Happy Jacks--Quilting and Adding Faces

Are you ready to keep going? I had a lazy morning sleeping in and reading a bit, but I finally got into the Sweat Shop around noon and pinned the quilt.

Once you're ready to start quilting, just outline stitch around the pumpkins and just inside the sashing. Free motion quilting is fastest, but if you're not comfortable with it, a walking foot will work just fine on this part.

After that, I stitched outside the star points and around the edge of the sashing. At that point, I felt ready to start the Jacks faces.

First, I cut a piece of felted wool into the size and shape of a mouth and tried it out on one of the pumpkins.

Then I cut "teeth" into the top and bottom edges.

Eyes were also cut and placed in position. Yep, I think I like it!

Now I'm ready to sew the mouth and the eyes on.

For this, you will need to use free motion quilting. I like a foot with an open toe so I can see where I am. Now, just stitch along the edge of the wool. Nothing fancy--just a straight stitch. And because the thread color matches the wool and sinks down into it, your stitches really don't need to be perfect because they won't show up.

Since the wool tends to stick a bit to the cotton, you shouldn't need to pin it in place--just go slow and make sure the wool stays where you want it.

Once my faces were done, I added some stitching lines in the pumpkins similar to those in real life.

At this point, only the borders remained to be completed. I stitched a straight line just to the inside of the outer border and then I quilted some free-form star shapes in the border to finish it.

I have my binding cut, so while you get started on this, I'll go back to the Sweat Shop and get this one done!