How to Make a Simple Halloween Quilt

If you are anything like me, and forget to plan ahead, you might be thinking it’s too late to make a Halloween quilt for this year.  But it’s not!  It is not too late to make a Halloween quilt!

Don’t have any “Halloween fabric”?  Also, not a problem!

Follow along to learn how to make this darling and simple-enough-to-be-fast Halloween Quilt.

Or, if you are not like me, and already have your Halloween act together, this pattern and tutorial can be easily adjusted to make this quilt in any other color or fabric combo you desire.

Smaller Checkerboard Quilt Block

The 42 blocks in this Halloween quilt are the same pattern as my recent Long Checkerboard Tutorial!

Really.

Truly. 

Same block pattern.  Just smaller.

I did not use a single “Halloween fabric” in this quilt.  Every fabric is a tone on tone, or a white on tone in black, orange, dark purple or green. 

You can follow the same directions from the Long Checkerboard Tutorial, this time starting with 2” strips.

My Halloween quilt finishes at 42” by 48” and is made of 42 blocks, set in six rows of seven blocks. 

To make a quilt just like this one, you will need 21 strips of black fabric, or white print on black fabric, and 21 strips of color.  Each strip should be cut 2” by width of fabric.  Please note, that’s 2” cut, which will finish in the quilt block at 1½” which is smaller than jelly roll fabric.

Using a jelly roll will lead to a block that is square, like this Checkerboard Tutorial, rather than the 6” by 8” rectangle blocks in this quilt.

Making Checkerboard Blocks

Pair a black strip with a colored strip, sew along the long sides using a ¼” seam allowance and press towards the darker fabric.  Then, cut the strip pairs in half, making sure that each half is at least 20” long.  Every fraction of an inch more than 20” gives you more wiggle room for squaring up the units while sub-cutting in the next step.

Sew the two strip pairs together, again along the long edge.  The strips should alternate black-color-black-same color, and measure 6½” wide by at least 20” long.

Sub-cut eight (8) pieces that are 2½”.  Use four of the pieces to make one block, and the other four to make a matching block.  Repeat to make 42 blocks total.  All blocks should have a black rectangle in the upper left corner and a colored rectangle in the upper right corner.

Make sure to pin every single seam when sewing units and blocks together.

This quilt is made from 42 blocks, set in six rows of seven blocks and measures 42” by 48”.  To make a larger or smaller quilt, simply make more or less blocks as needed.

Halloween Quilt Stripy Binding

The absolute best thing about this quilt?  That stripy binding!

For some reason the black and white stripes remind me of Halloween costumes, specifically witches’ tights, or pirates’ tights.  I am so, so glad I had this fabric available to use for the binding!

Most of my fabrics were tone on tone prints, but a few were white on tone prints.  I didn’t feel like there was quite enough white in the quilt to justify binding that was 50% white, so I did all of my quilting in white thread as well, to try to pull everything together a bit more.