Halloween 2023

Well, it's that time of the year again.  Halloween is still viewed as an American tradition in this part of the world, but more and more people are getting in to trick or treating each year.  

My Spooky Darlings quilt won't be finished for this Halloween, but it is progressing well. 

I live on a street that is well known for Halloween because it's wide and straight and a safe place for kids to trick or treat.  It's Spring in the southern hemisphere and it doesn't get dark here until after 8pm at the moment, but the kids can't wait that long so they start about 5pm. 

I need to get my Haunted House out again and enjoy looking at it before it's time to get out the Christmas decorations.  Help!!!

It's been a while since I've shown my Haunted House so if you're after more information you can find all my notes about the Victoria Sampler Gingerbread Village on the Gingerbread Village tab here on my blog.  And more specific information about the Haunted House here.  

Now it's time for the Peacock Party.  Feel free to link up a recent blog post below.

 

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Spooky Darlings

Well, last weekend didn't go according to plan and I didn't make it to Christchurch after all.  I was caught up in Air New Zealand's worst weekend of 2022.  It was the start of the school holidays, the All Blacks were playing Ireland in Dunedin (so a lot of people were travelling), the weather was awful in parts of NZ, and the second wave of COVID-19 is affecting airline staffing levels. 

My Friday morning flight was cancelled, and then my Saturday afternoon flight was cancelled too!   The next available flight down was on Tuesday.  So, I had to stay at home.

However, I did finish my Spooky Darlings quilt top and I took it in for basting yesterday.   I intend to hand quilt it with a spider web design which will be a new challenge for me.  

I made these triangles as wide as I could with the fat eighth bundle I had purchased.  My original plan was to jumble them all up, but then my eyes kept searching for the partner triangles, so I just let them naturally return to their partners.  I've kept this design really simple because I want the hand quilting to shine.  

The fabric is Spooky Darling by Ruby Star Society.  I was never a huge Cotton + Steel fan, but I do like some of the Ruby Star Society fabrics.  They use interesting colour combinations.  

Now it's time for the Peacock Party.  Feel free to link up a recent blog post below:

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween.  I hope my gingerbread Haunted House makes you smile. 

It's 8pm on Friday 30 October here, so it's Halloween tomorrow and it's time to bring out my Gingerbread Haunted House again.  

This Gingerbread Haunted House was designed by Thea Dueck of The Victoria Sampler in Canada.  Here's a link to the pattern here.  

I've made most of Thea's Gingerbread Village, and I've got a full page on my blog detailing all my tips and tricks (click here or click on the tab at the top of the page).  The patterns give great instructions for assembly, but it's always useful to hear from someone who has done it themselves, so pop over and read my tips if you're considering making your own Haunted House.  

I always buy the accessories kits when I buy Thea's patterns.  The little buttons that she sources are just so cute, and I know I will never find them in my local shops.  The accessories kits also include all the beautiful silk threads - in just enough quantities to stitch the houses.  

Now it's time for the Peacock Party.  What have you been up to lately? Feel free to link up a recent blog post below. 

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Halloween bookmark

Last week I started something new.  It's a mystery Halloween bookmark from the Victoria Sampler Chat Group on Facebook. 

Thea Dueck (owner of The Victoria Sampler) is going to release the pattern over four weeks and we can stitch along as each section gets released.

There are no recommended linens or threads, so everyone's bookmarks will be quite different.

I chose some mauve linen that I had left over from my Sardinian knotwork piece (pattern by Yvette Stanton). 

I'm using some of the threads left over from my Haunted House - also by The Victoria Sampler.

Which of course reminds me that I still have finished my Gingerbread Needlework Shop yet. I only have two more side to make now, so I still intend to have it ready for Christmas 2018.

And then I'll be able to start the Gingerbread Retreat Cottage which I have here waiting for me:

If you'd like to know more about my Gingerbread Village you can click on the tab at the top of this page - Gingerbread Village.

And of course my Christmas Village is still in the "To Do" box too!

 I need more time!!!!

An online friend in Canada had a destash sale this week, and I was tempted to buy a Chatelaine pattern and threads, but I resisted the temptation.  I'm quite proud of myself.  I was realistic and thought "when would I ever get to do this?".

I hope you've got something fun to work on over the weekend. 

My Haunted House

Last night was Halloween.  I only have three Halloween decorations at my house, but I got all of them out a few weeks ago.  

First up is my Haunted House that I made from a pattern by Victoria Sampler.  You can read all about it in this blog post, and more about the other buildings in my Gingerbread Village on the tab at the top of the page.  

 I loved stitching this 3D building.  The ornaments that came with the accessory pack are just so cute!

 My second Halloween decoration is this small table mat I made for the Haunted House to sit on.

And the third decoration is a table runner I English Paper Pieced with Cotton + Steel Halloween fabrics.  I used some of the patterns from The New Hexagon book by Katja Marek.

I hope you've enjoyed Halloween if it's something you celebrate.  It's becoming more popular in New Zealand, but my kids are too old for it now. 

Haunted House is finished!

I'm very excited to show you my finished Haunted House. I've been stitching this house on and off since Christmas, and have spent a lot of time over this past week assembling it.

It would be dwarfed by pumpkins, so here's an orange and mandarin for scale. I'm just posting a few photos of the finished house today. I'll write more details about the finishing in a future post (you can read that post here).

It's such a momentous day that I'll even include a photo of me with the haunted house! Sorry about the crazy hair - that's what you get in Wellington on a windy winters day.

