Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Quoth the raven, "Nevermore."

I made this mini raven quilt to send to the OnlyChild as a little Halloween surprise. It was quick and easy and she can hang it on the wall or use it as a mug rug.


I'll give you some quick instructions to make one, although you could probably figure it out for yourselves fairly easily.

I started by looking online for a suitable image. I googled "crow silhouette" and found plenty. I had to pick one that didn't have too many skinny pieces (such as bird legs) because I wanted to appliqué the design, but I wasn't up for embroidery.

I chose this image from here. What I really liked about this picture was the opportunity to add some colour to the little quilt with the moon.



Ignore the watermark (it won't make a difference) and save the picture to your files. There are tons of great images available for Halloween - cats, witches and witches' hats, bats, ghosts...

Insert your chosen picture into a Word document so you can play with the size. I re-sized my image to 6"x6" and then printed it in black and white on plain paper.

Using my handy "light box", I traced the image to Heat n' Bond light.


Yes, my "light box" is my sewing room window. It works. I actually had the image taped to the window backwards so that I could have the bird facing right in my final product. But it doesn't matter - that was just a personal preference.

I didn't take any photos of the actual process, but I fused the Heat n' Bond to my black fabric, cut out the "moon" of my image and around the edges, and then fused the black fabric to a slightly larger piece of orange fabric.

Then I made a little quilt sandwich with the top, a piece of batting and another piece of black fabric. I spray basted these layers together with some 505 spray.

The next step was to sew around the raven, tree branch and moon with a straight stitch, right through all the layers, so I appliquéd and quilted in one step.

I trimmed my piece to 6"x6" and then, with a wide zig-zag, stitched around the outer edges. I could have put a binding on this little quilt, I suppose, but I liked the more primitive finish.

And...voilà.



I think a few of these together would make a cute wall-hanging or table runner. Here are a few more images I might try (all images are clipart):







What fun! 

6 comments:

Barb said...

Love the wall hanging, she will too.

Pat said...

You could make a skinny wall-hanging using all those images.......I'm sure your daughter will love her "raven"!

Anonymous said...

Looks great! I love working with silhouettes (I did a series of fabric postcards once using Varga girls). They're so perfect for Halloween projects.

Thimbleanna said...

Very Cute Rachel -- and what a fun surprise for TheOnlyChild! Halloween care packages were my favorite thing to make when my only children (ha!) were in school.

PunkiePie (Jen) said...

Super!! Love the orange "moon". Great job Mom. I'm sure OnlyChild will love it!

Lynne said...

My light box is a small glass coffee table with a lamp underneath and, for larger projects, the sliding glass door to the back patio!

I love your silhouette projects - what a great idea!