Crafty Thanksgiving (and a Dash of Halloween)

Happy Thanksgiving, belatedly! I hope you enjoyed a time of peace and joy with your family and/or friends, celebrating this most American of holidays. I was lucky enough to have 9 family members around the table. We roasted a 20.5 pound turkey that kept everyone very well-fed (for days). To liven up my holiday table I created this table runner. I wanted to focus on a single traditional block: the churn dash, or monkey wrench block. Another American standby. I loved how it looked in fall colors, on top of my leaf-tapestry tablecloth. The pretty cornucopia of flowers was selected by my father-in-law and matched perfectly.

I had a few moments of indecision about the border, initially choosing a tiny polka dot. Ultimately I used that dot for the binding and backing because I thought it was too dark for a border. I turned to a pale golden olive green instead. For me, it was a “magic color,” tying everything together. On its own, I’d call it ugly, but mingled with the rest of the colors in the quilt and tablecloth it worked really well.

I almost skipped Halloween, but I did want to share a project I did on the fly as my daughters got ready for trick-or-treat. I made a treat bag for my younger child, who just turned five, to carry her loot in.

It is reversible: the “outside” has two sides, one batik black with an orange witches fabric for its pocket and one side with just the witches fabric; the “reverse” is batik orange with a batik black stripe, and the other side is batik black with another orange-and-black witches/jack o’ lanterns/bats pattern fabric pocket. It did the job nicely for a good stretch of trick-or-treating up until a neighbor answered his door in a scary ghoul costume, sending my daughter shrieking into our arms. After trying to reassure her and hearing her own little pep talk–I heard her whispering quietly, “Self, don’t be scared, self, don’t be scared”–she was still shivering. So she went home to distribute candy to other kids, just as much fun in its own way.

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