And now it’s October.. . the leaves blow like snow from the ash tree behind our house. They swirl around the front door to the delight of my offspring who try to dart inside with as few leaves as possible following them through the door.
At this time of year, I feel privileged to see the bats that flit in front of the windows, catching the moths that are drawn to the light.
For the October block I was in the unusual position of having too many ideas! Black cats, ghouls and bats, witches, pumpkins and ghosts!
I was considering ideas for the October block when I left a good friend’s house. There was a stunning little group of scarlet fly agaric toadstools in her neighbour’s garden. I had never seen real toadstools like this before and I was fascinated! They are such a striking feature of Autumn, that I decided there and then that those toadstools were going to be in the October block. The rest of the design kind of grew around them.
If you follow me on Instagram, you will know that I dithered about the pumpkin. I wasn’t too sure about adding the orange into the grey and purple colour scheme and I felt it decentered the design. But it was cute! And with a rich yellow fabric behind the cut-out face, it really seemed to glow!
In the end, I put it to the public vote and the pumpkin was given an overwhelmingly thumbs up!
When I was a child, pumpkins were not imported and we carved lanterns out of turnips. It used to take hours to chip away the solid flesh. Now the shops here are full of pumpkins.
Last Halloween someone actually stole one of ours!! We had three at the top of the driveway, two that the elder children had carved and one that I did for the Little One. And somebody stole my one. It was just GONE. I wasn’t sure whether to be annoyed or flattered!! The tea light was left sitting with the other pumpkins and the rest of it had vanished.
Who could possibly need a pumpkin that much!?
The witch was fun to make with her apron and straggly hair. One day I intend to make a little coven of them, some with green hair and silver aprons, others with pink hair and steely grey gowns. Wouldn’t they be cute?!
I was delighted with the background fabric. It was pale enough not to compete with the central scene yet it fitted in with the magical tone. I have had it for a while and I absolutely LOVE it! The scrawled writing reminds me of an old spell book and I thought it was perfect for this block.
To make sure you don’t miss November’s block, sign up to my blog below. I’d love to have you along!
You can see last month’s block of the calendar quilt here.
For tips on machine applique, check out my machine appliqué tutorial.
Signing up for the blog isn’t the same as signing up for the newsletter. Didn’t know that. Kind of hard to find all the info when the writing is in gray instead of black. Hope to get your cute designs next month as I was confused about where I sign up.
Thanks for this information, Vicky, it’s useful to know that you found it a bit confusing. I’ll have a look at the design and see if I can make it clearer. I’m glad you’ll be following along from now on!
I am not clear as to what the monthly Calendar is about.
Would you tell me please, do we stitch along, just leave comments or something else.
Do love your applique by the way :-))
Hi Michele-Marie, the Calendar quilt pattern will be released soon, in the meantime I’m just posting about the blocks. Most of my new patterns are published initially in magazines so I cannot show them until after publication. I decided to complete a project that I could blog about and show people how it is developing before its release. Glad you’re enjoying the applique!