Five Little Ghosts QAL: Week 1 / Beauties Pageant 308

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Hello, jelly roll enthusiasts! This is week 1 of the Five Little Ghosts quilt-along. 

You didn’t know about the quilt-along? Here’s the scoop ...

Five Little Ghosts appears in my book, Not-Your-Typical Jelly Roll Quilts. It’s a fast and easy sew. The quilt-along happens over multiple weeks, but you could completed the runner project in a weekend. 

If you’d like to make something bigger, I designed a throw-size quilt with the same block. The directions for supersizing the Five Little Ghosts pattern are available free in my store (although you’ll need a copy of Not-Your-Typical Jelly Roll Quilts whether you sew the runner or the throw).

No registration is required to participate. Prizes (see bottom of this post) will be randomly awarded at the end of the quilt-along, on October 31. The only thing you need to do to enter is sew a single bootiful ghost!

The Schedule

Fabric Pull (Week 0): Blog post and YouTube video

Cutting (Week 1): YouTube video

Sewing Ghost Blocks (Week 2): Sept. 26, 2025

Sewing More Ghost Blocks (Week 3): Oct. 3, 2025

Assembling the Top (Week 4): Oct. 10, 2025

Halloween Parade of Blocks and Tops: Oct. 17-Oct. 31, 2025

Now that you’re up to speed, let’s talk about cutting our projects ... 

Sticky Lint Rollers

If you are opening a new jelly roll, I recommend you use a sticky lint roller to roll both sides of your jelly roll before unwinding the strips. Doing so cleans up a lot of the loose threads from the pinked edges. I keep my lint roller close at hand because little bits will continue to fall off, and I like to clean up my cutting mat and ironing board as I work on my project.

Directionality of the Jelly Roll Prints

You should read through the entire project before cutting anything. That read-through will show you that the ghosts are made in columns. In other words, your jelly roll strips will appear vertically in the finished block. If you are using prints with directionality, the design could appear on its side. If that would bug you, swap those strips out for different options now. 

Starch 

The other thing to think about is starch. In general, I do not starch my projects. If I am working with a lot of bias edges in the quilt top, however, I will starch everything—foreground and background fabrics—in advance of cutting anything. Also, if I am sewing with something other than quilting cotton—like a linen or chambray—I will starch my fabric. 

What about starching regular quilting cotton? I did an experiment: I made two little ghost blocks, one with starched fabric and one with unstarched fabric. I realized that starching the fat quarters I was using for my Five Little Ghosts and Friends project caused shrinkage. I lost about a quarter-inch along the crossgrain, or weft, threads—also called the width of fabric. I didn’t experience any shrinkage along the length of fabric. 

The other thing I noticed is that my snowballed corners came out nicer with the starched fabric. Sometimes my snowballed corners with the unstarched fabric were a little wonky—not unusable but not perfect, either. Perhaps that happened because I was sewing on the bias, or maybe I distorted the sewn pieces while pressing them. Even though the starched fabric was nicer to work with, I don’t think the benefits outweigh the time it takes to starch everything before sewing. 

Cutting Your Project

Cutting the runner-size Five Little Ghosts project is pretty straightforward; just follow the instructions in the book. Cutting for the expansion pack is complicated somewhat by the fact that the entire width and length of a fat quarter is necessary. You'll need to measure your fat quarters first and cut with care, especially if you like to stack your fabric and cut through multiple layers at once. I recommend having an extra fat quarter or two on hand in case of a cutting error. (It happens to the best of us!)

Prizes 

What’s a quilt-along without a little motivation to get things going? Everyone who completes at least one ghost block is eligible to enter giveaways for the following prizes. (A second group of prizes will be announced next week, too). 

1. $50 Gift Card to Camberville Threads (1 winner)

I love Camberville Thread’s carefully curated selection of fabric, notions, and EPP supplies. I have no doubt you will, too! One winner will receive a $50 gift card to the shop.

 

2. An ebook from C&T Publishing (2 winners)

C&T has released some super fun (and eagerly anticipated) new titles recently, including Rashida Coleman Hale’s Zakka Sewn and Lindlee Smith’s Lone Star Legacy Quilts. Two winners will pick the ebook they would like to receive.

3. Pattern bundle from Megan Collins Quilt Design, Down to the Letter Quilt Co., and From Bolt to Beauty (1 winner)

One winner can pick his or her choice of one pattern from three different designers: Megan Collins, Janie Brady, and Michelle Cain. It’s just what you need to get started with your next project! 

 

 

 

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The pageant rules are simple:

• Post your finish in the linky tool. (No links to your own giveaway or linky, please!)
• Point your readers back here with a text link or use the button above.
• Visit and comment on other participants’ finishes.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Five Little Ghosts QAL: Week 0 / Beauties Pageant 307

*View this content on YouTube here*

Welcome to what I am calling “week 0” of the Five Little Ghosts quilt-along! This week, we’re not doing any cutting or sewing. Instead, we’ll be talking about the fabric pull for both the runner and the quilt versions.

If this is news to you, I’ll bring you up to speed ...

Five Little Ghosts appears in my book, Not-Your-Typical Jelly Roll Quilts. It’s a fast and easy sew. I appreciate options, though—and I thought you might, too. So if you’d like to make something bigger, I designed a throw-size quilt with the same block. The directions for supersizing the Five Little Ghosts pattern are available free in my store (although you’ll need a copy of Not-Your-Typical Jelly Roll Quilts whether you sew the runner or the throw).