I hope that this house will be treasured for many years to come, so I've put my name and the date on the bottom. That way people will remember who made it long after I'm gone. Clearly I've been watching too much of "Who do you think you are?" on the BBC Knowledge Channel.

You'll see that I had already made a mini quilt for the house to sit on when Halloween arrives. I bought those fabrics at Spotlight in October last year so the quilt was finished long before the house.

This is the back view.  Those candy corns look good enough to eat. Unfortunately we don't get candy corn in New Zealand, but I have tasted it, and I know it's delicious.

Last photo - just to show how the turret is attached on the front.

I love this house and I'm really pleased with my finishing this time.  I'm off to put my feet up and admire it now.

This was one of four things on my Finish A Long list for Q3 2015.

Some new close up photos added October 2016:

July - where did it go?

July was a weird month for me. I was very busy with work for the first week, and then busy with holidays. Does that make sense?  Anyway, life is back to normal now with my boys back at school, and me working from home again.  Here's what I've been working on during July:

1.  Fandango Sky

This is a canvas work design by Laura J Perin. Laura's designs combine variegated threads of different textures, metallic threads and even tiny beads.  I love how she combines colours and textures.  I took this to Melbourne because I knew the lighting in hotels is never great, and if I don't do something in the evenings I just fall asleep in front of the TV! The canvas has big holes so it's great to stitch on in poor lighting.

So here's where I'm up to now:

Fandango Sky

I've made other designs by Laura J Perin in the past and they now hang on the wall in our bedroom:

Starry Nights

Jewel Box - I changed the colours on this one

2.  The Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery

Have you heard of this company? They design very cute cross stitch patterns and seem to be taking the world by storm. A lot of young women are being drawn into cross stitch by their very cute patterns.  They sell the patterns online as a downloadable pdf to print at home, and they really are very cheap at about USD12 per design. They have a website and are on facebook. There's even a facebook group for those people stitching the designs.

I'm not finished Part 1 yet

I've just downloaded the first of four patterns in A Very Merry Christmas Town, which is their mystery Christmas design for 2015.   There will be one part of the pattern released each month for four months and I should be finished well before Christmas. Although it's a mystery, they do tell you the size of the design so you won't run out of linen!

I bought some sparkly linen when I was in Auckland, and fortunately had all the threads I needed in my stash! (with a few very minor substitutions)

This is my version of the 2014 Christmas mystery sampler from The Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery:

3.  My Scrappy Bear Paw quilt

I've been trying to fit in a bit of hand quilting each week to keep this quilt moving along.  I've quilted 5 of the 9 stars so I'm past half way.  I haven't decided on the binding yet, but expect it will be some combination of black and white.

Here's a reminder of the whole quilt top.

4. Haunted House - last one I promise

I've started to assemble my Haunted House. It's on my Finish A Long list for Q3 and I know it will take weeks, so I made a start at the weekend. I'm determined that it will be neater than my Bakery last year, when I forgot that the building should be symmetrical, and cut each side independent of the other sides. I can't redo the Bakery, but I can learn from that and make future buildings more balanced.

Here are my other buildings, all designed by Thea Dueck from The Victoria Sampler in Canada and stitched by me over the last 3 years.

I know you're all thinking that there's nothing wrong with the Bakery, but I know the Haunted House is going to be even better.

That's all for now - I wonder what August will bring?

A finish at last

I've started quite a few new projects in 2015 which is always exciting, but I've also had one tiny finish.  This Halloween table mat was one of 4 items on my Finish Along list created about a month ago.

It's a purpose built mat for my Haunted House to sit on when it gets finished later in the year.  I'm pleased to say that yesterday I finished embroidering the back of the Haunted House, and it's the biggest section.

Haunted House by The Victoria Sampler

The other sections will be slightly faster now that I've got the dimensions of the house, and figured out the satin stitch at the top.  I often find it easier once I've done the first section. 

So, come Halloween, the house will be sitting on this mat in the hallway.

As soon as I finished the Halloween mat I pulled out the next item on my Finish Along list. A Christmas Tree mini quilt. I know, I'm doing everything at the wrong time of the year, but if I leave these until the end of the year they just won't be done in time (again).

I always intended to hand quilt this Kaffe Christmas Tree.  I decided to try something new and quilted free hand squiggly lines in the green section. I'm quite pleased with how they turned out. I used the green sparkly thread I picked up at Symposium. It's great to quilt with, but it does fray terribly so I have to be careful with the ends.  I've still got to decide what to do out in the white section yet.

 

Although I'm trying to be good and stick to my list, I couldn't resist the temptation to join up with a needlelace stitch along being run by a Russian lady - Daria. Here's a link to her blog. 

I've met many Russians on Instagram and they do beautiful embroidery. Daria has got permission from a Japanese lady (Erba?) to run a stitch along based on one of her free patterns.  Here's a link to casaerba.  This is what we are going to make.  It's shown as a table runner here, but I might just make mine a square and get it framed. 

Isn't it beautiful? It looks Eastern European / Turkish / Russian to me with those domes on the buildings. Although I don't usually do things in white, I think this one should be white so I'm using the bright white - B5200 coton a broder. I have accepted that I can't see clearly enough to do 32 count anymore, so am using 28 count linen for mine.  Daria says the instructions will be spread over 15 fortnights, with about 6-10 hours work per fortnight. I think that's manageable. (don't laugh)

Last night I made a start on the four sided stitch (box stitch) border, and I hope to finish that this weekend.