Blogger's Quilt Festival Fall 2013 - The Halloween Quilt

Time for ghosts and goblins to be out and about in the neighborhood.  Are you ready?

And it's time for the Blogger's Quilt Festival too!  Which one are you more excited about?  In spite of Halloween being my favorite holiday, I'd have to say I'm pretty darn excited about the BQF! 

The Halloween Quilt - Front
69 x 84 inches

Here is my entry into the festival in the Bed Quilt category.  This is The Halloween Quilt, made with lots and lots of Halloween fabrics. Not a very original or catchy name, but it works. 

 I actually finished this quilt last fall, but I've never shown the finished quilt on the blog before.  It is so big that I couldn't find a way to photograph the whole thing.  (the above photo was taken while it was hanging at the county fair this year)  It's been on my bed for the entire month of October, getting me in the proper mood for this fun holiday - one of my favorites!

The pattern I used is Scrappy Trips by Bonnie Hunter over at Quiltville.  I know a lot of people have made Scrappy Trip quilts over the past year - it seemed to be a Big Thing on the quilting blogs!  This is my third quilt done in this pattern since I discovered Quiltville about 8 years ago, and it will probably not be my last!  It's such a fun, easy pattern.

I deviated from the original pattern a little bit by using 3 inch cut strips instead of 2 1/2 inch.  I wanted to really show off the novelty fabrics I was using, and didn't want them cut so small that you couldn't see some of the details. That size strip makes a 15 inch quilt block, which means the quilt is made a little faster. 

But I didn't use only novelty fabrics either.  There are plaids, dots, hand-dyes tone-on-tone and other fabrics.  Whatever looked like it would work.  I had a hard time stopping buying Halloween fabrics!  Mind you, I started with a pretty good stash of Halloween novelties, since it's one of my favorite holidays.  I still have enough for 3 or 4 more quilts!  *grin*

When I was ready to set the blocks together, I laid them out on the living room floor.  My husband and son decided on the zigzag layout, and which block went where.  It was fun to have them help me!

The Halloween Quilt - Back

This quilt decided it wanted to be two-sided.  I added lots of Halloween panels that I've collected over the years.  I can't decide which side I love more - they're both fun.

Here is a picture of the back when I was just getting started on constructing it.  I laid the quilt top down on the living room floor, then started adding the panels and chunks of fabrics on top of it.  I figured that would be the most direct way of knowing when it was big enough. LOL  You can see parts of the blocks on the front peeking through the panels.  I think making the back took me longer than making the front!

I added not just panels, but chunks and pieces of Halloween fabrics, and leftover bits from the front blocks as well.  Nothing went to waste.

Some of the panels I cut up and added bits of fabric around the smaller panels, to make things more interesting.  It was a lot of fun.  Like doing a gigantic jigsaw puzzle.

I didn't have quite enough border fabric, so I pieced flying geese in the corners.  I think it added more interest too, although it's subtle.

My long-arm quilter quilted all kinds of fun things on this quilt, but most of them don't show up well enough for a photo.  She added witches riding brooms, moons, stars etc. and then quilted Halloween words around the border.  Things like "haunted house", "spells", "boo", and so on, all the way around.  It's lots of fun to play I Spy with the quilting!

This is one of my favorite quilts.  I sure was looking forward to using it for the month of October.  I hope you've enjoyed seeing it too!

Follow this link to see my second entry into the Blogger's Quilt Festival, Whisper, in the Scrappy Quilt category.

I hope you'll take some time and cruise around the rest of the BQF and be awed and inspired by all the rest of the quilts!