Woo hoo!

I'm doing a little happy dance right now!  You should see me getting jiggy with it.  On second thought, it's better that you don't.  (Trust me on this one!)

The reason I'm so excited is that I've finally finished the last block for my Baltimore Halloween quilt.  I've been working on this quilt for almost 3 years, so this is huge! 

Baltimore Halloween - Block #13

It's a busy block, isn't it?  It finishes at 20" square and has 165 pieces in it - including 15 acorns.  I mention the acorns, because appliqueing down their caps was (for me) the most challenging part.

Some of the multitude of acorns

I was so excited when I finished appliqueing all the pieces down, that I stayed up late so I could also finish the hand embroidery.  Fortunately, there wasn't too much of it.  I had to add some details to the ghosts and the spider...

Embroidered face on the ghost

Spider with his spots, eyes and legs

The next step to this quilt is to assemble all 13 blocks together, add 3 borders and then applique another 20 bats on the borders.  I don't have quite enough of one of the fabrics, so I'm going to have to make a small shopping trip before I can continue on this.  In the meantime, I've prepped the next Ladies of the Sea block and will start working on that.  Each ship generally takes me about a month to applique (so this is another long term project).

But in the meantime, here are some more pictures of the finished block...

I've had a number of people ask me what method I use to do my applique.  I used the Back-Basting Hand Applique method for all of these blocks.  I find it's more accurate for me, even though it does take slightly longer.  I took some pictures to illustrate how I do it (for those who are curious) and I'll share them in the next couple of days.  There are also some great tutorials out there if you do a search.

Until later...

Fire goes out without wood, and quarrels disappear when gossip stops. 

Proverbs 26:20, NLT