Sunday, May 31, 2009

Happy Halloween Blog of the Month-Part 3a

Hello Halloween friends,

It's already June and we're on month three of Happy Halloween--my how time flies! Are you able to keep up? If not, these lessons will be here for a long, long, time. Just click on the Halloween Blog of the Month icon on the right side of the blog and bring up all of the lessons. Just remember that they are in newest to oldest order, so scroll down to the first lesson you missed and work up from there.

Meet my new friends--Mr. Pumpkinhead, Witch, and Vampire. By now you know how to prepare and fuse the applique pieces on the LSAS2. I sprayed and ironed the background fabrics with spray starch to stiffen them up so they act as a stabilizer (see last lesson). If you have a kit from us and have misplaced a fabric (darn, I know I saw that darker green fabric somewhere and how can you misplace something when you haven't even moved from the sewing machine?) or just want something different than our choice, feel free to go to your stash and choose something different--I wanted a different fabric for Witch's nose. : ) I used my lined fabrics for all of the eyes, Pumpkinhead's mouth, and Vampire's shirt and fangs.

Again, build smaller sections on your Applique Presser Sheet before combining the pieces together. If you don't have an APS you don't know how much easier life will be with one, or two, or three--three of the best investments ever!!! (I have one at each of my ironing boards).

For Mr. Pumpkinhead build 3 sections: the head wedges and stem, eyes and eyelids*, and the body, neck, and bowtie. After fusing these sections together, use the placement guide to fuse them into place. *I chose to fuse the eye section and the mouth to the pumpkin after I did the buttonhole stitching and because they were lined fabric, the previous stitching did not show through. Mark all detail lines (don't forget to mark the teeth even though the mouth is not yet fused to the head. I used my Sewline black pencil and a sunny window to see the lines--yeah I remembered this time! Fuse Mr. Pumpkinhead to the lightest background.






For Witch build 3 sections: the hat and hatband, the eyes, eyelids, and nose, and hair and head. After fusing the sections together, use the placement guide to fuse them into place. I chose to do the buttonhole on the shirt, before fusing the bat in place. Mark the detail lines and fuse Witch to the 2nd to the darkest fabric.



For Vampire build 3 sections: eyes, eyelids, and nose, head, inner ears, and hair, cape, shirt, collar and tie. Mark the detail lines and fuse Vampire to the 2nd to the lightest fabric.


We are ready again to do the buttonhole stitching. It might be time to change your needle--we have been doing quite a lot of applique. I noticed that my needle had a little fusible goo residue on it, so I cleaned it off. These 3 characters are slightly more complicated than the previous ones, but I know that you can handle them. I'll give you more hints and tips in the next lesson.

I'll also be posting or sending you an email because we are getting in the most wonderful Halloween fabrics that would make great backings for this wonderful quilt. Halloween fabrics can sell out fast and I want you to have the best choice. Check out the blog from May 29th to see the Happy Halloween fabric that we have designed for Quilting Treasures. This fabric will be in soon and I'm having a hard decision about which print I want for my backing.

See you soon,

Lynda

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