Finished Halloween Mini Swap Mini (and my received mini!)

I am so excited because this week I have THREE finishes to share with you!!!

First up is my finished mini for the Halloween Mini Quilt Swap. Last week, I had finished the top, and I finished it all up this weekend! Here's it pre-quilting:

And here's final product!

I quilted each section with a different pattern: the cat is squiggles.

The frog is loop-de-loops and the hat has overlapping loops.

The candy corn have different sizes of loops.

The purple candy has a swirl.

I am so happy with how this turns out and I hope my partner loves it! It went off in the mail today with some fun goodies!

Here's my received mini!

Michele made me a lovely wall hanging that will be perfect for my office at work! It is so detailed! She also sent me a great fabric basket, a magnetic pin dish and a candle! Thank you!

Sharing at the normal Tuesday places: Fabric Tuesday, Linky Tuesday, Sew Cute Tuesday.

Halloween Mini Swap Progress

When last I posted about my Halloween Mini Swap project, it looked like this:

I realized that the black background was limiting with what I wanted to do, so I ripped that apart and found a different background entirely.

And I spent most of my Sunday constructing this:

I am so in love with how this turned out! My partner said she liked animals, so I thought a frog and black cat were perfect! Doesn't the texture background look so much better than the black??

The cat pattern I found here and modified it slightly -- no side pieces and made the tail skinnier so it ended up 8" instead of 8.5".

The wrapped candy is two QSTs and a plain square!

Now let's talk about this frog.

I searched and searched for a cute frog pattern. And then I had a CRAZY idea. For those of you that get Quiltmaker magazine, this issue's Patch Pal is a frog. I took that pattern and miniaturized it. Each square in the pattern became 1/2 inch finished in my frog. I did eliminate the feet and tongue from the pattern because I'm not THAT crazy.

Now I just need to do some hand embellishment -- whiskers and eyes for my kitty and a mouth and eyes for my frog/witch.

Linking up at Linky Tuesday, Fabric Tuesday, Sew Cute Tuesday, and WIP Wednesday!

Puttering along

Lately I've felt like I have been puttering along with my projects and not getting very much done. I've been working a lot in the evenings and on Saturdays at my second job so this seriously cuts into my sewing time. 

I have finished all of the centers of my Block Bs for my Romantic Garden quilt and started adding the outer parts to the centers.

Lots of stitch and flip triangles going on here. The pattern actually calls for two HSTs plus a square of the large light floral, but I didn't want to chop up the pattern, so I did stitch and flip corners on larger rectangles instead.

Here are the last sets of side pieces ready to be sewn on to my Ohio stars.

I also finally got started on my Halloween Mini Swap quilt! My plan is to make a mini row quilt wall hanging about 18" by 24". Here's the first row -- lil' candy corns! God bless my 60 degree ruler.

I have lots of ideas for the other rows -- witch hats, black cats, bats, headstones, more candy, frogs -- but I'm not sure what to do yet!

In other news, yesterday was my 27th birthday and my husband took me to the Maryland Zoo for the day and I got to feed Caesar the giraffe! Next to bunnies, giraffes are my favorite animals.

Here's the action shot:

And here are Park Ranger Husband and I hanging out with the penguins!

Happy stitching! Linking up at Fabric Tuesday, Linky Tuesday, Building Blocks Tuesday, and WIP Wednesday!