Great Craft Ideas for Halloween: The Halloween Wall Quilt

If you're looking for a Halloween craft project idea, and you like sewing, you might want to tackle a small wall-quilt. Wall quilts can be hung anywhere and they're a great way to showcase all the wonderful Halloween craft fabrics available on the market.

Quilting is often though of as complicated, but there are easier ways to quilt for beginners. If you know how to use a sewing machine to stitch a straight line, quilting a simple pattern won't take much skill.

I winged this quilt when I made it because the fabric (several years old now) was so cute, I had to display it...but I can teach you how I did it.

This quilt is about 40" square. It contains 6 fabrics across the front but you could go with 5 if you only used 2 fabrics in the border. These instructions will teach you that method. You probably won't be able to duplicate this quilt as the fabrics are several years old, but you can make something just as good out of new fabrics. You will also need other materials.

All seam allowances are 1/4".

Materials:

Fabric 1: Large Print for squares. (I made the quilt to showcase the monsters on a fabric print I fell in love with) Though you only need 4 9.5" squares, in order to showcase the the parts of the large print you like, you'll need more fabric to make sure you can get the parts you want.

Fabric 2: Orange (I used orange sparkle fabric) The orange inner borders are 3"x9", so you'd need 12 rectangles that measure 3.5"x9.5" (for a 1/4" seam allowance on all sides).

Fabric 3: Black (I used black cobwebs) The black corners for the inner borders are 3" before seam allowance, so you'd need 9 squares that measure 3.5".

Fabric 4: Outer Border Corners (I used candy corns) The large corners are 6"x6" square. You'll need 4 of them.

Fabric 5: Multi (Mine contain halloween items in square pictures with orange borders. Eliminate the black border fabric with various halloween candies and pumpkins). You'll need 4 rectangles that measure 6.5"x 27.5" for the outer borders. You'll also need 16 squares that measure 5.5" to attach to the 4 large print squares.

Fabric 6: Backing: You can use a halloween print or a plain fabric. It needs to be 40.5" wide and tall so I'd buy 1 and 1/3 yards. This will be your largest piece of fabric most likely.

You'll also need:

Matching thread

Thin batting

At least 170" worth of double-fold bias tape (pre-packaged or make-your-own, which means more fabric)

Tailor's chalk, marking pen, or other implement to mark fabric impermanently

Sewing machine and needles

Hand sewing needle

Scissors or rotary cutter & cutting mat

Ruler

Optional: 2" masking tape for making straight quilting lines on border

Directions:

Cut and set aside all of your fabrics. Many of them can be cut in rows...you can cut a strip of fabric that is 3.5 inches wide and then cut every 3.5 inches to make squares, every 9.5 inches to make inner borders, etc.

Accurate cutting is very important. If you don't cut your pieces accurately, you won't be able to sew them together accurately, and then your quilt will warp. Accurate seams are also very important for this reason.

Once all of your fabrics are cut, take your 9.5" squares in Fabric 1 and your 5.5" squares in fabric 2. Flip your 5.5" squares to the backside. Using your ruler, line up 2 opposite corners and mark the fabric diagonally. This will be a seam.

Using your 9.5" squares, place the smaller squares face down atop the right-side facing lower square. To line them up properly, they should overlap each other by 1/2". If some of the 5.5" square is overlapping the outer edge of the 9.5" square to achieve this, that's fine. Mark where you'll be stitching so you can line them up properly to sew. Remove 3 of the squares and stitch the 4^th to your large square, right sides facing.

In the corner you just stitched, fold down the corner of the 9.5" square, giving you cutting access to the outer edge of your 5'5" square. Cut a 1/4" seam in fabric 5 only. Then unfold the corner of fabric 1 and flip the inside edge of your 5.5" square back across the seam, showing the right side of the fabric. It should make a triangle. Press in place. Repeat this process with the next 3 squares until all of your accent corners are added and pressed in place. Find the center and trim all outer edges to make sure your square is 9.5" again.

I have included pictures of a current project where I'm doing this to help you understand.

Do this with all 4 of your 9.5" squares. That was the hardest part.

Stitch inner borders in fabric 2 to two opposite sides of one square. Then add another of your squares in the fabrics 1/5 combo. Remember to line up your large squares properly if you have a design that is one side up. Add one more border in fabric 2 to complete a row.

Do this again with your other two squares in the fabrics 1/5 combo, making sure to line your squares up properly if they have a one side up design. Press all seams to one side. The dark one, so that they won't show. This is known as 'press to dark'.

