is it too early for Halloween? never!!

lately i feel like i've been all about the blocks. there's the unscripted bee, the across the sea quilt-a-long, various little projects.... everything's block based. i enjoy making blocks, but i'm starting to crave strip piecing!



however, i am SUPER happy with these blocks. how can i not be? they're halloween themed! y'all know how much i love me my halloween goodness!

you might remember that last year i organized a Halloween challenge for the Vancouver Modern Quilt Guild. it was pretty damn fabulous, and we had so many awesome blocks. i wanted to do it again this year, but of course, i wanted to switch it up a little bit, just for variety.

so this year's challenge was along the same lines - make as many Halloween blocks as you'd like, bring them to the meeting, and recieve a ticket for each block that you make. we draw the tickets, and folks with the winning tickets each get to choose 10 (10!!!) blocks to take home and make into something fabulous. last year we had 5 or 6 winners, i think? so we got around 50 or 60 blocks - pretty awesome!

last year we had a requirement that all the blocks had to have Kona black in them, but not all of them did, and that was fine (in fact, i screwed up and one of my examples didn't even have black!). so this year we scrapped that requirement, and opened up the sizes instead.

all blocks made for the challenge must have a finished size that is a variation on 6". so people can make 6.5"x6.5" squares, or 12.5"x12.5" squares, or 6.5"x12.5" rectangles, whatever they'd like.


i was really excited about the variety of sizes, and had a blast making samples.

first, i made a 6.5"x6.5" block. simple cute square in a square, log cabin style block.



it was originally going to be two rows around the centre, but i suck at scant 1/4" seams! that's okay, i just trimmed the 3rd row a bit, and added a 4th.

then i made two 6.5"x12.5" blocks, one stacked blocks, and one flying geese.



the stacked blocks/coins/books/bolts/whatever block was a great excuse to use a halloween charm pack that i picked up last year. because the block is a rectangle, the 5" squares were a great size, wide enough to fill the 6.5", but without too much waste. i've obviously been into this block lately, after the one i made for the unscripted bee, and the sample i made before that. there's a tutorial here, as well as instructions in the book Block Party, as seen here on alissa haight carlton's blog.

and the flying geese were just fun. i love this striped green print, with the little spiders peeking out!

and then the flying geese created some extra HSTs, so i figured i might as well sew them up too!



they needed a few borders as well, to bring them up to size.

most of the fabrics i used were Seen On Halloween, by Maywood Studio, except for the centre of the log cabin block, which was Batty Halloween by Kylie Kreations for SSI, and the charm pack i used in the stacked whatever block, that was Spook Tacular by Sanae for Moda.


and i also made a 12.5"x12.5" block!(it is square, i promise... apparently i just can't take straight photos!)



this one is using kona black and Witchy Stitchy, an older alexander henry print - it's yummy, but the colour tones aren't my usual thing. i love halloween, but i hate oranges and pumpkins! i like how the block turned out, but i don't have anything else that would go with it, you know?



i'm so excited to see what the rest of the guild comes up with by next month!



and i'm linking up to {Sew} Modern Monday and Fabric Tuesday. click on the badges to see lots and lots of other fabulous projects!