October 2015 – One million stitches …

A lot has been going on over here in the past few months, namely that I moved to a different state for a new day job. It’s all very exciting, and I’ll tell you more about it at a later date, but since today is Halloween, I wanted to share my finished Halloween quilt.

When I started this quilt, I hadn’t yet become interested in modern quilting the way I am now. As I thought about the quilting, I seriously considered removing the border to make it more modern, but I didn’t want that fabric on the back since it was the one I loved most.

Moving forward, I started quilting by stitching in the ditch around the on-point squares (three-inches finished with a one-inch finished border for those of you playing at home), and stopped in the middle last year at this time when I was two-thirds of the way through.

I took it up this spring and debated ripping again, but decided I would rather get it finished than take out what I’d already done.

To be honest, I’m not really crazy with the front. Oh, I still love the fabrics, but the top just isn’t modern enough for me. When I finished hand-stitching the binding, I even thought of ripping it all out, cutting the border into the three-inch squares and setting the entire quilt on point. There would be lots of great opportunities for fussy-cutting.

I even have enough of the setting triangles left over to do that, and I’d probably make the quilt a little less rectangular in shape. Right now, it’s a twin size at approx. 72×90 inches, but I think I’d add one extra row to the width, depending on how many squares I got from the border.

Now that I’ve used the quilt for awhile on my bed folded like a runner, I’m bothered a little less by the front. Also, with so many other quilts to make and/or finish, do I really want to spend the time redoing this one? Probably not.

Thankfully, I did go modern on the back:

This Halloween fabric didn’t have the vintage vibe of the rest, so it was perfect for a modern back with lots of negative space. When I’m feeling modern, I fold it to the back side. Other days, like today, I show off the front.

I don’t always plan it, but one of the things I love to do with my quilts is create unexpected surprises. I love the little witch peering over the binding here: (try not to notice the extra threads!)