Bats, Bats, Bats! - Modern Halloween Triangles Quilt

***This Quilt is currently available to purchase here in my shop.***

It's October, so I guess it's fair to post Halloween themed posts now right?  A few weeks ago, I decided that my sewing area and fabric was so messy that even I couldn't work in it anymore, so I decided to reorganize my fabric.  I generally like it organized by color, but pull out I-Spy Fabrics or fabrics that I'm saving together for a particular project.  As I was doing the sorting, there were several fabric bundles that just seemed to form themselves and begged to be put together.

This was one of them.  I'd bought the white and orange bat fabric for I-Spy swaps, because I love mono-chromatic I-Spy squares.  Then I found the yellow bats that Patty from You Keep Me in Stitches sent me a while back.

I have a bunch of Kona green shades that I bought for another project...but I keep raiding the stack...which is where the green came from, and I generally have some Kona black on hand.

I'm really not that in to decorating for Halloween.  I don't like creepy spooky decorations, and I don't like cheesy cartoony prints on my quilts (except of course for I-Spy quilts in which case the cheesier and cartoonier, the better.)  This isn't a pallette of colors I usually work with, but I really LOVE this quilt and how it turned out.  For now it's listed in my shop here, but it could disappear any day if I decided I love it to much to let it go.

I think it's one of the first quilts I've done that could REALLY be considered "modern," although the Modern Rocket Boys Triangle Quilt probably qualifies too.  I love the randomness of it, and the simplicity of the colors and the simplicity of the shapes...half-square-triangles in only two sizes, and get you get all sorts of combination shapes when the same print ended up together.

I used the Angle Quilt tutorial from Kyndra on Sewlio.  It's a simple and well-written tutorial.  If I'd read it a little more carefully before cutting my fabric, I could have saved myself a lot of trouble.  I didn't try to use the same numbers of squares that did because I had fairly tight fabric restrictions (part of the fun of living 1 1/2 hours from a good fabric store.)  I had 1/2 yard of the white and orange bats each, 1/3 of the yellow bats, 1/2 yard of the Kona Cotton Peridot (affiliate link) and as much Kona Cotton black (affiliate link) as I wanted.

The placement of the blocks was a bit tricky because I wanted all the bats to be facing the same direction.  Once I had the layout figured out, sewing the quilt together was really fast, although it was a bit of a pain to have the trim and square all the blocks...but the result was worth it.  Nearly every corner matching perfectly.

For quilting, I'm finding myself more drawn to quilting about 1/4-3/8 inch on either side of all the seams, which is what I ended up doing with this one.

I used the same Kona Cotton Peridot for the back, and added a few appliqued bats to add some interest.  I got the shapes from scanning in some of the bat fabric, blowing up the shapes of a few favorites and using those.

If you're interested in the template for the bat appliques, you can find them here.

I used Heat'n Bond Lite (affiliate link) to apply the bats to the backing and then did a really sewed around the edges with a tight zigzag or satin stitch.  And as you can see, I focused on the top while quilting and just quilted right through my appliques.

And I really had a lot of fun in my neighbor's yard taking pictures.  It's always fun for me to watch a quilt reveal itself as it makes the transformation to the fabric, to the pieces, to block, to rows, to the top, and then to the finished quilt...and the quilt always seems to make a final transformation when I photograph them.  Maybe it's because it's often the first time I really stand back to admire it from a distance.

And occasionally there are things that I notice about a quilt when photographing that I didn't see before.  Like in the case of this one...I sewed a whole row on upside down.  I didn't even see it until I was arranging the quilt for the VERY LAST picture.  Ugh!  Honestly, I'm not a perfectionist in that I can't enjoy the quilt the way it is.  Honestly, I REALLY LOVE this quilt like it is...but as much as I love it, I was planning to put it in the shop, and I do feel like quilts for the shop should be as perfect as possible.  However, since the error doesn't really affect the overall composition of the quilt, I've decided to go ahead an list it anyway at the original price...but the quilt could disappear from the shop any day if I decide I just can't part with it.

***A note about affiliate links and sponsors:  I have used affiliate links to Amazon in my posts for a long time, mainly as a way to let my readers know where you can find specific product information.  Recently rules have changed and bloggers must identify affiliate links as such.  An affiliate link means I get a tiny percentage of a sale if you make a purchase after following the link.  However, I was not asked or paid to write this post and all opinions in it are my own.

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