Wednesday, January 3, 2018

It's a Flimsy! - Trick or Treat


Trick or Treat
60 x 72
It's a flimsy! 

Again today it's too cold to go out and hang it on my clothesline to take pics so you will just have to believe me when I say it's a full fledged flimsy. 

I want this year to be a year of holiday cheer. I'm going to try to clear out all the holiday themed fabrics I have in boxes and drawers.  I'm calling it my Holiday Cheer Challenge.  I started this easy 16 patch in Halloween fabrics in December.  I cut pieces to have on hand so that I could sew something easy and mindless while my brother was here visiting from Florida and between visiting with family and friends. I sneaked in a few minutes of sewing here and there and completed all my blocks before year end. 

 And I followed through and pieced a backing too.  I made a giant four patch from the monster and creepy jar fabrics. 

This made a big dent in my Halloween fabrics - especially all the small bits and pieces that were leftover from making the grand kids pillowcases, trick or treat bags and quilts.   

My daughter made off with my Halloween quilt - Black Widow's Wedding Party - a creepy wedding ring quilt with glow in the dark fabrics  and quilting - so I guess this will be my quilt when I get it finished.  


 I still have Halloween fabrics to use for my Holiday Cheer challenge.  So I made up four Halloween placemats for my daughter.  She brought me that orange feedsack fabric with the black cats on it. It was a small piece I think she found at a garage sale. So I used it in placemats for her family of four.  
I made these 12 x 18
I was going to make reversible placemats with the same design on the back as the front but I have some small pieces of Halloween fabrics with a large print so I think I'll use these fabrics on the back of her placemats. 


 In an effort to clear out the Halloween drawer I "refiled" some pieces. The two in the top left are now in the fall themed box, the pile of purples in the top right are going into the purple fabric milk crate, the orange with pumpkins is going into the orange/yellow milk crate and the bugs, spiders and bats are going into the critter basket.  I could have put those purple spiders and cats in the critter basket but I'm low on purples so that's how I decided. I put a piece of Dios de los Muertos fabric in the travel fabric box. 

I store my fabrics (greater than a FQ) by theme and then by color. I store my scraps by size with all colors mixed- normally 1.5, 2.5, 3.5 and 4.5, chunks (less than FQ) , light strings, bright strings, selvages, waste triangles).  

But I still have quite a few Halloween fabrics in the drawer. I'll probably make myself a table runner and set of 8 placemats since I also have lots of little pieces of batting to use that are too small to piece together for a quilt.  I might make a pillow or two for my Halloween loving daughter since I also have lots of tiny batting pieces I can use for stuffing.   I might even have enough fabrics for another quilt.  Who knows what will come out of my Holiday Cheer challenge.  (I also have Valentine's Day, Patriotic (Fourth of July), Christmas and St. Patrick's Day fabrics to use). 
And leftover from making all those 16 patches are some 3.5 inch scraps for the 3.5 inch scrap box. You will see those later in Rainbow Scrap Challenge projects. This year they will turn into bow ties, rail fences and snowballs - all on-going and carry over from 2017 RSC projects that use 3.5 inch scraps. 

9 comments:

Sue SA said...

Love the 16 patches, might try that with my collection of novelty fabrics. I am also trying to use them up, but dont have the fantastic variety you have! Good luck I love what you have made so far.

Linda said...

Phew! Amazing collection of different Halloween fabrics to start with, then a super system of sorting out all your fabrics. Love the 16 patch blocks although I'm not a fan of Halloween. You have been so busy and I haven't sewn a stitch!

Louise said...

Fun pieces! I like your Holiday Cheer Challenge, it sounds like a useful incentive to pull and use all those novelty prints. Placemats are a great way to use 'em. I don't collect "holiday" themed stuff, but have plenty of my own themes that would benefit from seeing the light of day!

mangozz said...

I like the idea of your Holiday Cheer Challenge. I always seem to pick up cute Christmas and Halloween fabric but never (not yet) use them. I thought I had a lot until I saw your selection. I was thinking of possibly starting a Christmas themed quilt soon while there is still enough time before hand to maybe get one finished in time. I can't start it yet though as I am still working on the mystery quilt. And guess what? I just found out that it is supposed to be 72" x 90". Wouldn't you know, thousands of tiny pieces later, I can't use one that size. Now I need to figure out a way to make it bigger, and with the on point setting it won't be easy.

mangozz said...

75" x 90"

Quilter Kathy said...

You get the "Holiday Cheermeister" award! (Grinch movie reference!)
Great job of organizing the themed fabrics!

Kaja said...

What a great challenge to set yourself. I'll look forward to seeing lots of cheerful holiday quilts through 2018.

Julierose said...

Love your holiday challenge idea--every year when new holiday fabrics come out I'd love to get them, BUT I look at my stash and say, I have to use these up first...I can see how this would really bash holiday stash...nice going hugs, Julierose

Unknown said...

This is a great idea! I loved this post...now if I could just bring myself to do the same thing with my Christmas fabrics. They are like rabbits...they just keep multiplying and appearing! Last time I had the bin fairly low, one of my quilting friends was worried that I was "running out of Christmas fabrics" and bought me several yards of different fabrics as an after Christmas gift during clearance sale time. Of course, I couldn't say no. Full bin again. Thank you for the inspiration.