The Ghastlies

I am familiar with the Ghastlies because I made child's quilt out of the fabric line by Alexander Henry and described it in my post for 3/17/14. Apparently the Ghastlies popularity continues because, six years later, a friend of mine emailed me an ad that this panel was on sale. These figures are members of an extended family from the quilt I made back in 2014, but I caved and bought one panel anyway. It was on sale and there was only one left! I hesitated for a few moments since the panel has only a front view of the four characters; but I convinced myself that they were so eerily pleasing they would still be appealing to a child even with different backs. 

I would have to supply my own fabric for the backs so I dove into my drawer of fat quarters and drew out these four colors to coordinate with the figures. They themselves seem to convey a gloomy, spooky aura to me.

I picked a muted coral to match the sash of the uniform, a dusky blue to match the puffy dress sleeves, a mustardy gold to match the evening sheath, and a mottled mauve to match the lining of the cape.

Curious about the design source for these characters. I searched the web and found that the Ghastlies had been painted by the team of the De Leon Design Group at Alexander Fabrics. A Hawthorne Threads blog post titled Meet the Ghastlies was posted 6/14/11 so the ghoulish crew must have made their initial appearance on the fabric scene around 2011. Hawthorne Threads attributed the character inspiration to the writer/illustrator/poet Edward Gorey. He is quoted as saying, "If you're doing nonsense it has to be rather awful, because there'd be no point. I'm trying to think if there's sunny nonsense. Sunny, funny nonsense for children—oh, how boring, boring, boring." One of his books for children is The Gashlycrumb Tinies ©1997 which tells in alphabetical rhyming order how each of the tiny children met his demise: Amy fell down the stairs, Basil was assaulted by bears...

From the Amazon Look inside ↴ feature I was able to learn that a few names for The Gashlycrumb Tinies were Amy, Basil, Clara, Fanny, Hector, and Ida. From other random google searches I uncovered the names Sebastian and Mathilda associated with the Ghastlies. The two little girls who receive these dolls may want to name them themselves, but I have some suggestions. I propose the following:

• Sebastian and Mathilda as parents 
• Fanny as the lady with dress with the blossoming bottom 
• Ida as the lady in gold because she looks like "Ida like to invite you in but..." 
• Basil for the caped figure because he reminds of the British Dracula or Sherlock Holmes
• Hector for the upside-down boy being held by his daddy
• Amy or Clara for the baby, presuming she is a girl

 

The back of the dolls look unique. They seem to spell out a four letter word but you must use your imagination to figure what that word it might be. The mustard gold could be a question mark...? The blue and mauve possibly "O's" and the coral may be a "B". Perhaps a bit mixed up, but consider "BOO?" 

Hawthorne Thread also included this witty ditty:

In Ghastlie Manor on Ghastlie Street

There's a Ghastlie family there to meet.

Mathilda Ghastlie and husband, too

Extend a Ghastlie, "How do you do?"

It's a Ghastlie day for a Ghastlie walk

Under Ghastlie trees around a Ghastlie block.

A Ghastlie time for Ghastlie things

Like Ghastlie pets with Ghastlie wings!

                         

                      – poem attributed to Alexander Henry Fabrics

P.S. I think it may have taken me more time to research and write this post than it did to sew and stuff the dolls; but blogging is part of the fun!

WIP: "Chicks' Week In" in Oklahoma

I am in Oklahoma this week visiting my daughter and my 17-month-old granddaughter. I brought out the Ghastliest quilt which is finally finished. You can see more details of it in my March 17, 2014 post titled Ghastlies Quilt Completed.

My son-in-law is on travel for work so this is going to be a chicks' week. We hope to talk, chill, quilt, look at fabrics, maybe shop a tad, and read. My granddaughter is in a crazy-about-books phase now so my daughter and I will be reading and reading and reading to her. I brought out two hard cover books and four cloth books. I already blogged about the two cloth rainy day books in my post for February 28, 2012 and the other two cloth books are in this post. This one is titled Tiny Tailor. I figured I might as well get the next generation indoctrinated into fabric and sewing at a young age. After all, there is a theme for this week's visit and my daughter hopes to get in a fair amount of sewing accomplished with me here to help entertain said grandchild.

The illustrations are adorable and the book will also help with learning to count. I plan to read it to my granddaughter tonight at bed time. Maybe it is just because I like swirls, but I think the shoe page is my favorite. But I have to admit that the toad on the toadstool and the wren with scissors are pretty darn cute, too.

The other book is a brightly colored one about nursery rhymes.

I like how the words are written all around the square on the left page as well as written out as a verse on the right page. I already read this one to my granddaughter last night. She sat in my lap so I was thrilled. Living half the width of the country away we Skype, but when I do see there there is a bit of stranger-danger to overcome when I first arrive for an in-person visit. I have no pictures yet but hopefully before I leave…?

