My beautiful witch quilt (not really a self-portrait!)

About five years ago (maybe more) I saw this pattern for a witch quilt that I loved and had to have.  I got the pattern, the fabrics and everything I would need to complete the project, but never got around to actually making it.  Every time I would take the pattern out and see all of the pieces, I would get intimidated and put it back in the drawer.  Until this year!!!  I was going on a weekend quilt retreat a few weeks ago and decided that this was the perfect time to get this witch done.  No cooking, cleaning, puppy care or anything but sewing for three days!!!  I was committed to only this project all weekend.

There were hundreds of pieces!  All of the little details make it so beautiful though!

Each strand of hair is a different color fabric and then when I quilted her, I used metallic threads and clears just to add some sparkle.  I did tons of fly-away hairs on the quilt too.

I enjoyed quilting her face.  It really made the lips and eyes sink into the quilt.  Her fingernails are tiny pieces of blood red fabric.  Her eyebrows are little pieces of whites and grays.The white whispy threads touching her chin are the quilted steam lines from her green brew.



When I took this to school we joked that I had created a self-portrait in fabric!  I am so  happy that I finally just got it done.  My friend Jenny helped cut the pieces out the first night at the retreat when she was too tired to work on her own projects later in the night.  She saved me a few hours of cutting.  Saturday morning I was ready to start assembling the whole thing.



I did all of the quilting once I was home.  I would say I worked on it for about 45 hours at least from start to finish.  It was totally worth it, but I will not take on something this labor intensive for a while...although I do have a spring one with rabbits on it waiting in that same drawer I hid her away in for all of those years!



The spider in the upper corner was fun to sew on.  I made the web in invisible thread just like they are in real life.  Don't you just love her strands of hair all over the place?  That might be my favorite part of the finished product.