Make It Merry Month Five

In Month Five, the Make It Merry assignment was to make four Block #8's and four Block #9's. I just got a notice that my Month Six installment is due to arrive in the mail this weekend, so I better started on Month Five so as not to get behind. I am reminded of a saying by Karen Brown of Get It Done Quilts that, "My main goal for myself this year is to stop feeling like I am behind." A large part of the truth in that sentiment is attitude. But also, part of it is staying aware of those " _____ of the Month" things I signed up for. 

Block #8 had a lot of cream/tan and very little red. The cream/tan has subtleness in the use of three varied "white" fabrics. I liked that difference from past blocks. Variety is the spice of life. (As a bit of irrelevant trivia, per Wikipedia, Variety is the Spice of Life is also the name of 1939 comedy film. The plot is that when her composer husband loses interest in her, an ordinary housewife turns into a seductive vamp to try and win back his affections.) Also there were only four HSTs per block which is a relief. Making them a bit oversize is great for accuracy, but the trimming them to size can become tedious.  Here are the four 6½ " blocks, rotated as they will appear in the quilt.

Block #9 had a lots of greens and was overall dark, in stark contrast to Block #8. Once again, variety is the spice of life and an aspect of this project that kept it interesting.  This block had A thru G to cut out and so went a little more quickly than Block #8 which had A thru I. If you noticed there is an "0" instead of a "D" in this tray you are very observant. My "D" went AWOL. I am not concerned. My "C" had been gone for a couple weeks before showing up between two stacked trays. I could have used the "D" from my blue Alphabitties but I rationalized that "0" looks somewhat like a "D" but with the sharp edges smoothed over. 

These are the components of the basic nine-patch layout of Block #9 followed by an image of the four blocks assembled. This was an interesting approach to getting a square (red), within a square (mint), within a square (medium green) look. I've photos for this intermediate step for Block #9 but not for Block #8. Different stages of my step-by-step my assembly process for earlier blocks can be found in my posts for Month One (6/14/25), Month Two (6/21/25), Month Three (8/16/25) and Month Four (9/1/25).

Can you locate the four Block #8's and the four Block #9's from Month Five? Hint: Four blocks are central and four blocks are on diagonals. I kind of gave it away the way I photographed the Block #8's all gathered together; but you will still have to hunt some to find the Block #9's. And YAY! I finished Month Five before Month Six arrived!

Halloween Ornaments

I was tidying my sewing room and found eight ~4" squares with a Halloween theme in one of my many piles. They were leftovers from Raven and Pumpkin Placemats panels designed by Andrea Tachiera for Northcott Fabrics. I'd made the placemats five and six Halloween seasons ago as described in my blog posts for 10/24/20 and 10/23/19. Four squares on each of the two panels were intended for coasters, which I do not think are needed when there is a placemat. Anyway, I intended to repurpose those "coasters" as ornaments, and yet, they lingered on for years.

It is still Halloween, but even if it were not, I decided to stop shifting those squares around between piles and sew them up. My inspiration was a thought that kept trailing through my brain like an ear worm. The phrase "Give your self the gift of getting this done" is from a YouTube video of Just Get It Done Quilts by Karen Brown. Within the first 3½ minutes of the video Karen showed items she'd been pleased to complete that fit this "gift" category: a pin cushion kit, a decorated tray, a heating pad insert, a small kit she'd been given, and a notebook cover. Sewing something fun and quick is indeed a gift to yourself.

When I cut the images out of the panel, I stayed an ⅛" beyond the outer edge and used a ¼" seam to sew them face to face. Initially, I futzed around in my stash to find a suitable backing a material. I did find black and white checks, like one of the pumpkins, and a few other golds. (I could not help noticing, though, that I had created more piles to clean up.) Then I talked some sense into myself. Just make four ornaments; you do not need eight! I cut 4½" lengths of black grosgrain ribbon to use as hanging loops, centering each at the top between two face-to-face images.

Once I'd sewn along the edges, leaving an opening at the bottom, I turned the ornaments right sides out. I pressed the ¼" seam along each side of the open edge before starting to stuff. That crease makes it easier to whip stitch the opening closed afterward. The spider and bats squares are shown clipped in preparation for the whipstitch phase.

Here they are — SPIDER, BATS, PUMPKINS, and RAVEN — ready to be hung on the china cabinet near the placemats. PUMPKINS is my favorite. SPIDER is my least favorite... ewww!

