Little monsters

Way back at the end of last winter, I took a friend's old, reversible comforter and cut it into four smaller pieces. I did a bit of applique and embroidery on each, then bound them in a cute, bright stripe. The intention was to donate them to Project Night Night, a group that packages small blankets, a book and a stuffie in a canvas bag to be distributed to homeless children.

The finished quilts have been kicking around the house for months. The quilting on the comforter is a bit more worn than I thought, and I couldn't decide if I wanted to donate them, since they really want new or very gently used items. I went back and forth, but finally made up my mind to donate them.

Before that, however, pictures for my records.

All four. Two on the bright side of the comforter, two
on the lighter side.

There are three appliqued monsters, and one floral embroidery. The embroidery was a test - first time I'd done anything on something other than a single layer of fabric. While I don't have a picture of it, the back of the embroidery turned out very neat and presentable. Soft as well, which is important for a small child's quilt. The project says they often need the smaller sized blankets - these finish at about 45 x 50 inches.

Isn't she cute?

He is a darling. Should have done the words
in a different color, though.

The girl monsters have long eyelashes and are
apparently wearing blush.

The monsters are done via machine applique, but are pretty easy. You hoop up the base fabric as if you were going to do an embroidery piece. The machine will sew out the outline of the fist applique piece - in this case, the bodies. You place the applique fabric over the space, making sure it covers the outline, then then machine stitches a second straight line outline. You trim the fabric close to the outline, then the machine does the pretty satin stitch over that edge. Repeat for all the applique pieces. Then the machine finishes up the embroidery details.

It goes more quickly than you would think, though it is fussy, having to change out the color of thread fairly often. I think by the third applique quilt, I had my time down to about half an hour.

Little cuties. There are ten more "monsters" in the set, though those are a bit more complicated, with either more applique pieces or more details. These were the fist of this particular type of embroidery I've done - all things considered, they turned out well.