Heidi Grohs « modafabrics

Hi! My name is Heidi from Boys, Buttons, and Butterflies. I grew up in a household that didn’t celebrate Halloween or go trick-or-treating, so I have always been intrigued by the holiday. Since I first took my oldest son trick-or-treating fourteen years ago, I have wanted to take Halloween more seriously.

This fall, I fell in love with Trick-or-Treat by Deb Strain. I couldn’t resist the urge to make a simple quilt with this fabric!

1 jelly roll (Trick or Treat by Deb Strain)
4.5 yards of Moda Marble (purple)
Acrylic ruler that includes a 60 degree angle
Basic quilting supplies
Variegated thread (purple/pink/gray tones)

Unroll and sort the strips by color. Separate the orange candy corn to the side for the binding.

Divide the rest of the strips into sets of four using the white, black, and orange.

Sort the four colors in different orders. I used the green as my guide for all the groupings. Sometimes it was first, sometimes second, and so on! When you have run out of green (because you will!), sort the rest of the strips in orange, black, and white colors to make more collections of four.

Sew each strip with 1/4 inch seam. Press. You will have several lovely rectangles!!

Now it is time to meet your acrylic ruler and it’s 60 degree angle markings. The arrows are on the lines that you will line up your fabric top edge with.

The line that is marked with the 60 degree number along the top edge of your rectangle.

Make your first cut at the left edge of your strips laid out lengthwise.

After the first cut, pivot your ruler and line the rule with top ledge with the 60 degree angle line going the other direction to make a triangle.

Continue down the fabric making 62 total triangles with ALL of the stripped rectangles.

Cut four 8.5 inch strips from the width of the Moda Marble (purple). Then cut 22 triangles using the 60 degree angle exactly the same way you did for the strip triangles.

Using the photo below, layout your triangles to make hexagon shapes with the strip pieced triangles and purple triangles in between. There are nine complete hexagons and two incomplete hexagons. Arrange the triangles so that the green is distributed throughout each hexagon and that the colors alternate rows. Don’t stress too much about it. I did and it wasn’t worth it!!! If you are worried, just follow the order I have below!

Piece the triangles together.

You will have six vertical strips.

Press the seams. Clean up the dog ears and snip the center where the three triangles meet to eliminate bulkiness when piecing the strips.

Pin the strips together and sew.

Pin each seam after aligning to ensure the finished seams will match up.

Fold them out and press.

Cut two 3 x 60 inch pieces and two 3 x 50 inch pieces from the length of the purple Moda Marble for sashing.

There is an imaginary line that you will make across the top and bottom of your quilt. Use the tips of the hexagons on the end as your guide.

Use the sashing along that imaginary line as a guide and then place your ruler at the edge to trim the “dog ears” to ensure a straight cut across the quilt.

Piece sashing to all four sides.

Backing. Cut four pieces of Moda Marble (purple) for the backing in the following measurements:

32 x 60 inches
18 x 40 inches
3 x 18 inches
3 x 17 inches

Piece the backing following this diagram. The orange hexagon and purple triangles represent the leftover strip pieced triangles and purple triangles to make one final “web”.

Quilt. I love to spray baste my cotton batting and then get to work.

I set out to do stitch in the ditch for the webs and free motion quilting with spiders in the purple background, but when I set up my machine to start and had the foot over the webs, I instantly thought of the movie Coraline.

There is a part where Coraline is trapped in a web and it seems to stretch into a spiral. The quilting was meant to be and I am really pleased with the primitive spirals around jarring color changes and straight lines.

I then ditched my plans for spiders because the fabric was already too busy. I decided to quilt very symmetrical triangles in the purple areas. I left an open area in each triangle center.

Variegated thread seemed the best choice for the webs and a complementary purple for the Moda Marble. It really detracted the fact that it was crossing white fabrics all the way to black. I definitely see myself using this more in the future.

I also used the variegated thread in the bobbin and it made the backing more interesting.

Binding. Don’t forget that you saved the six candy corn strips!! Piece each strip together to make one long strip of my favorite candies!

They are perfect fit for the 1 1/4 inch Quilt Binding Tip for my machine. However, no need for the machine. Don’t fear…you can just fold it in half and iron it! I have done it without any difficulties for many years until I bought this gadget!

I like to sew the binding by machine to the front of my quilt matching the raw edges of the binding and the quilt. I then hand sewing the folded edge to the back. I was really pleased with the idea of alternating the background colors of black, white and orange. They blend seamlessly and are interesting at the same time.

1 Halloween Quilt 50 x 60 inches.

Great for a picnic or hayride. I actually plan on using it as a tablecloth for the celebrations. It fits my kitchen table wonderfully!

If you like this quilt tutorial, come join Button and me over at my blog, Boys, Buttons, and Butterflies to see some other quilts and craft tutorials while I manage four boys. Baby Button and I are always up to no good most days while the rest of the boys are at school!