Crazy Quilt Day 5

Yesterday was my 5th day of hand embellishing the October block for my first crazy quilt.  Since Day 2 my dear husband has been surprised it was not done yet and that I had more to add.  Last night I added two seam treatments, a jack-o-lantern and a broom.

The seams near the white fabric with the little black spiders is hard to see in the photo, because I used a cream-colored floss and made a simple stem stitch.  (Okay, I call it a simple stitch, but I really need more practice with it to make those stitches even!)  I used the same stitch along the seam of the darker spider fabric using a silver metallic thread (to match the silver glitter on the webs.)

The really fun part of the evening was using applique to make the jack-o-lantern.  I sketched a small pumpkin onto the paper side of fusible webbing and selected a yellow-orange fabric to adhere it to.  I used a brown fabric for the stem.  After ironing them onto the orange polka-dot fabric, I stitched around them with DMC floss in similar colors.  I added small orange stitches to add curves to the pumpkin and the small seam where the top would have been cut to empty the seeds.  Using a very dark brown (as I was out of black floss), I stitched in a small face.  Unfortunately, the pumpkin was still very close to the color of the block, so it did not (and does not) stand out as much as I hoped.  A new addition helps draw the eye to it though!

Then I did my favorite work on the block yet.  I made a broom.  I have no idea what the name of the stitch is that I used for the yellow-end of the broom.  I used DMC flosses 972 and 977 so I would have two tones of yellow and yellow-brown.  The stitches are looped and tacked down near the bottom of the broom.  I then used DMC 838 to chain stitch the broom handle and to loop around the top of the broom bristles to draw them together.

I learned my something new today!  When stitching on an applique, bring the needle up outside of the pattern and then stitch down through the applique project.  Bringing the needle up through the added piece may fray the fabric, which defeats the purpose of stitching it on.

This is how the block looked after the fifth day of embellishing:

I wish I could share my husband's look of disbelief when I told him I think I have about six more additions before the block will be complete.  Then I realized there may be as many as eight changes.  We will see what the next day of embellishing brings!