Now take the rest of the pieces in fabrics 2 and 3. Sew on the short edges of fabric 2, to make a long strip. Make your strip in this order: 3,2,3,2,3, or square, rectangle, square, rectangle, square. Make 3 of these strips, making sure to sew exactly on the 1/4" line so that they'll line up with each other and your two other inner strips. Press to dark.

When you are done with these strips, sew the strips together, with the large square strips between the border strips. You are now ready for borders.

Sew your 4 corners in fabric 4 to each short edge of two of your long rectangles in fabric 5. Set them aside.

Take your other two rectangles in fabric 5 and line up the long edge with your completed inner pieces. Sew on the 1/4" seam along the long side, matching up the ends. Then do this on the opposite side.

Now you can take the two border pieces you set aside with the corners on them and add them to the other two sides just as you did before, completing your border. Press all seams to dark.

Your quilt top is done.

Sandwich your backing fabric between your quilt top and bottom fabric, making sure that the top has both batting and backing under the entire thing. Trim down your batting so that it's more manageable, but you don't have to trim to the edges just yet.

Pin from the top of your quilt through all the layers to keep them from sliding. Make sure that all fabrics, including backing, are as flat as you can get them. Once you start quilting, it's very difficult to try to go back and fix wrinkles or lumps. Pin as much as you have to to keep the layers from sliding around on each other and quilt your piece. If you do not have a preferred quilting method, you can do what I did.

Stitch all layers together where the inner borders (fabric 2) touch all other fabrics. Stitching along the seam is called 'stitching in the ditch'. Once you have stitched the entire top, you can now secure the outer corners where they meet with the border with more stitch in the ditch. You can also stitch a diagonal line straight through the corner squares if you like.

For more security, you can line up your 2" masking tape with the corner edge along your outer border fabric. Stick it down and sew right on the outside edge of the masking tape, 2" exactly from your corner piece. Don't stitch over the tape. It dulls needles very quickly and turns everything sticky. Smirk because you just learned a really easy quilter's cheat. Repeat all the way down the border and do all 4 sides. Remove whatever masking tape you haven't removed already. Bask in the glory of your perfect 2" seams.

Now you're ready for finishing. Using your ruler and rotary cutter, or scissors if you don't have them, cut away excess batting and backing fabric to line up with your front border.

Now you're ready to close your quilt.

I used awful green bias tape and multiple strands of black thread. This is not how you're supposed to attach bias tape. I did it because it's a Halloween quilt and the stitches and green look all "Frankenstein's Monster"...for Halloween. If you want to do it this way, go for it. Open up your bias tape and slide the quilt edge inside it so that the bias tape completely wraps around the edge of your quilt. With a big, fat running stitch, hand stitch through all the layers, allowing the thread to show through in short lines. This takes little skill and looks awesome only if you're trying to invoke the "Frankenstein's Monster" look. As an embroiderer, this look usually pains me, and as a quilter, I know that doing things this way makes all quilters cry.

Bias Tape makes grandmas happy.

If you want to impress grandma, line up your bias tape and open the side that will be on the front. The fold closest to the inside edge is the 'ditch'. Stitch in it, paying special attention to the corners. Close up bias tape, wrap around to back, and use tiny whip stitches to hand-stitch the back in place so that your bias tape looks like it was applied by magic and no stitches are visible on the front side.

I will include pictures of this magic.

If you really want to impress grandma, learn to make your own bias tape. I know that there are tutorials on the internet teaching how to make bias tape by cutting crosswise on fabric (that's side-to-side for the uninitiated) but that's not really bias tape, as it is not cut on the bias (bias is diagonal). Bias keeps it from fraying and allows it to bend and stretch, which is really important for corners and curved seams. If you like quilting, you're going to learn what curved seams are really quickly. If I have enough space, I will also include a picture of opened bias tape that I made so you can see how simple bias tape is (in principle, not in manufacture).

As for bias tape, there are machines that will do various parts of the manufacturing for you, but if you don't know how to make it by hand, you'll need to rely on an expensive machine. Machines break and require electricity. It's Halloween. There are zombies in the streets. Can you count on electricity forever?

Enjoy your free Halloween story at no extra charge. Also, enjoy your free Halloween sewing craft project idea (quilting is sewing, right?), and let me know if you tackle it. Tackling your first quilt may just be the scariest thing you'll encounter this year...but I hope not. There are zombies in the streets after all.