Halloween Happiness
Posted by Riel Nason on Oct 16th 2020
Hello, Happy Fall! My name is Riel Nason and I’m a quilter and writer from New Brunswick, Canada. I am the author of two books published by C&T – Modern Selvage Quilting and Sew a Modern Halloween. Guess which one I’m going to be talking a bit about today …
I have always loved Halloween. It’s my favourite holiday of the year! I’ve made at least fifteen to twenty full-sized Halloween quilts over the years and countless smaller projects. I had a lot of fun coming up with the ideas and patterns that are in the book.
What was most enjoyable about writing Sew a Modern Halloween was how I got to use a single design idea in many ways. There are five basic designs (A Scrappy Jack O’Lantern, An Easy-pieced Skull Block, A Selvage Spiderweb, An Easy-pieced triangular Ghost Block and Spooky Eyes) that lend themselves to being used in many, many projects. There are complete instructions for fifteen different projects in the book, but I also hope that readers will use the basic designs as starting points to come up with unique variations of their own …
Since the book first came out, I’ve been using the Scrappy Jack O’Lantern block/method to incorporate in some new pieces which aren’t in the book. These are simple projects using Scrappy Jack as the feature block. I’ve made several table runners and wall hangings and even a mini quilt. You may wish to do the same. Follow the book directions for the Scrappy Jack piecing method and then from there let your creativity take over!
And one final thing before I go that I’d love to share. I have another book just out that let my quilting creativity move in a different direction -- my picture book The Little Ghost Who Was a Quilt, illustrated by Byron Eggenschwiler and published by Tundra Books. It is shown below on my “Good Night?” quilt from Sew a Modern Halloween.
Thanks for reading! If you make a project from Sew a Modern Halloween, I’d love to see it. Tag me @rielnason on Instagram.
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