Halloween Potholder

picture A picture B picture C

its nearly October so time to prepare for Halloween, yeah. I love the American style Halloween of over the top decorated houses and way too much candy, sadly i will be home this year where you get funny looks if you decorate before the 31st! so so boring. I usually start decorating two weeks before and just keep adding everyday and everyday i will pick my son up from school and someone will say "you're starting a bit early". i am sure it will be the same this year. I also prefer the "Trick or Treat" attitude of I've knocked on your door so give me the sweets. We in Scotland have the saying of "the sky is blue, the grass is green, may i have my Halloween", you are then expected to perform some song, dance or joke at the front door of the lacking in entertainment adult. how mad does that sound? if you get some sweets it is a bonus but the tradition is an apple and some monkey nuts! not sure why they are called "monkey nuts" but they are peanuts in their shell.

the potholder is easy and relaxing to do. i made it while catching up on the weeks TV. i first drew a pumpkin shape on a piece of calico. it is the best fabric ever as you can do anything with it and its cheap. you then just trace around the image with a chain stitch, this gives it some depth. i used wool for the outline as i liked the colour, but floss is fine.

next cut some wadding and some backing fabric and layer together. picture A.

you can then quilt through all layers using a basic running stitch. picture B. it doesn't have to be neat and you can use as many or as few colours as you like.i used floss for the straight stitching. its good to experiment with textures and threads.

next take some backing fabric in a Halloween print (i used a patterned felt as Halloween hasn't come to the stores here yet) make sure you cut it a good few inches larger to allow for seams. felt doesn't fray so i just folded it over onto the front and pinned in place. picture C. then you can simply stitch in place. i hand stitched mine as i was still watching TV at the time but you can machine if you like. remember to add a loop for hanging, i used bias binding but ribbon works just as well.


i think the finished result will look good on my Halloween party table.

tina turtle

cara loves her tina turle cushion which was made using an Alan Dart pattern. it is very large and was quite a handful to get through the sewing machine but it worked out really well. the pattern can be found at



http://www.abakhan.co.uk/acatalog/News_Story_14.html

teach pattern

after much playing about with files and web pages here is the cross stitch pattern for teach.

one for teachers

this was a gift i made for my sons teacher. very easy to cross stitch and put together, i thought it was quite amusing, hope she liked it. i will put the pattern on my blog when i work out how. our summer holidays in Scotland is July and august, these can obviously be changed to suit. i used the DMC cross stitch pattern maker to produce the pattern and just really free handed it. hope someone out there likes it. it is just a simple rectangle stitched and stuffed and the ribbons added with buttons to keep it easy.

DAY 1

Hello, after a few months of reading other peoples blogs i have decided to have my own. not sure how it will turn out but hopefully will be full of interesting crafts. i myself love to find new things to make and i only found out about this blog site as i have an addiction to http://blog.craftzine.com/ not a day goes by that i dont look at it. i dont want to miss something really good. i am also hopeing this blog will encourage me to finish projects more often than making lists of things to do. dont know if that is possible?

i didnt want my first entry to be pictureless so heres a photo of the jewelery mannequins i am making for gifts . the pattern is from the new Tilda homestyle book. ill need to work on how to photograph things better but oh well i will learn.