Modified "String X" Halloween FRENZY

I was on a 4-day quilt retreat a few weekends ago as well as a few "sew days" here and there. I just had to share my project!   Those that know me, know that I am a complete SUCKER for Halloween Fabrics.  Have been collecting them for about 10 years now.  In that 10 years, I have fallen in love on sight and HAD to HAVE them...  but haven't cut into them or used them in a project!   Often I would pet them, dream about them, plan something around 1 or 2 of them....but never took the leap to slice in.   In my fabric cupboards, they have done nothing but grow to 2 full STACKS just in yardage. That doesn't even count the fat quarters and scraps!

Well....go big or go home right?   An idea....I decided to cut into EVERY one.  I started this cutting spree in October of 2013.  Not kidding.  Was 2 years ago that I started prepping for this quilt.  Slicing and dicing my way through at random times,  I took a 10" square from each fabric and stacked them up in one of those portable boxes and then a handful of sliced 5" scraps of varying widths went into a bigger bin.    Always on my cutting table for when the mood would strike!

Then one day.....it was time to start playing...  I grabbed a phone book, ripped out about 50 pages and sliced them at 4.5".   With a little Elmer's Glue stick - I glued 2 together to make the 4.5" page about 20 inches long.  I had to re-iron most of the scraps again because the bin had been moved, carried, tossed and dumped several times over the past few years.   Retreat was the best place to do this!   The String Piecing begins!   Watching Bonnie Hunter on Quilt Cam do this at various times gave me the idea!    Then when she mentioned hoarding phone books....I moved them down to my sewing studio! 

I bought an entire bolt of gray & white spiderweb fabric at some point along the way because it was on a clearance rack marked down 60%.  I think in my head it would be a great backing for the dozens of Halloween quilts I was going to make.  (grin)  I cut this into 1.5" Strips from selvage to selvage and then cut them in half  (about 22" long)

Using a slightly modified verion of Bonnie Hunter's "String X" pattern... the AHA moment finally came!

The 10" squares get sliced on the diagonal and become the large triangles.   This is a GREAT place to be able to feature large print fabrics! 

I can't even begin to tell you how much I enjoyed working on this project at retreat.   It's been a very difficult 3 months for me.   To be surrounded by friends, working with fabrics that make me smile, it was the perfect vacation.

I get to have my ENTIRE Halloween stash....in one quilt.  :-)

and the more it grew....

the more excited I got....

There is LOTS more to do on this baby...because I can't stop making these blocks!   So I decided to make the entire quilt reversible!   It's going to have a wide piano key border too!