Today, I should have been using my time to read my book for book club, which meets three days from now. Instead I discovered, cut out, sewed, stuffed, and whipstitched these ornaments and published this blog post. The experience was a guilty pleasure that was indeed a gift I gave myself. I will undoubtedly have to lose some sleep to finish that book before the club meeting, but today was worth it.

Three More Frank Pillows

I'd made a pillow from this Lella Boutique Frank pattern and blogged about it in my posts for 9/24/25 and  10/1/25. It worked up quickly so I decided to make others. I pretty much used the same fabrics but experimented with the FMQ. I improved my time with the cutting out by noticing I could cut strips and sub cut those. Here are three more Franks waiting to be FMQ'd. The coloration is subtle but the center Frank is a slightly more yellow hue of green. I could get two Frank faces out of one fat quarter.

I have never read the story of Frankenstein but I did know that Frankenstein is the name of the scientist/creator and the green guy himself was called either creature or monster. What I did not know, until I read a plot summary, was that the creature started out somewhat kind, initially rescuing a young girl from drowning. Humans, horrified by his appearance, treated him poorly and only then did he turned vindictive. I like to think that my three Franks represent "creature" in his early friendly stage. I also learned that his green color arose from his portrayal in a movie because the green makeup used in the 1931 film was applied to made him look pale and cadaverous on black and white film. Unlike Kermit the Frog, Frankenstein was not born that way. Even so, the result is still "♫ It's not Easy Being Green ♫".

For my second Frank, I used a HQ Clamshell template. Initially I though it would be too formal but I like the way it turned out. I chose the 2" size twosome on the right and stitched them in from the bottom up.

Then, even after my exhaustive review of rulers for the first Frank in my post for 10/1/25, I caved and bought a Wave E ruler. The Handi-Quilter website no long carries this ruler so I bought it from another online store that happened to stock it. Maybe HQ has just not gotten around to renaming it but wanted to have it in my collection in case it became unavailable. Yes, it is long (12" instead of 8"), but I plastered the back with quite a few sandpaper tabs and it stayed in place for me fine while quilting.  I used the side with the more squiggly of the waves and sewed the waves across Frank's face from the bottom up. The yellow pieces of tape reminded me how far up to space the next wave above the one beneath it. The FMQ went quickly... far faster than those clamshells. The result is a different look, but I liked it as well.

 

For my third Frank I considered vertical scallops since the other previous patterns had been horizontal. I also considered a curved edge squares block design and compared the two by sketching on clear sheets to audition. I opted for the scallops.

I did need to struggle and scratch my head a bit to get the scallops spaced as I wanted them and facing each other in pairs, but it was worth it. I used the HQ Mini Scallop Ruler and I am pleased with the results.

I forgot to put a label on the pillow I made for myself to keep but since these three are giveaways I did not want to skip that step. Should I name them all Frank? Do pillows need a name like quilts? Titles like Frank 1, Frank 2, and Frank 3 presumed a hierarchy and I did not want that. I considered Frankenstein, Frankly, Frankincense, Franklin, Let's Be Frank, and Frankfurter. After some thought (more thought than the topic merited) I decided on FRANK for each of them. After all, they will be in different households and there would no confusion or cases of mistaken identity. I also wanted small corner labels to be short: FRANK and DIC 2025. The labels are diagonal across the two upper corners on the back. All pillows have the same green spider web backing fabric and a zipper in the bottom.

Here is the trio of Franks all perched side by side before being sent off to their new homes. Each has his custom unique quilting pattern: waves, clamshells, or scallops. I had fun experimenting and practicing on every one. Can't you just hear those three Franks singing to the tune of We Three Kings?

We three Franks / of Halloween,

Not ghosts or pumpkins / instead we are green.

We're monsters forever / ceasing never,

To create / a BOO-ti-ful scene.

Woobles Crocheted Creeper

My grandson is into the video game Minecraft and wanted a character from the game, a Creeper, crocheted for him. Woobles are amigurumi crochet kits that comes with exquisite step by step video instructions for a wide variety of figures. My daughter sent me a kit for the figure Isaiah wanted. I began crocheting it, faithfully followed along on the video, using the soft yarn provided. The yarn has great quality as it has a good weight to it and does not split. With the help of my iPad, a blocky green critter began to take form.