The full schedule for the quilt-along appears at the end of this post. No registration is required. Prizes will be announced next Friday, September 19, and the only thing you need to do to enter is sew a single bootiful ghost. Winners will be randomly selected at the end of the quilt-along, on October 31.

Now that you’re in the know, let’s get into the details of assembling a fabric pull for our projects ... 

If you’re sewing the runner, you likely have all the fabric you already need.

The original Five Little Ghosts pattern calls for five jelly roll strips for the ghosts, a background fabric, and some scraps for the creatures’ eyes and mouths. That’s what I love about it: You probably already have all the fabric you need!

For my ghosts, I used some floral white-on-white jelly roll strips that were left over from the other samples I had sewn for the book. I really love those prints because they’re a little unexpected. Here are these little ghosts trying to be spooky, but they’re made with pretty fabric, rendering them more sweet than scary.

Don’t have leftover jelly roll strips? Cut from yardage or fat quarters.

As described on page 9 of Not-Your-Typical Jelly Roll Quilts, two 2.5-inch strips from a fat quarter equal, inch for inch, a jelly roll strip. Depending on how the pattern at hand cuts jelly roll strips, sometimes you’ll need a third cut from a fat quarter, but that’s not the case with Five Little Ghosts. Just start by cutting the longer pieces first. For this pattern, that’s a rectangle 2 inches by 8 inches.

Don’t have any Halloween fabric? Think beyond orange and black.

I always encourage quilters to consider the fabric they have before buying more (although buying fabric is so much fun!). So even if you don’t own any Halloween fabric, you may have just what you need for a Five Little Ghosts project. 

For example, consider the fat quarters from Modern Background Paper, pictured on the right below, by Zen Chic for Moda. I think these low-volume options would look cute as ghosts. 

There’s more going on visually with the set of jelly roll strips on the left, from Bountiful Blooms by Sherri and Chelsea, who also design for Moda. Even though the strips feature some darker colors, I think they would work well as the ghosts, especially if you paired them with a solid background to create more of an autumnal feel than a spooky ghost feel. 

Expand a fabric collection with prints from the designer’s other lines, and use the two-colorway idea.

The throw project differs from the runner in that it uses jelly roll strips for the ghosts and fat quarters for the backgrounds. I’m going to sew the throw with the purples and pinks from Lella Boutique’s Hey Boo line.

In Not-Your-Typical Jelly Roll Quilts, I talk about different ways to supplement a jelly roll (see page 10). But those guidelines really pertain to any fabric collection. For example, if I need to add more of a particular color to a fabric line, I turn to the designer’s other collections. That’s the case below. The pink heart print is from a different Lella Boutique line, but it’s still a close match to the hot pink boo fabric. I think I will cut a background or two from it for my project.

That pink heart print does double-duty because I am going to use the same print in a different colorway—a white-on-white—for the ghosts. Repeating an outside print in more than one colorway is a simple but effective way to create cohesion when you are adding it to a collection. 

It’s worth noting that I am cutting the ghosts for my project from yardage instead of jelly roll strips. I know that defeats the purpose—after all, my entire book is designed for jelly rolls! But it’s what I have on hand, and it will look great in my throw-size quilt. If you are considering cutting your ghosts from a single swath of yardage as I am, you will need 1.5 yards of fabric. I'll talk more about cutting in next Friday’s installment of the quilt-along. : )

I hope this post helps you as you play with fabric choices for your project. If you have questions, let me know—either by commenting below or tagging me in Instagram posts.

 

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The pageant rules are simple:

• Post your finish in the linky tool. (No links to your own giveaway or linky, please!)
• Point your readers back here with a text link or use the button above.
• Visit and comment on other participants’ finishes.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

My Newfound Fondness for Halloween / Beauties Pageant 306

Let’s get something straight: I am not a Halloween kind of girl. In fact, the last time I donned a costume was 27 years ago, in 1998.* 

Sure, I’ve handed out candy to neighborhood kids. I’ve oohed and aahed over little ones dressed as Tigger and Thomas the Tank Engine and Spider Man. Now that I have two teenagers, though, I would like to spend every October 31 at home and under a quilt—no jacket, flashlight, or treat bag required.

Slowly over the past few years, however, cute Halloween has taken hold of my heart, and I find myself—gasp!—excited for the holiday. 

I’m sure a lot of that has to do with Five Little Ghosts, one of the patterns from Not-Your-Typical Jelly Roll Quilts and the focus of my first quilt-along from the book. This project is quick and easy, and I’d bet you have what you need to sew it without buying a thing.

What’s better than a project featuring 5 silly ghosts, though? A throw quilt that features 20 of them! So when the QAL launches next week, I will include a free download that I’m calling Five Little Ghosts and Friends ...

Whereas the original runner-size project was written for jelly roll strips, this expansion pack was written for jelly roll strips and fat quarters. 

I am working ahead of schedule on my QAL project and sewing my little ghosts with selections from Hey Boo, a 2024 collection from Lella Boutique. (If you’re looking for the same collection, I had good luck at Handmade is Heartmade.)

If you have a copy of Not-Your-Typical Jelly Roll Quilts, I hope you’ll consider joining me in sewing some ghosts! I have YouTube videos planned and am lining up a selection of quilty prizes (to enter, you will only need to finish a single ghost block). More details are in the image below and on the QAL landing page.

* I dressed as the Prudential building in Boston for a 1998 Halloween party. It was not a fun costume. Pro tip: When dressing up for Halloween, steer clear of architecture!

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The pageant rules are simple:

• Post your finish in the linky tool. (No links to your own giveaway or linky, please!)
• Point your readers back here with a text link or use the button above.
• Visit and comment on other participants’ finishes.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter