Sunday 13 October 2013

Possession

Possessed, that's what happened to me the moment I saw the amazing new quilt pattern from Maureen Cracknell. Her skull quilt got under my skin and I liked it!

See, I've not had a lot of time to myself recently, I mustn't complain but I'm really rather a victim of my own success these days. So much teaching to do and many commissions to sew, I am loving it but fear I might be on the brink of a burn out!

So when I spotted Maureens quilt on Instagram I worked like a fiend to clear my to-do list so I could get down to it. Which is precisely what I did yesterday, spent the day in my sewing room, being fed and watered by my amazing husband and whipped up a quilt top! It felt so good to selfishly sew something that didn't need to be made but wanted (begged) to be made. And then today the cherry on top was when he took me to our local ruin (literally 5 minutes from our house) to take some spooky photos!


skull3

It was a quilt top to run up, with the pattern giving very clear and detailed cutting and layout instructions. Of course, it wouldn't be me if I didn't deviate from the pattern slightly. I cut the background squares as large pieces where I could, rather than the many 6" squares called for. This not only saved me time in piecing but also precious fabric, I brought only 1.5m of background fabric and with clever cutting I still had almost a FQ left over.

I changed the layout of the teeth, being anal person, I wanted them symmetrical! And finally I changed up the layout of the eyes a little to make them clearer (in my opinion) and also because I had no more of the fabric left! I wish now I'd used darker fabrics directly around the eyes to help them stand out even more but I was desperate to include a little of my new Ghastlies fabric!


skull2

I cant wait to quilt this and get snuggling under it, my youngest was born on Halloween and will be 4 on the 31st, she really is a cheeky little witch and I am sure her birth date has a hand in her wicked humor!

In fact I think you can tell how excited I am by this quilt because its made me break my blogging hiatus!

skull1

I'm feeling like I have come over all American when it comes to Halloween in wanting to decorate the house up, we have such awful tacky decorations available in the UK so it is nice to put together something handmade. I also have a rather large itch to make a modern maples quilt in fall colours (see I told you I was becoming all unnecessarily American, I really should say autumnal colours) so watch this space.....

9 comments:

Isisjem said...

Fun quilt. I've wanted to decorate the house this year for Autumn/Halloween. Never been fussed before the Americans must be sending vibes over the pond ;-)

Mrs Flying Blind... said...

Wow that was speedy - I only saw the pattern yesterday!

Looks great - and fab photoshoot xxx

Sarah said...

Superfast missus, and brilliant location too!

Di said...

A bit of 'me' sewing is good for the soul. Very scary and looks fab. Di x

diegoagogo said...

Love this quilt, I'm with you on the decoration thing, just want to see more skulls around the place LOL.
Isn't it handy to live in a place of perfect backdrops?? Thanks history!! :)
Cheers
Lush

Canadian Abroad said...

Great quilt and I love the location photo shoot.

Katy Cameron said...

Well whipped up! Now does your husband do food and water delivery elsewhere too? I could do with something like that...

tlcukjourney said...

That is a great quilt! And perfect for this time of year!
Tammy

Maureen Cracknell Handmade said...

This makes me SO happy and I love the way it turned out! I'm also so glad you made the changes you did! I'm actually a symmetry freak myself, but had just a day to make my quilt top when I did back more than a year ago and missed that. It's haunted me since! lol I'm also glad you made changes to all those 6" cuts. Again I wanted to create the pattern doing exactly what I had done when I made the original, but I would definitely do the same as you for my next skull quilt!