The facial features, eyes and mouth, are provided and attach with a snap-on safety ring and cone attachment method. I hesitated before doing this step. Once snapped on, the pieces cannot be removed — hence the concept of safety. I watched the video several times; the placing and affixing was no biggie. My hesitancy was merely my initial lack of confidence. Once I forged ahead, my Creeper with two eyes and a mouth came to be. I think his mouth is more of a a mustache... but what do I know?

Next up was crocheting the four legs. These are itty bitty parts, only five rounds but I kept losing count and having to start over again. I think I made seven legs before succeeding in producing four legs. And just like with the eyes, I paused before attaching the legs. The instructions were clear, so clear and detailed, that I did feel a teensy-weensy bit overwhelmed.

But what is a Creeper without legs? Those legs were the final step and I finished him off. Here is the completed Creeper. This is going to the same grandson who loved the Wooble Axolotl (post for 1/22/24).

While crocheting this project I did learn some interesting facts about Creepers and also some video game terminology. Per a Wikipedia Creeper explanation:

The character model that later became the creeper was first created on August 20, 2009, as a result of a coding error when creating the pig mob in the early pre-alpha stages of Minecraft's development. The game's creator, Markus Persson, accidentally mixed up the dimensions of the model, swapping the length and height. Instead of deleting the result, Persson instead stated "I'll keep it for a creepy creature", and later added a green texture based on the in-game leaves texture to the model, gave it aggressive AI, and turned it into a hostile mob.

I also learned that Minecraft is a sandbox video game. What is that? Per Wikipedia's sandbox explanation:

A sandbox game is a video game with a gameplay element that provides players a great degree of creativity to interact with, usually without any predetermined goal, or with a goal that the players set for themselves. Such games may mostly or totally lack any objective, and are sometimes referred to as non-games or software toys. ... The term "sandbox" derives from the nature of a sandbox that lets people create nearly anything they want within it.

I really did sew on all four legs. Here is proof. I used a pair of hinged mirrors from my quilting tools to show several views of the Creeper at once.

Let's hope my grandson does not want an entire mob of Creepers. One was fun to crochet; it did not take that long. But I'd rather get back to my sewing. The mirror view gave me an idea. Maybe I should send him a pair of hinged mirrors like mine so he can create his own mob of Creepers. 💚

Further terminology update:
I just learned that the term mob in Minecraft does not necessarily mean a large violent group. Instead it stands for a "mobile non-player character". Specifically

Creepers are hostile mobs (mobile non-player characters) that spawn in dark places. Instead of attacking the player directly, they creep up on the player and explode, destroying blocks in the surrounding area and potentially hurting or killing the player if they are within the blast radius.

So in retrospect, one Creeper is enough as long as it is in blasting distance. Live and learn...

Holiday Card Class

Yesterday, I took a class at the Cotton Patch in Lafayette. It was taught by my friend Tekoa. What fun; and to make it even better Cotton Patch set up a loaner Bernina 335 for my use. I did not have to lug my sewing machine there. I also tried very hard not to bring too much fabric either.

I made two cards during class: a pumpkin and a house. They both came out cute and, with Tekoa's paper piecing technique, there was no need to tear out the foundation. We used a type of non-woven Pellon-type  interfacing, the non-fusible type, and left it in.

The first card I made was a pumpkin.  It was made in two sections, so probably not the easiest choice for my first card, but I succeeded. I even fussy cut a little chicken in the lower corner, since he (she?) was one of my orange print scraps. Yes, I did have all that many different oranges in my stash. Per Tekoa's advice, I made sure there was enough contrast among them to make the effort of the piecing show up.

My next card was all one section, but this time I picked a variety of colors rather than monotonic. I fussy cut the fabric around the door. This scallop scrap was from the "throwaway" border of a Stacy Hsu Coral Queen of the Sea mermaid doll panel I sewed  back in 2017 for my granddaughter(s). I still have well over a yard of it left.

Tekoa hand draws these templates to custom fit the size of the photo cards she likes best. She had a large selection of these sheets free for the class attendees to pick from and take home. She was quite generous with her time in drafting them in advance and printing them out for our choosing. I picked this particular pattern to try next because of the steep angles that challenge my brain more and because it was a portrait format and the pumpkin and house were landscape format. Also, this time at home, I tried to piece onto a more slippery paper rather that the vellum-type feel of the foundation I used in class.

