Dare To Be Different Halloween Quilt

Yay! I finally finished my first ever Halloween quilt! The pattern for this quilt is “Dare-to-Be-Different” by Karrie Winters, and can be found in the Summer 2011 issue of Stitch magazine. I should call mine “Dare-to-Be-Difficult,” because I voluntarily made several changes to the pattern that resulted in a slightly more difficult and much more time-consuming quilt that the one laid out in the pattern.

 

Change #1: Instead of using five solid fabrics for the quilt top, I used upwards of two dozen prints (one purple, a dozen oranges, and a dozen blacks).

Change #2: I made the sashing scrappy instead of using the same fabric throughout.

Change #3: After machine quilting the sashing, I hand quilted the center of each block.

Change #4: The binding is scrappy as well.

 

To add to the difficulty of this quilt, we recently experienced a day-long power outage, so I ended up hand quilting by the light from our living room window, which resulted in some very unhappy shoulder and neck muscles.

 

The only easy part of this quilt was choosing the backing: Pearl Bracelet by Lizzy House in black, of course.

 

All in all, this quilt took me almost thirteen months to complete. I may have made this quilt unnecessarily complex, but that’s why I love it! I didn’t have to hand quilt it, but I am so, so happy with how it turned out. Even though Halloween has passed, this quilt will be left out until I decorate for Christmas.