Guild Mystery Quilt - Sisters Ten Sampler quilt

Here is my mystery quilt top all put together by the instructions we were given.  It is the Sisters Ten Sampler quilt.  I actually knew what it was going to look like from the beginning, and I thought I would be okay with it, but it turns out that I really don't like it now that it's done.  It looks fine in pictures, but in person there is too much blank space for a quilt of this size.  When you lay it on a bed, almost all the piecing hangs off the edges or would be under the pillows.

As you can see in this picture, the blocks on the top row would be under the pillows, and the cat almost covers the ones that would be visible on top of the bed in that section.  The angle of the camera doesn't show much of the blocks at the bottom, but again it would just be three with the others hanging off.  It leaves A LOT of blank space on the top of the bed.  Not really my idea of a successful quilt design.

My plan is to show it to the group "as is" and then reuse the blocks in a different configuration for my final quilt.  I really hate the idea of spending almost a whole year on a quilt that I'm then not happy with and have no use for.

Headstone Flowers

I bought some headstone saddles at Michael's and arranged flowers for my grandparents' graves.  On my father's side, both grandparents have passed.  On my mother's side, only my grandfather has passed.  But in both cases they have a common tombstone, so I made two arrangements.

I had them all arranged and then redid them.  In the original arrangement, the foam base was exposed.  In this arrangement I tried to use the flowers to hide the base.  I feel like I was more successful with one than the other, but it's not too bad for a first attempt.  My plan is to make another set for Christmas.

These flowers were very expensive because I bought them at Michael's.  Even on clearance they were expensive.  I plan to check Walmart and the dollar stores for artificial flowers before I arrange any more.

Here are pictures of them in place on the headstones.

Candy and Cobwebs

I finally got the binding finished on my Spiders and Webs quilt.  I was hoping to finish it yesterday so that it could be out a full week before Halloween, but it wasn't meant to be.  At least it's done and on display now.

I decided to name this one "Candy and Cobwebs", because some of the fabric has candy corn on it and makes a spider web design.  It, too, still needs a label.  At some point soon I really need to get caught up in the department.

Halloween Heads quilt finished!

One down, one to go!  As you may remember, I made two quilt tops that are Halloween themed this year.  Today I finished binding the first one.  I started with the smaller of the two in order to be able to finish one as quickly as possible.  I'm putting off making and attaching a label on this one (like in my last post) so I can focus on finishing the other one before Halloween, too.

I'm really happy with how it turned out.  The machine quilting is an all-over scattered bats design done in a light gray.  The binding fabric is orange and black.  I think it makes a nice accent to the finished quilt.