I don’t usually do holiday-themed designs, but I couldn’t help it this week. The basic flower unit in last week’s sketch reminded me of a pumpkin, and with Halloween coming up… it felt like good timing to play around with the idea a little more.

I started with a full layout of pumpkins, but they were pretty boring on their own (and possibly not even that recognisable as pumpkins…), so I decided to add another Halloween-y block. A ghost seemed like the easiest thing to try. I started with a very simple ghost…

…which is very cute (helped by the smiling face), but reminded me a little of USPS mailboxes 🙂

Can you see the resemblance?

Maybe if I give him a little upturned wisp of ghostliness trailing behind?

I think that’s better. Less mailbox-y, anyway!

Then I thought one more Halloween-y block would help to dispel any confusion over what’s going on in this design. I couldn’t be bothered trying to design a bat in Electric Quilt 8, but a block of cobwebs seemed doable!

Some of these palettes aren’t necessarily Halloween-y (which might also contribute to feelings that the pumpkins don’t look very pumpkin-y and the ghosts don’t look very ghostly), but I don’t love the usual scary colour palettes. I don’t love Halloween either… I’m not into scary movies or shows or books, don’t like horror of any kind, and am still getting over that scene in Poltergeist (don’t ask; I don’t want to talk about it). So you better believe if I’m going to do a Halloween-themed quilt design, the colours are going to be fun and the ghosts are going to be smiling 🙂

Speaking of friendly ghosts, I liked them so much, I tried them on their own too.

   

   

They make some really cute secondary shapes when they’re tiled.

A combo of just two blocks is cute too. I’m not sure of the best way to piece those spiderweb blocks… maybe paper piecing? Or improv skinny strips? It would be fun (though time-consuming) if they were all a bit different. Maybe the spiderweb designs could just be quilted on??

That would be easier if there were only a few spiderweb blocks, like in the first design I showed.

Anyway, it’s probably apparent that some of the blocks in this week’s design would be easy to piece, while others might require paper-piecing or some improv. The curves in the ghosts are quite small (smaller than I’d be comfortable machine-piecing), but if the layout were reduced to a 5 × 5 arrangement of blocks, the blocks themselves could be bigger and the curves might be more achievable.

Happy Halloween!