I really appreciate whoever came up with "quilting and collecting fabric are two different hobbies." While I actually have a very usable stash for the type of quilting that I generally do, I have been collecting Halloween fabric for quite a few years. And every year October 1st rolls around and I wish I had a Halloween quilt. Then I very accurately realize there's just not a high likelihood that I could start and finish a Halloween quilt before Halloween.
You've heard of Christmas in July, right? Many crafters who make handmade gifts begin making those items in the summer. Last year, I decided that if Christmas in July was a thing, so was Halloween in April... and I marked my calendar for April 1st of this year to start my Halloween quilt. Surely, if I began a quilt in April could have it done by October.
April came and went and I finally started the quilt in May. I chose the Strip It Down pattern by Quilt Theory. It's a great pattern that could easily go together in a day, except of course that I work on many projects at once and I had to order my background fabric. I had a finished quilt top by the beginning of September, so I selected the backing fabric (which I didn't photograph, but you'll have to take my word is an awesome purple polka dot on black) and sent the quilt to Tami for longarm quilting. I chose a computerized spider web panto that I'd seen her use on another quilt, and a variegated orange thread. I'm thrilled with how her quilting jazzed up my quilt.
The large panels in each strip are a great place to feature fun prints and there are no seams to match up. The background panels are great for a solid fabric to feature an interesting quilting motif or a nice patterned fabric. I'm a firm believer in using a striped binding whenever reasonable and I'm happy I went with this black and white stripe. It made me a little dizzy to look at the yardage, but these skinny little strips are just perfect!
You can see my goal in this post. Linking up to OMG October Finish Link-Up and TGIFF at Anja Quilts. I've also linked up to the 2017 Q4 Finish Along link up. See my whole Q4 list here.