A warm hello and thank you to the wonderful denizens of Bluesky who use the #quiltsky hashtag. I recently found out about this hashtag’s existence and used it over there, and a really wonderful community of people showed up and supported me when I was in the middle of this little project and GENUINELY considering abandoning it.
But I didn’t - and now I’m happy to say I finished this Halloween quilted table runner.
Here’s how it all went.
No one suffers more than the cats when their human is deep in the Quilting Mines. Or so they tell me. Good thing I have made a lot of progress and am getting closer to done on this one.
House maintenance projects seem to spawn more creative projects sometimes, often out of pure necessity. One recent represented quite a timebomb here at my house from the simple process of basement decluttering in prep for some urgently needed basement work. On a neglected shelf, this paper bag had been sitting for years and I had totally forgotten what was in there.
The temperatures are dropping around here and it’s feeling crisp and chilly. And I live in Massachusetts, home of Salem and all things spooky, so of course my mind is turning to Halloween.
I’ve had plans and stashed fabric for ages for Halloween quilts. The idea started in 2014 on a trip to Japan in mid-October. I saw how Halloween is interpreted in modern Japanese pop culture and I loved it - it was cute and just a little spooky, but nothing gory or creepy. Spoopy, I guess. That’s my jam, and this version of Halloween isn’t one I can easily find in the US for Halloween.
A quick writeup for a very quick project. I’m not telling you how to live or what to do, but just me personally, I really hate t-shirt quilts. I have look at lots of them, and I know people really love them to give and recieve, I know people have made good business making them, and I know people get very attached to their own. I get it! But I have genuinely yet to see one that I liked.
I don’t have the time or frankly ability to make my growing kid lots of cute clothing she’ll quickly grow out of - I limit myself to cozy pajamas and the like that will get a lot of repeat wear. But one thing I have made for her that has gotten a lot of mileage has been custom headbands.
You can buy headband ‘blanks’ at lots of craft stores or online. They’re just plain plastic, and you zjuzh them up by covering the plastic with fun fabric and any adornment you like. My kid loves a small bow slightly offset, so that’s what I make.
After buying the pattern in 2021, I recently decided to be brave and just get this project done. I had somehow convinced myself that my sewing skills weren’t up to this ‘advanced beginner’ pattern, I don’t know why. Maybe because it’s lined and I had a bad experience trying to make a lined jacket years ago for a costume?
Well, when I actually got started, I found this jacket to be a very satisfying and easy to make. I got it done in about a week, cutting to sewing.
When your bestie sends you a sewing video in Instagram with zero ulterior motive but to share it and go “oh, cool!”, for me it is inevitable that I’m going to look at that sewing project and wonder if it’s something I can make for him. Because sewing isn’t really his thing, but if a sewing project caught his eye enough to send it my way, well, I take notice!
This project surprised me when I first tried it. Honestly I didn’t believe this would be as fast as it was, because as often happens with instructions I find online for sewing projects, their estimates on how long something takes vastly underestimates how much I can easily mess up a ‘simple’ project.
But no, this is genuinely a great one. So much so that I am probably going to teach my kid how to do this because it’s very satisfying.
This is where I do all my sewing work. I am lucky to space for my hobbies, though I don’t have a dedicated sewing room, I feel like I have more than enough space for what I want to do. My sewing station is one corner of my office room, so it’s important that I am able to put things away neatly as I’d be looking at the clutter every day when I’m working my regular job.