I think when I return home after this week away, I will start to FMQ some of the smaller projects that have been on my ongoing list for just about forever. It will be good for me to get in more practice while the Ghastlies quilt is still fresh in my brain but I will have had a bit of time off. My stats for this week are:

Completed projects since 03/12/14 WIP post:

1. Ghastlies baby quilt (begun in February 12, 2014 post and finished in March 17, 2014 post)
2. Tiny Tailor cloth book
3. Nursery Rhymes cloth book

Ongoing projects:

1. Classic Cars strip quilt (August 3, 2013 post) - need to back, quilt, and bind
2. Grinch quilt (May 22, 2013 post) - all borders added, need to back, quilt, and bind
3. Jack O'Lantern Trio (February 2, 2013 post) - awaiting FMQ
4. Chicken quilt - awaiting FMQ
5. Overlapping square wall hanging - awaiting FMQ
6. Mask quilt (October 19, 2011 post) - hidden away awaiting inspiration for arranging hexagons

New projects since 03/12/14 WIP post:  

1. Tiny Tailor cloth book
2. Nursery Rhymes cloth book
3. A wall hanging kit I brought with me to Oklahoma to cut out

I will now link up to this week's Freshly Pieced WIP.

Ghastlies Quilt Completed

The Ghastlies quilt is finished! We had a beautiful day here Saturday so my husband acted as my quilt stand in our backyard for the photo shoot. The interplay of the magenta, lilac, olive, and coral bricks with the deadly mauve of the Ghastlies pleases me. I do not tend to gravitate toward black and white but I took a chance with the black and white accents for the delineators between rows and for the binding; I am glad I stepped outside my comfort zone. My FMQ of the swirls, trees, and characters is passable. It will look better after I have washed the quilt and it softly crinkles up a bit.

The quilt back is a bright pop of sunshine in the forest to match our beautiful day and remind the Ghastlies not to be too serious.

A close up of the back shows up my swirls and trees and feature FMQ. Since the Ghastlies figures are on the reverse side of the trees, it is the FMQ of those eerie folk that shows up. It surprised me that it sort of looks like rolling hills among the grove of trees.

 You can sort of see pathways and berms better here where I zoomed in.

After placing my last stitch in the binding, I am happy to be finished. I seldom add a full quilt label. I have often exhausted my capacity for making decisions by that point and am unable to mull over what to say on a label. I usually initial and date my quilts subtly in the lower right corner of the front. This photo shows my trademark signature and a closeup of the zebra binding and yellow backing with its olive dots. After all my agonizing over the size, the final dimensions turned out to be 37" wide x 60" tall.

When I visit my daughter this week, I plan to bring this quilt with me from California to Oklahoma and show it to her in person. I will mail it from there to Boston where my daughter's lifetime best friend lives with her husband and new baby daughter. Best buddies in high school, mutual sounding board for each other throughout college, maid/matron of honor at each other's weddings, my daughter and she are now companions in motherhood. I think that is awesome!

WIP: Ghastlies Quilt – FMQ Finish and Binding

This week I free motion quilted the Ghastlies figures with a lilac toned thread that was not an exact match but complemented the background color. I was going to outline just the figures, but then noticed that if I stitched around the flocks of bats and around the shadows as well, the quilting density was enough and I did not need filler among the figures. The result is not perfect but as the saying goes, "It will not be noticed from a galloping horse".

After concentrating on following a certain path precisely with the trees last week and with the Ghastlies figures this week, I was actually looking forward to quilting a free-form design on the bricks. I went with a swirl design, something rounded to offset the rectangularity of the bricks.  My swirls are certainly not uniform; I think it would take a computer controlled long arm to do that, and that is a whole different look. Since I did not change thread color with each brick  – yee-gads, that would be crazy! – the quilt stitch contrasts more on some bricks. They are okay. Not great, but okay. I trimmed up the quilt and it is ready for binding.

I was happy to re-configure my machine back for normal sewing with feed dogs raised, stitch-size automatic, even-feed engaged, quarter inch foot installed. Ah, this is my comfort configuration. I happily sewed on the zebra binding, mitered corners and all. All that remains for completion is to hand stitch the binding to the back and sign or label it in some way.

Here are my stats updated relative to my last WIP post. I  exclusively worked the FMQ on the Ghastlies quilt this week. Since I did not want to upset my sewing machine's configuration for thread tension, pressure foot, feed dogs, etc. there are no new projects. The ongoing projects, or more correctly called, the stalled projects, are unchanged from my 2/19/14 WIP post and mostly awaiting FMQ. That was almost a month ago so I have repeated them here, primarily to remind myself.

