no room for that either. So I came up with an idea and hubby helped me implement it. If you look to the left behind the door you can sort of see it.

Hubby made me a wooden strip with dowels on it and I made large canvas bags for laundry. Why am I showing you this? No particular reason except that I never got to show it off before (it was made 11 years ago) and it's sort of a precursor to today's project because it shows I've made bags.
When I had my son (who is now 5 1/2), I got this little jewel as a gift.

Well, it has been the dirty clothes hamper for both of my kids for all these years. The frame is okay but the fabric and bag have seen better days. At first I was going to replace the fabric on the outside and the bag, but then I decided that was redundant. I figured I could just make the inner bag out of nicer fabric. So I took it all apart but immediately found a problem.

The way the blue fabric went on the frame, it actually Velcroed at the bottom and made it stand up. So I had to find a different way to make it stand up. I measured the bottom of the bag and included the two sides with the Velcro.

Then I took some twill type fabric that I had on hand and cut two strips 2.5 by 36 inches (the bottom of the blue bag was approximately 35" so I added an inch for seams).

I folded each end down about 1/4" and sewed it down.

Then I treated the strips like I was making binding. Fold in half lengthwise and iron. Open and fold each side inward toward the inner crease. Iron. Fold again at the crease. Sew. I'm not giving a lot of instruction on this part because most of you know how to do binding. If you don't, there are tons of tutorials out there in bloggy world.

Now I attach the Velcro. You will have a male and female piece of Velcro; one will go on one end of your strip on the top and the other will go on the other end on the bottom.

Once you've sewn on your Velcro, attach the strips to the bottom of your frame. It should stand by itself.

Now we need a laundry bag. Remember that Amy Butler decorator fabric my friend got me at the yard sale?

Yup, that's what I'm using! I took the mesh bag (seen in the corner of the above picture) that came with the laundry hamper and measured what I needed. This particular bag had two side pieces and one long gusset. So I cut out my fabric from the bolt.

Since I didn't really take pictures of this part, I took some of paper to give you a bit of an idea as to how it came together.
My original measurements for the bag were as follows: the side pieces were 16" x 19". The gusset needed to be at least 54" long by 15.5" wide. My fabric was 55" wide so I just left it. Basically I had one really long rectangle and two short ones.

It's kind of hard to get one picture that shows how it all fits together but ...

You are basically using the short pieces as a guide. You will end up sewing down one side, across the bottom, then up the other side. Repeat with the other piece. It will end up looking something like this.

But before you sew all those seams, read ahead. I decided to do french seams in this project because decorator fabric is kind of like canvas. It has the tendency to fray a bit and I didn't want the frayed bits in my laundry. If you are unfamiliar with french seams, they are not as difficult as they seem.
The first step is to line up the fabric wrong side to wrong side. I know that doesn't sound right but go with me. You will sew along the area that needs to be sewn with about a 1/4" seam.

When you complete sewing that line, turn your project inside out and place the fabric right side to right side. Now technically with french seams, you are supposed to press your seams open. You are welcome to do that because it does help you get a crisper fold when you fold the fabric right to right side. You want to fold it over at the sewn seam and iron it at the fold; get the . You are now going to sew a 1/2" seam from the edge of the first seam. Your edges are now enclosed. Sew Sweetness has a great little picture of how this works here.

When your entire bag is sewn, you will have raw edges around the top of the bag. At each corner you will need a loop to catch an edge of the frame. From my leftovers I cut four strips about 1.5" by 8 inches. You will treat these just like creating binding again. You will be ironing each in half lengthwise (I just finger pressed); then you will open it back out and fold each side in toward that middle crease. Iron. Sew. Do this with all four pieces. Set them to the side.

I kind of accidentally skipped a picture here but you can see it in the next picture. Take the bag and fold down the top edge about 1/4 inch all the way around and pin. Sew the edge down. You can either attach the loops at the same time you sew around the edge or you can do it after. I did it after (primarily because I didn't think about it!). Because I did french seams, the four corners were rather bulky. For this reason, I had to attach my loops right next to that bulk instead of right on the corner itself. I repeatedly sewed over the loop to ensure that it was anchored well. I also stacked the two sides of my loop. You might want to sew the two ends side by side instead to reduce the bulk for the next step.

After all four loops are attached, you are going to fold the edge down again all around the bag. When you get to the loops, they will now be facing downward. Flip them back up and pin securely.

This creates a lot of bulk where the loops are so you are going to need to be careful going over them with your sewing machine. If you sewed your loop ends side by side, it may not be as difficult to sew through.

When you have sewn all around the edge (repeatedly go over the loops to ensure they are anchored) you are done!

I love how it turned out. You don't notice the brace straps on the bottom at all so they can shift around or whatever. I'm also thrilled that I bought absolutely nothing to do this project! This was all supplies I had on hand. I think it's a great update and I like not having to buy something new.