Halloween Economy Block Quilt

This quilt started out as a way to use up Halloween fabric scraps left from at least three other projects I made for friends -- specifically, sisters who are my good friends and whose birthdays are just before Halloween, making them big fans of the holiday. 

Microwave bowl holders

http://www.inspiremegrey.com/2017/10/spooky-book-nerd-quilt.html

I wanted a project that would be easy and pretty mindless to sew while using scraps in a variety of different sizes, including some triangles I'd cut for the pillow above and not used. It's been a while since I've done any economy blocks, aka square in a square, so I found a free foundation paper piecing template for 6" finished squares and printed out some copies. I sewed, pressed and trimmed over and over while watching Netflix, and soon I had used up all the scraps that were big enough and fit my general color placement plans.

I had an idea along the way that I would give this quilt to my friend Bethany (one of the sisters) as a birthday present, but her personal style is more edgy and dark than what I would normally reflect in a quilt, so I needed to keep this quilt moody. I pulled out a bolt of Michael Miller Cotton Couture in Ocean that I bought a while back when I could occasionally get good deals on bolts of solids. The hand is so silky, and the color was a perfect complement to the colors in the blocks.

After planning out the sashing, I moved on to borders. To keep things looking more modern, I decided to use wide borders in varying widths so that the panel of blocks would be off-center. I built the design in EQ8 (it took forever!) and played around with the dimensions until I had something I liked. I tweaked this plan a little when it came to cutting the strips, deciding to make the quilt a little bigger with wider borders. Having a whole bolt of solid border fabric on hand was very convenient, as I knew I wouldn't run out of fabric!

For the backing, I bought a black and gray text print (in German) at my local quilt shop, but there was not quite enough to cover the whole pieced back, so I had to add a bit to the bottom corner. I auditioned a few options but ended up using a piece of haunted houses that appeared in a few of the economy blocks.

I tried a new local longarmer and chose an allover design that, to me, looks like swirling smoke. It looks so good in the wide border fabric and adds just the right amount of texture and movement. The quilter used dark gray thread, and I used more of the MM Ocean solid as binding for a clean, seamless finish on the front.

I took photos outside before and after washing and drying the quilt to compare the crinkling. Unfortunately, the post-wash photos are marred by the shadow of a tree in my backyard! Needing to get this gift in the mail to arrive in time for my friend's birthday, I couldn't wait for an overcast day to try again, so the photos that follow are unwashed. The finished size is approximately 60 x 70".

Spooky Book Nerd Quilt

I have a very good friend whose birthday is just a few days before Halloween, so the holiday has always been her favorite. I think it was last year when I came across these fat quarter fabric bundles at my local Tuesday Morning store. They're quilt-shop quality fabric, and I couldn't pass them up. (They're from the Spooktacular and Spooktacular Too collections by Maude Asbury for Blend.) I bought two bundles, thinking that I'd use them to make something for my friend, but I wasn't sure exactly what.

When I saw Angela Pingel's Book Nerd Quilt pattern, inspiration struck. These large prints would make perfect book covers. Plus, my friend is a serious book lover and collector, so the fabric and pattern were a perfect match. The pattern required more fabric than I had from the bundles, so I went to one of my local quilt shops, Mountain Creek Quilt Shop, to supplement the stack. It turns out that they had just received an order of new Halloween fabrics and they hadn't even unpacked the box yet! So I helped them out, breaking into some of those bolts for small-scale prints with bats and spiderwebs. I got the text prints to use as the pages and the oranges for book spines. The mummies are a Cotton + Steel design from last season, and I bought a bunch of them to put on the back of the quilt.

Assembling these book blocks was a lot of fun -- after I ran a test and figured out what sizes to precut all the sections for the foundation paper piecing. Everything went A LOT faster with precuts, so if you ever have to foundation paper piece a bunch of the same block and the pattern doesn't suggest precut sizes, take the time to figure it out.

(Pretty proud of my print alignment on this one!)

The pattern includes the option of cornerstones in the layout, and I decided to include them and use a dark print that I wasn't able to use in the books. If I were to make this quilt again, I think I would either leave out the cornerstones or add them to the outside intersections as well to finish framing the design.

For the quilt back, I didn't have enough of the mummies to use them exclusively, so I had to figure out how to piece it. My mom was heading out to Mountain Creek again, so I had her pick up the black with little white cat faces (another Cotton + Steel print, but from this season). I've made pieced quilt backs before, but I usually don't like how they turn out. I'm not sure if it's the size of the pieces or how I lay them out, but it never turns out looking like I expect. So I laid this one out and played with all my leftovers until I felt pretty confident about it.

 

My friend Jennifer agreed to quilt this on her longarm, and we picked an edge-to-edge spiderweb design. It turned out so well - I was blown away. Even the white thread on the dark backing worked out. I rounded the corners off and used a black and white stripe on the bias for binding.