Cookies With Eyes & Monsters, Oh My!

Happy Halloween!  This past week I made my usual batch of spooky treats.  I was originally going to decorate cookies, but I saw a cute idea on Pinterest and went with it.  Monsters with eye stalks!

Cake balls (I had to do homemade because of poor planning...this is MUCH easier with store-bought cake mix and frosting) with tiny cake blobs atop pretzel sticks.  Covered in candy melts and festooned with candy eyeballs.

It took forever to do and they weren't very tidy, but I thought they were pretty cute.

I always have to make brains.

I also made vanilla cupcakes with bat sprinkles...

...and double-chocolate chunk cookies with candy eyeball embellishments.

Needless to say, Todd and I have been in sugar comas for days and I'm actually looking forward to my no-sugar kick this week!  Well, sort of.

I've been doing a lot of sewing these past few weeks too.  First, a successful project!  I had some leftover fabric from another project and decided to make a little quilted pillow for a friend's little girl.  I made some half-square triangles and sewed together the pillow face.  Then, I drew a grid on the top with a water-soluble pen...

...and carefully stitched over the lines (with some batting behind), creating the puffed, quilted look.

I bought some navy blue fabric and made an envelope back.  All stitched together, I love it!  Kids' fabric is SO cute.

Now for the not-so-successful project!  I had some fat quarters that were at least a decade old and so I decided the different blue plaids might look nice in a double Irish chain quilt.

I spent hours washing, ironing, and carefully cutting out my 2 1/2 inch strips, as well as the larger pieces.  But after I'd sewn a few together, I noticed that they were all up to 1/2" short.

Undaunted, I pushed all the fabric to the side and spent ANOTHER evening washing, ironing, and cutting new fabric for the quilt.  But these strips and squares were still too short.  I measured my 1/4" sewing foot and discovered that it was 1/4" plus 4 threads.  Add that up over several pieces and there's your deficit.  Who would've thought?  I decided to forgo the pattern and just make a small checkered quilt.  I quickly discovered, though, that my 2 1/2" strips were not all 2 1/2" wide.

I'm terrible at wielding my big 6" x 24" ruler for cutting these strips.  I was delighted to discover an actual 2 1/2" ruler just for them!  I added it to my rapidly growing stash of quilting rulers.  I think I'm up to 9 or 10.  Who would've thought that I'd ever have (or need) so many?

It's still in the mid- to upper 80s here but the leaves are still steadily changing color.

I picked a few sections of that bright Virginia Creeper from our front yard and put it in a vase.  It brings some beautiful fall color into the sun porch!

While many of the flowers are actively going to seed right now...

...I'm still able to cull regular clippings from the yard.

The side camellia is blooming nicely.  I love having it just outside one of the dining room windows.

The flowers are too delicate for bouquets, but I still enjoy looking at it every time I walk past.

Have a great week!