Ask Jo: Question on the Halloween Quilt

Hello…
Thanks so much for the wonderful response to our Halloween quilt, Halloween Hoopla, that is published in the current, October 2021 issue of American Patchwork and Quilting.

I’ve gotten quite a few questions related to the quilt so I thought I would get to them all.

First off…from Laura K:
“I absolutely love this pattern. Where can I purchase it?”

The quilt pattern is in the current issue of American Patchwork and Quilting. This issue.

For me, our Walmart and our grocery store regularly stock this magazine.

Next up…the packages of Halloween fabric. Remember I had 13 of these bags…

Remember they were all filled with Halloween fabric…

Remember I offered them up to blog readers?

Well, I ended up getting MANY-MANY-MANY responses. I woke up Saturday morning to a flood of emails. I took the requests in order of when people responded and whether they followed the instructions.

A few people sent their requests but didn’t include their addresses. I just moved on to the next person. I hated to do it but I couldn’t afford to put any more time into this. It took me two hours to sort and package all of the fabric. It took another hour to label all of the packages. I couldn’t afford more time to send emails back and forth to get the information I needed. I hope you understand. When there are 75 emails in my inbox waiting for a response, it’s hard to wade through them all to find a response requesting an address. I did have several people send one email and then realized they forgot the address and immediately sent another email with the address. Those I honored.

I had some people leave a comment in the comment section with their request. I had some people send it to an alternate email address. It was a lot! Those I could not honor as the people didn’t follow the instructions and bumping them into spots in front of people who did follow the instructions wouldn’t be fair.

Anyway, I tell you all of this so in the future if I offer things like this, that you have the best chance of making the cut and getting the goods. Follow the directions in the blog post completely. Send your request to the right email. With all I do I have to streamline some things and getting mail out and managing my email is one of those things.

Along the same line. I found this out from a blog reader, Camille. She had requested a Halloween scrap bag but her request didn’t come in until Sunday. She wrote:
“Thanks for your response. It set me on a better path. I was not subscribed to your blog directly. I subscribed to your blog via Bloglovin and your post arrived today (a day late).

I was unaware that there was a lag but have remedied the problem. I am now subscribed directly by email. Perhaps this is worth a mention in your blog.”

It is worth a mention. Many of you subscribe through Bloglovin’. If you do, you are getting blog posts from me a day late. That explained to me why I got a whole ‘nother flood of emails on Sunday.

So…if you are a Bloglovin subscriber and read my email that way, please note that anytime I offer anything, you will be getting the posts a day late and will likely not get an offer in time to get goodies like Halloween scrap bags from the blog. People who read the blog directly will beat you to the goodies.

Now a question from Doreen. She wrote:
“Just received my magazine today. I have a question for your Ask Jo segment. I know you follow a lot of Bonnie Hunter’s suggestions, so my question for your Halloween quilt is do you use Bonnie’s Easy Angle Ruler for your half square triangles or do you use the instructions in the magazine? It is such a pain to cut 2 7/8^th squares. Thanks for your input.”

If you’ve read the blog before you might remember that when we have a quilt published, we offer the quilt and a rough draft of instructions. We own that part of the quilt. The publisher writes the directions in their own format. They own the instructions. Publishers do not consult with designers on the “best way” or “their way” to construct the quilt.

I remember once Kelli and I had a bugger of a time figuring out how to construct a quilt. We finally figured it out. Then the magazine published the instructions and when we saw them, we thought, “DUH, why didn’t we think of that?”

Anyway back to Doreen’s question. I sewed the entire quilt using an easy-angle ruler. I have this one…

You can find it HERE on Amazon. They make a 6″ one too-I have one of those too. You can find that one HERE.

If you are a member of the strip club….as in I save strips to make quilts, love scrap quilts, or want to make quilts that have triangles, I HIGHLY recommend this ruler.

I know many of you have the ruler tucked away and thought you would use it but haven’t gotten in the habit, this quilt is the perfect time to bust it out and USE IT!!

I will raise my right hand on a bible and attest to the way this ruler has changed my quilting life. It is a mainstay of my quilting. If the house burned down tomorrow and I had to replace things in the sewing room, the ruler would be in the top 10 items for sure!

Being I needed to cut some more pinwheel blocks for Eli and Emmett’s quilts I though I’d show you how I use the easy angle ruler and how I used it for making the triangle blocks for the Halloween quilt.

For the Halloween quilt everything is cut from 2 1/2″ strips. For the half square triangles I need to make for the pinwheel blocks I need the same size.

I layer two pieces a light and dark right sides together. I cut them at 7″ long.

I usually layer at least two sets or four pieces of fabric at a time…sometimes up to four sets or eight pieces of fabric at a time.

Lay your ruler on the strips as shown. Trim off the edge to the left. Cut on the diagonal.

Ater that is cut, flip the ruler as shown. Cut on the straight edge.

Flip the ruler again. Cut on the diagonal.

Flip the ruler again and cut on the straight line.

The beauty of all of this is:
-There is not matching of pairs. The two pieces are already matched together and you don’t need to take the time to sandwich the two triangle pieces together.
-There is no need to take the time to draw diagonals on the back of squares.
-One of the dog ears is already cut off. The pieces feel through the machine nicely and the corner piece doesn’t get sucked into your machine.

The ruler completely changed the way I quilt. I love it so much and as I said, it is one of the most vital tools in my sewing room.

I think that covers the questions related to the Halloween quilt. Oh wait. Someone mentioned in the comments that she hasn’t found an issue of the magazine yet. If you have found it on the newsstand, leave a comment and let the blog reader know where you found it. THANKS so much…I so appreciate all the love you have sent our way in regards to this quilt!