Happy Hallowe'en!

Hallowe'en was always a big deal in the Robson household. When the kids were little, we lived in a great neighbourhood with lots of other kids and Hallowe'en was one of the highlights of the year. Lots of planning and decision making with regard to costumes and makeup. No store bought costumes at our house! Come to think of it I don't think you could go out and buy much, the retailers hadn't discovered this market yet.

1984 was the year of the bathroom wall (most likely in Paris!) and the 2 sided boy - one a tramp the other rather distinguished! For Kate it was those checked tights she had to have when we saw them in a shop in Toronto. She got a lot of mileage out of those over the years. Andrew's costume came from a stash of costumes from my parents that were all based on burlap and which were a great source of inspiration for us over the years.

Then Hallowe'en began to appear in my quilt world and I couldn't resist.

This wallhanging Hallowe'en Memories came from an old issue of Miniature Quilts magazine (issue #11, Fall 1993). Orange was also a colour of cotton fabric that was hard to come by in those days.

 I love the bat with those beady eyes! The wall hanging is machine pieced and hand quilted. It was pieced the "old fashioned" way with templates and scissors, the squares are 1". Rotary cutters hadn't hit the quilt world yet when I made this one.

This wallhanging is called Pumpkin Trio and is from a pattern by The Rabbit Factory.

Now the next generation loves Hallowe'en as much as their parents. This is Evan's quilt Hallowe'en Hijinks. I took a spider web quilt class from Heather Stewart and decided not to go scrappy but to use some of the Hallowe'en fabrics I had been collecting.

Ben's quilt came next and I used the Disappearing Nine Patch pattern. There are lots of versions of this online and it was fun to make.

Hallowe'en Surprises was machine pieced and machine quilted. I made the same one, re-arranged the fabrics for Molly and soon I will have to make another one for our soon-to-arrive grandson (yes, we know Molly is going to have a brother, any day now!). Happy Hallowe'en!!