How to Make a Halloween Spider Mini Quilt

Inside: How to Make a Halloween Spider Mini Quilt

Want to add a bit of bewitching charm to your Halloween decor. Try making this super easy Halloween Spider Mini Quilt! It’s so easy and can be whipped up in an afternoon!

I have this unrealistic fantasy of one-day creating fabulous quilts, bags, wall hangings, and any number of things using up all of my sewing scraps. I occasionally dream of sewing them all together to form new fabrics that I’ll cut up into applique designs.

While I haven’t quite gotten around to creating a fully fleshed out plan on how to achieve this grandiose dream, I have made a teeny, tiny dent in my stash by creating this bewitching Halloween Spider Mini Quilt, a super easy Halloween quilting project that makes good use of a few scraps and can be made in an afternoon.

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Want an ad-free, printable copy of this tutorial that includes the spider template? Scroll to the bottom of this post for more details!

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Materials

• FREE Spooky Spider PDF Template (see spider-y box below)
• Collection of black fabric scraps
• (1) 22″ x 22″ pieces of white-on-white background fabric
• (1) 22″ x 22″ pieces of quilt back fabric
• 1/2 yard binding fabric
• Heat ‘n Bond Fusible Adhesive
• 22″ x 22″ pc. of fusible quilt batting
  • I used wool batting which gives it that puffy look but a poly blend batting will do this, too!

Supplies

• Sewing Machine
• Quarter Inch foot for your sewing machine
• Aurifil 50 wt. Cotton Thread
• Water-Erasable Pen
• Wonder Clips
• Sewing Pins
• Rotary Cutter with sharp blade
• Acrylic Ruler
• Self-Healing Rotary Cutting Mat
• Iron & Ironing Board
• Wool Pressing Mat

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Step 1: Get a FREE Spider Template PDF!

The Halloween Spider Template is available as a FREE downloadable PDF. Please follow the directions in the box below and the Halloween Spider PDF Template will be sent directly to your inbox. 

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Step 2: How to Make a Halloween Spider Mini Quilt in an Afternoon

It started like this. One of our vehicles needed a repair which meant I was stuck at home without a car for two days. For a while, I’ve been wanting to create some sort of project with a Halloween theme. This would be the perfect opportunity to find a pdf pattern and sew something from scraps. After searching online for a bit, I gave up because I couldn’t find anything that I liked. Most of the projects I came across were not my style or required fabric I didn’t have laying around. No car = no-go-to-store

Then I squashed a spider in my entry hall and inspiration came to me. Hmmm. It might be fun to create an improv spider by sewing some of my black fabrics together to create the appliqué fabric. And that’s exactly what I did.

1. I started sewing the black and nearly black fabrics together until I had a piece large enough for my spider design.
2. Then I ironed some fusible web to the back of the patched-together black fabric.
3. Next, I traced the spider design to the fusible adhesive, cut it out, and ironed it onto a piece of white-on-white fabric.

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Need help with applique?

Watch this quick video that shows simple steps to appliqué a design. For more information on applique, try my eBook, Applique Made Easy.

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Step 3: Stitching Down the Spider Applique

Once the design was fused to my white background fabric, I used a tiny zigzag stitch and stitched around the spider. You could also straight stitch around the spider for a different look. Feel free to embellish your spider in any way!

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Step 4: Create a Quilt Sandwich

Before quilting you will need to create a quilt sandwich by layering the quilt top, batting, and backing. If using fusible batting, just press the layers together and it will be secure enough for quilting. If using a non-fusible batting, pin the layers to hold them together.

Pro Tip: For my quilt batting, I had a piece of wool batting. If you love the puffy look of wool batting (but not the price), poly blend batting will give the same puffy quilting effect.

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Step 5: Quilting

For my quilt I decided to do a free-hand spider web quilt design. Here’s how I created this design.

Note: I did the following steps on the front of the quilt, but for demonstration purposes, the designs show up better from the quilt back.

• Using a water-erasable pen, I drew lines from corner-to-corner, top-to-bottom, and side-to-side. The lines always crossing at the same point in the middle.
• Then I filled in between these lines with a few more lines – as evenly as I could.
• I then connected these lines with curved lines to give it the spider web effect.

Another fun idea could be to add a contrasting thread (like black) from the spider’s head to the top of the quilt. This would give the effect of a spider dropping down from its web.

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Step 6: Finishing the Quilt

Once you’ve finished the quilting, trim and square the quilt. Next, bind the quilt with a contrasting fabric. For help with binding the quilt see my tutorial: How to Machine Bind a Quilt.

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All in all, it took me an afternoon to conceive the idea, create the design, appliqué, quilt, and bind. It was a great way to use scraps and make something fun. I know it’s not one of those projects that will grace the pages of a quilting magazine, however, I was looking for something that was simple and could be made in an afternoon

Mission accomplished.

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>>> Want an ad-free, printable version of this post? Click the pink button below and download the Printable PDF instructions.

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Post Update:

Well, I spoke too soon. It turns out that this design was featured in the 2016 Better Homes & Gardens Holiday Crafts magazine.

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