Halloween Quilt

The Shake & Bake quilt pattern is available in my shop.

I finished my first-ever holiday-themed quilt yesterday! And just in time, since we can now use it for a few weeks and then have it as something fun to pull out and enjoy each October.

This was a spur-of-the-moment project inspired by a cute Halloween-themed bundle I saw on sale at Cottoneer. Several of the prints — the ghosts, skulls, and spiders — are from the new Halloween Night collection by Katie Larson. I’ve followed Katie for a few years now, ever since coming across (and making) her Pueblo Mesa quilt pattern. I really love her style, so this bundle with her fabrics plus a great eclectic selection of coordinating prints and solids was calling my name. I like how the overall effect of the quilt is Halloween, but not IN YOUR FACE Halloween.

I wanted a simple pattern that would show off all the fun prints and come together quickly, and ended up drafting my own simple quilt block. Each one has 4 fabrics, with a triangle in one corner to add some angular lines. And it works really well with a fat quarter bundle! This quilt used 15 fat quarters, with enough left over to incorporate into a couple fun blocky rows on the back.

I like it so much that I’m planning to jump right into another quilt using the same block for the soon-to-arrive baby boy next door. It’ll be a totally different fabric set, of course, so it will be fun to see how it looks compared to this one. The block is super beginner-friendly and perfect for fat quarters, so I’ve decided to write up a pattern for it. My goal is to have it done by the end of November.

(I’ll be testing it twice myself, but if anyone reading this is interested in testing it, let me know! Also — what should I call it??)

The quilting is super simple, which is my usual go-to, with diagonal lines spaced 2″ apart. I used black thread, so the contrast of black thread against mostly bright fabrics adds a fun extra element.

When I asked Jose to help me snap a few pictures, Charlotte was all in. Almost every picture I took had a hand or a foot sticking out as she posed. It was very cute.

The stats:

• Quilt measures 50″ x 60″.
• Fabrics are miscellaneous prints from a 14-FQ bundle put together by Cottoneer plus 1 FQ from my stash. Eight of them are from Halloween Night by Katie Larson for PBS Fabrics. Two are solids of unknown brand. At least one is a new Ruby Star Society basic, I think? The one from my stash is the black with white hexagon-ish lines, which is by Libs Elliott for Andover Fabrics.
• Backing is a Halloween print from Hobby Lobby. Some of the orange dots are tiny pumpkins. It’s not the nicest fabric ever but it’s good enough — and the girls picked it out!
• Binding is a black solid from my stash that I *think* may actually be a linen blend. Who knows!
• Machine quilted with a walking foot using Aurifil 50 wt (#2692 Black).