Completed projects since 03/05/14 WIP post:

        None –  but the FMQ on the Ghastlies is complete

Ongoing projects:  

1. Ghastlies baby quilt (begun in February 12, 2014 post)
2. Classic Cars strip quilt (August 3, 2013 post)- need to back, quilt, and bind
3. Grinch quilt (May 22, 2013 post) - all borders added, need to back, quilt, and bind
4. Jack O'Lantern Trio (February 2, 2013 post) - awaiting FMQ
5. Chicken quilt - awaiting FMQ
6. Overlapping square wall hanging - awaiting FMQ
7. Mask quilt (October 19, 2011 post) - hidden away awaiting inspiration for arranging hexagons

New projects since 03/05/14 WIP post:  

        None – but I did get out a new kit and look longingly at the directions

I will link up to Freshly Pieced WIP now to gaze into the world beyond the Ghastlies.

WIP: Ghastlies Quilt – Backing and FMQ Start

This week I planned to insert a few rows of white and grey trees on the grey and pink striped backing of the quilt. I fussy cut them and joined them. I calculated how to space them out so they would fall roughly behind the Ghastlies panels on the front.  Both the Ghastlies and the tree panels would then be somewhat evenly distributed vertically. I'd even selected a lovely lilac thread for my FMQ that went both with the front and blended nicely with the grey/pink on the back. Then I laid out the striped material to cut it and had to change my plans. The stripe was a very light weight, almost like a thin shirting or blouse fabric. I doubted it would hold up as a quilt back – rubbing would wear a bare spot in it rather quickly. So I auditioned (and rejected) two alternate candidates from my stash.

Reject 1: The baby getting this quilt is named after a flower so I thought perhaps this print with roses would be a nice touch. The lilac background is like one of the polka dot bricks and the witch does have roses in her hat. But the overall tone and pretty colors I thought was too prissy for such a comical feature fabric. It was just plainly and simply ... wrong! I am all for a surprise on the back, but not a jolt of discord.

Reject 2: Then I thought this deep magenta border print was worth considering. The majority of the fabric is the dark band on the left and does go with those magenta colored polka dot bricks. I really disliked the introduction of the aqua color in the small paisleys, though  and I considered it to be overall too dark and oppressive for an entire back.

The Winner: I am going back to my gut feel for what works. I'd second guessed my original backing choice of the yellow with olive dots after both my daughter and one friend questioned "Really?" But, the green is the correct somber green, not the minty pastel nor the aqua color in the two previous pseudo-contenders. The splotchy stenciled dots are a nice eerie touch that remind me of clouded over moons. They match the trees in color and the bricks in spotted spirit. The serious green has a lots of cheery sunny yellow to balance it and make the overall effect happy, as it should be for a baby. Since I'd only had a half yard of the yellow, I searched for and found an additional one yard on eBay quite a while ago. After going to all that trouble, I am going to use this fabric for its intended purpose.

A five row high grove of trees on the back stretched my yard-and-a half of fabric to the length I needed and broke up the expanse of yellow. I set in accent strips of the black polka dots to give it a more crisp look and to tie in with a black and white binding. Monday night I trimmed everything to the right size and sandwiched it all together with bamboo batting. First thing Tuesday morning I basted it with 505 basting spray.

I auditioned thread colors on the front for FMQ. Black I thought would be too intense and I vowed to be braver than using a clear thread this time. Candidates were white (safe), grey (dull), mauve (too matchy-matchy), pink (serious contender), lilac (actually gave it a lift), or green (brings out shrubbery, trees, some bricks). I started with the green  thread, and began outlining the green tree row. So far, so good.

I have heard repeatedly from many home quilters, quilt class teachers, and professional quilters that they all use the same color thread in the bobbin as on the quilt top, claiming that no matter how well you adjust your tension, little dots of the contrasting color pop up on one side or the other. I want to use the lilac to outline the characters in the ghastlies sections and wonder if I dare continue with green in the bobbin for the back. On the other hand, using lilac in the bobbin and having it appear on the back might add a bit of interest. Deciding to stick with matching bobbin thread, I would FMQ the white trees in white, the grey trees in grey, and let the back be a rainbow of sorts. The white trees were next. I completed one row of eighteen trees. They looked fine from the front...

 ... but, uh-oh! Just look at the back!

Three trees in from my row of eighteen trees my bobbin thread broke. When I got situated again and brought the thread up through the quilt to resume, I apparently did not lower my pressure foot to the correct position. On my Pfaff there is a lowered position, for sewing with feed dogs engaged, and a fully raised position, where tension wheels are disengaged and you can slide your fabric freely out from under and away. A third mid- height plateau position is for darning and free motion quilting. I groaned, but thought that at least the threads were loose and loopy and would remove easily, kind of like when you find the right end to start ripping out a chain stitch. Not so much. The loose loops would become entangled with each other and not come out with just the pull of a thread. I was paranoid that I was going to get impatient and tear hole in the quilt from tugging. I took my time and remained calm and fifty minutes later I finally had the mess cleaned up and was ready to quilt again.

