Happy Halloween!

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.

 

 

Dare-to-Be-Different Halloween Work In Progress

I really enjoy participating in WIP Wednesday, hosted by Lee of Freshly Pieced. Progress on my current WIP has been slow, and last Wednesday several readers asked to see more about it. How can I resist such a request?

 

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. The purple and orange color scheme reminded me of some of the Halloween fabric lines currently one the market, and from there it was just a hop, skip and a jump away to my own version of the quilt.

 

I started this quilt last October, made most of the blocks and then stalled once Halloween had passed. Knowing that it would be a slog without seasonal inspiration, I boxed it up and moved on to other things. I didn't pull it out again until the success of my speedy St. Louis Sixteen quilt and the return of fall (or the promise of its return) inspired me to start again. As of today, the top is half finished. Before you know it, this baby will be ready for basting! I'm playing around with a quilting idea that might take awhile, but is very tempting.

 

The backing will be Pearl Bracelet by Lizzy House in black. I'm thinking maybe scrappy orange for the binding. Last year, I bought a solid purple for the binding, but I'm not really feeling it now.

 

Well, I hope you all have enjoyed this process post. Thank you for your interest!