I’m so excited to finally share this quilt! It’s the last in my trio of tops created from Blocks of the Month in the LC Quiltalongs. This one was begun in 2021. At the time I had been making blocks for my Black + Rainbow quilt, and was having so much fun that I didn’t want to wait for upcoming month’s blocks to be announced, so I started testing out random block patterns that I liked. I ended up making a few that people liked so much, that they nominated them to be future BOM’s. Since my sampler wouldn’t need 2 of any particular block, I dug through my stash and decided to make a second pile in my random bits of Halloween fabric.
Churn Dash, July 2021 BOM
Bento Box, August 2021 BOM
Around this time, I organized a Quilt Block Swap, and received some awesome pieces, including this paper pieced Witches Hat from @AIMR and two HST Stars from @Abbeeroad. Aren’t they beautiful!?!?
Paper Pieced Witches Hat Block by @AIMR
Light HST Star by @Abbeeroad
Dark HST Star by @Abbeeroad.
I kept plugging away at making BOM’s, trying to use up my Halloween fabrics, along with scraps in orange and purple. I really enjoyed fussy cutting a few pieces to make some Economy blocks, even if they were to small for the quilt. I wasn’t sure what I’d do with them, but liked the whole vibe anyways.
A whole mess of Economy Blocks, September 2021 BOM
All Hallow’s, October 2021 BOM
Rocky Mountain Puzzle, April 2022 BOM
Black Cat & Pumpkin Block, inspired by one designed by @marionberries
Butterfly Block, May 2022 BOM
Jacknife, June 2022 BOM
At that time, I was running out of Halloween fabrics, so I picked up 1/4 yard cuts of 8 different Halloween prints. Jennie, why do you do this to yourself?!?! The goal was to use up fabrics in your stash! Not to accumulate more!!!
Cups & Saucers, July 2022 BOM
Folded Corners, September 2022 BOM
Variation on the Pumpkin Block, October 2022 BOM
Improvised Two Pumpkin Block,
In late September of 2022, @sheepBlue and @Abbeeroad came to visit me in TN. We went to a local quilt store with a huge selection, and wandered around for hours. I ended up coming home with a cool orange on orange stripe to use as sashing and binding.
At this point, my husband and I decided to move across several states. At the holidays. With an infant. 
In all seriousness, since my husband can work remote, we decided to move to IL to be closer to family. But in order to take advantage of the high house prices in our area, we had just 6 weeks to fix up and stage our house by Thanksgiving. That included packing up my studio, and staging it as a teen girls bedroom. So while I tried to get the quilt top done, it just didn’t work out. I turned several Economy blocks into two 4-Patch Economy blocks, and used another one in an improvised star. Then everything got packed up and put in storage for over 6 months.
Previous Economy Blocks, turned into 4-Patches
An Economy Block used as the center of an improvised Star Block
Fast forward to January 2024. The lovely @AudiobookLover started another round of the Quiltalong, and challenged us all to write up a Goal List. Now that we’re settled in our new home, and I have a quilting space, I decided I wanted to finish all 3 of the BOM quilts that had been started. I pulled out all the blocks, and played with their layout. I wanted to make sure the pumpkin blocks were evenly distributed, and I wanted @AIMR’s witch hat block front and center.
After lots of rearranging, I had a layout I liked. It had blocks with white backgrounds on one diagonal, and black backgrounds on the opposite. The Economy and pumpkin blocks seemed even, but I needed something to fill in one spot. It needed a black background, and I wanted to use a white, a purple, and an orange that had only been used once or twice in the quilt, to help those fabrics stand out less.
Barrister’s Block, January 2024 BOM
Finally, I had them all together in a cohesive front! I used the orange stripe I found with Abbie and Emma for the sashing, and added some purple cornerstones.
Now I just needed to decide which of my black fabrics should be the borders. I pulled them all out, and discovered to my horror, that I didn’t have enough of any of them, as I thought I had. At this point, I really wanted to finish the quilt, and not buy more fabric. I looked at all the bits and pieces leftover and wondered if there was a way to use them ALL up. How about a random pieced Piano Key border made of all the black fabrics I had left?!?! I did some rough math and figured I had just enough. I used some fun Tim Holtz fabric that hadn’t got much play, as corners for the border rows.
After that, I was so happy with how much fabric I had used up, I decided to see if I could use up some more of my fabrics, along with some improvised scrappy blocks, and Abbie’s HST Stars, for a pieced backing.
Offcut triangles, turned into tiny Pinwheel blocks.
A mis-made Economy block, given another row of triangles to make it sit straight up.
The last of the black Piano Key border became a stripe for the back.
Some offcut HSTs were turned into an Annie’s Choice Star.
I used up some of my stash of 2.5" squares making a row of pumpkins.
Then I started setting the random blocks with solid black.
All in all, I was able to use up lots of little HSTs as mini blocks, the last of the row of Piano Keys, and the entire piece of Witchy Silhouettes on the backing. I have never done a backing like this, and I really love how it turned out. (Despite a few wrinkles in the backing, made when I quilted it.) The whole quilt comes to 66" square. My stash of Halloween fabrics is now just one tiny pile, rather than a whole bundle of mismatched designs, and I feel really good about how I managed to make the whole piece feel cohesive, without any advanced planning. I am absolutely a crafter who plans things out, down to the tiniest detail, and so this was a trial for me. It both pushed me out of my comfort zone and allowed me the chance to ‘manage’ the project, by creating blocks to fill gaps. Now it’s washed and dried, and I get to bring it to the Cunninham Children’s Home tomorrow to be shown in this year’s Festival of Quilts!
Update 4/13/24: Here it is on the wall at the Festival! And me with it. Looking not happy. But I was quite happy. I just photograph badly.