I have an index card that I tack up on my bulletin board to help me remember the steps to prepare to FMQ. I added the step about having the pressure foot at plateau height. I started to make the mistake again during the grey trees but thankfully half a tree into it I recognized my sewing machine sounded different and caught myself before I made too much of a mess.

After ninety trees I felt like Daniel from the movie Karate Kid when Mr. Miragi tells him, "Wax On. Wax Off." I had the motion engrained in my muscle memory. Here is part of my grove of trees.

Next up to FMQ are the Ghastlies figures. They should be fun to outline. The bricks will be last. I have not decided an FMQ pattern for them yet. It needs to be relatively simple since the thread will contrast with some of them and my inexperienced FMQ slips will show up more.

Here are my stats updated relative to last week's WIP post. I caved and completed two cloth books with a rainy day theme but mainly I have been actively working this Ghastlies quilt. The ongoing projects are unchanged from my 2/19/14 WIP post and mostly awaiting FMQ so I have not repeated them here.

Stats since 02/26/14 WIP:

     Completed  projects - 2 cloth books (see February 29, 2014 post)

     Currently in progress - 7 - but actively concentrating on Ghastlies

     New projects - 2 -  I caved and sewed two cloth books

I will link up to Freshly Pieced WIP to check out what has been keeping others busy.

WIP: Ghastlies Quilt – Tree Top Assembly

At the end of my last Ghastlies post I was decided tree strips. I committed to one double height green tree row and, while my mind was churning on others, I made some tweaks on the polka dot brick rows. I had one brick on the left edge of the quilt where a little boy was hiding behind his mom's skirt. Had I left it that way, once I trimmed the edge, none of her skirt would have shown and a smidgeon of the boy would have been covered by the binding.

I removed that brick, trimmed a half inch off the right edge and re-inserted it so more of the skirt showed and the 3/8" binding will just come up to the little boy's pudgy cheek.

Back to those trees... Oh, how I agonized on how much more tree fabric to include, how tall to cut each tree strip, and where to place them! If I had trees on the top should they be on the bottom also? Did I need equal amounts of white/grey/green trees? Should I save some green trees for the back? In the next photo the trees look grey but it must be my lighting because they are really green as in the preceding photo. As a backing, I'd been planning to use that yellow fabric whose olive dots matched the tree fabric so exactly they seemed meant for each other. Now, I was reconsidering. 

Tucking in a few tree rows in all three colors here and there, I experimented with repeated layouts. I reforested that quilt with trees many times over! After rearranging yet another configuration, I stood back and stared once again at the quilt on the wall. "Stop!" I scolded myself. "Enough!"  So I added no other strips, joining together only what was currently on the wall. Here is the assembled top on my design wall, with a bit of sunshine streaming in on the lower left side edge. I decided that asymmetry was good, tree edge on top, dot edge on bottom, uneven tree row heights. The grey and the green double tree height rows only appear one place each but hey, that's OK. If I'd included all the fabric combinations I was considering, this tall, tall, quilt would have been more appropriate as a floor runner down a long hallway.

After saving the green trees to use with the yellow fabric with olive dots, I changed my mind for the backing material. I will use this pink and grey stripe instead. The uneven stripe widths are unique and, since I know this is for a girl, I no longer have to pretend to be gender neutral. I plan to break up the length of the back with a grove or two of grey and white trees, just to add a bit of a surprise.

In the game of Scrabble, I view Q and Z as partners in crime. I am pairing that duo again for the edges of this quilt so it will have a Quirky Zebra binding. It should be fun!

Now I am at my typical stall point of backing, batting, and FMQ. I plan to prepare the backing and batting today. I just might distract myself this evening with sewing some of the cloth books I bought this weekend (see 2/22/13 post) and put off starting the FMQ with the lame excuse that I'll be fresher in the morning. To quote Scarlett O'Hara from Gone with the Wind...

Here are my stats updated relative to last week's WIP post. I have completed nothing and started nothing new since I have been actively working this Ghastlies quilt exclusively. The ongoing projects are unchanged from my 2/19/14 WIP post and mostly awaiting FMQ so I have not repeated them here.

Stats since 02/19/14 WIP:

     Completed  projects - 0

     Currently in progress - 7 - but actively working only on Ghastlies

     New projects - 0 thus far - unless I cave and sew cloth books

I will further delay my FMQ by linking up to Freshly Pieced WIP to check out what has been keeping others busy.