To be sure I did not forget what I learned in class, I made up this flower when I got home. I did goof on one of the sections of white dotted background by attaching it wrong side up; but I got to practice picking it off and trying again, successfully. I did have to pick off one of the darker leaves and do it again also because I trimmed it along the wrong line when I flipped it. I am proud at least that I got the dark leaves to face the way I wanted them to. The flower is my least favorite of the three, but it really made me think and learn — which is the purpose of a class. One additional plus to sewing at home was that I got to use my trusty Pfaff. Muscle memory is a strong thing to buck, especial when established over decades on the same machine.  All during class, I kept reaching for where the pressure foot lift was positioned on my Pfaff; its orientation is different on the loaned Bernina.

This is the sum total of the scraps I brought — a very, very, very small percentage of those I left home. Over to the left side of the shoe box are some leftover bindings from quilts I have made. When the center fold is ironed out, they work as well as jelly rolls for small scraps. I added a few fat quarters in the center mainly for pale or dark background options. The quart-size zip lock bag has some more square-ish and less narrow scraps. "Not bad. I done good." 

I learned something new, improved on my tendency to drag too much to a class, tried out a different brand of sewing machine, enjoyed time with a friend, and have three cards I can send to someone. I was hooked enough that when I got home I ordered more photo cards and more of the vellum-like foundation paper. Also of non-negligible enjoyment was the absolutely delicious home-baked pumpkin bread somebody brought to class to share. There was chocolate, too!  Taking this class was indeed a wise decision.

Steampunk Halloween

I bought this funky panel at the Pleasanton Craft Fair (post for 9/25/25) and decided to sew it up for this Halloween season before I forgot about it or lost it in my stash. The panel is titled Steampunk Halloween 3, which then begs the question, "Are there Steampunk panels 2 & 3?". Yes, there are, but they are more grid type panels and not items to cut out and stuff. 

There are six monster-ish images to sew and stuff on the panel I bought. They are called Pillow Pals and Pincushions. I've shown the front of the four larger ones and the back of the two smaller ones.

• Mr. Moon (~ 16" tall)
• Pumpkin  (~ 14" tall)
• Monster with Clock (~ 11 " tall)
• Monster with Clock Pincushion (~ 7" tall)
• Monster with Pumpkin (~ 11" tall)
• Monster with Pumpkin Pincushion (~ 7" tall)

The images are scattered on the panel, not lined up neatly in rows. The straight of grain varies in its direction and, consequently, so does the direction of the bias. The moon is pretty consistent in terms of grain orientation, but the others are a toss-up. This random grain direction is actually advantageous when trying to tug the front and back to align with each other. I found a fair amount of pinning was a must. To match along all edges, the front and back will not lie flat with each other. Once they are stuffed though, this "bump" really does not matter. The pumpkin illustrates the largest mismatch.

I also liked that the quarter inch seam was not marked. It is frustrating with other ornaments that a slight deviation for that quarter inch reveals a narrow slip of white peeking out at the seam. These steampunk images do not have that demarcation line. Also the exterior curves on these were very gentle. I did not need to clip the concave curves or interior corners as is usually recommended. I often forget and have to re-inside-out the ornament to do so ... bummer. The moon had only a couple spots in the seam allowance near his nose that needed clipping and the design did not present any pointy corners. The large pumpkin had a couple spots to clip as indicated.

I always use this same Silky Poly-fil for stuffing. It is so soft, not at all scratchy or itchy as some can be. I have a tool I bought from a doll making booth several years ago that is fantastic for inserting stuffing. I think its original intent was to allow stuffing to go down into long narrow places, like a dolls arms or legs, but I find it distributes the stuffing much more evenly, even in wide open cavities. The tip of the tool grips the stuffing, so in reality I am pulling the stuffing into place rather than pushing it. I don't keep compressing it in the same area. For these six pillow/pincushions I used about 1⅓ bags.

Another tip I try to remember to do is to turn in the seam allowance at the opening and crease it with my thumbnail to make it easier when whip stitching the opening closed after stuffing. Those Clover Wonder Clips® are great for helping keep the opening even without wrinkles and aligned while hand stitching.

 

Enough details! Here is the front and back of those six funky critters.

One last afterthought... These are some images from the panel that can possibly be used for appliqué. At opposite corners are a mama and baby pumpkin. The plant in the tuna can reminds me of Audrey II  from Little Shop of Horrors.  Rising from a tombstone is a vulture. In the very center, emerging from a typewriter, is a "ghost writer". Yes, appliqué is the "A" word for me but how hard could it be to adhere these to iron-on fusible and decorate something? There was no way I could throw these out!