Ghostly Greetings

Boo! It's almost Halloween, and this wee ghost is saying hello!

Ghostly Greetings is a cute table runner or wall hanging pattern to add a perfect little touch of whimsy to your Halloween decor. I'm not a big fan of the gory and scary parts of Halloween, so I designed this cute and friendly ghost instead.

I'm picturing it on a table or sideboard, with some pumpkins and a big bowl of candy for decoration (and snacking). Or hanging near the door greeting guests throughout the season.

Ghostly Greetings Details

Ghostly Greetings has a "two spools" difficulty rating, which means it's suitable for advanced beginners. It uses stitch-and-flip corners and half-square triangles, which might be tricky for a complete beginner, but it is otherwise a very straight-forward and easy to make pattern.

The pattern is for a table runner or wall hanging that finishes at 18" x 44". It's a block-based pattern, so there are a few options for where to place the ghost block. 

In the table runner, it could be before or after the word Boo.

And if you're making it as a wall hanging, it could sit above, or below the word.

Fabric Selection

I chose to  make my sample with Kona Solids because I love working with them as they have such a wide variety of colours. 

For my runner I used Kona Persimmon, School Bus and Goldfish for the letters, Kona White for the ghost, and Kona Charcoal for the background. The binding is also Persimmon.

For the backing I picked up this cute ghost print at my local quilt shop. It's called Friendly Ghost and is by Lella Boutique for Moda Fabrics.

Ruler Quilting

With the table runner being a small project, I was going to quilt this on my domestic machine (I use a Bernina Aurora 440 QE), and I knew I would have enough maneuverability to do something a little more interesting than straight lines. 

A while ago, I took a ruler quilting class with Kelly of Silly Moon Quilt Co. and loved the concept. My free-motion quilting skills aren't all that great (I'm good with stipples and meanders, less so with motifs) but rulers can make me look like a pro ;-)

I have the Charming ruler, which happens to be perfect for making spiderwebs, and what's more perfect than some spiderwebs on a Halloween table runner?

I quilted a few spiderwebs all over the runner using a light grey thread so it wouldn't contrast too much with the letters, and overpower them. There was still some room in between them along the borders, and I debated adding some partial webs, but then decided to just do a few straight lines running the length of the borders, and stopping at each web so they would look like they were going behind the web. I used a charcoal thread for those lines, to make them blend into the background fabric as much as possible.

Inspiration For Other Projects

Like all my word patterns, each letter and accent block is listed as a separate pattern within the pattern, with dedicated cutting and piecing instructions. This means that you could easily make just the one block, whether that's one of the letters, or the ghost, and you won't have to pick through the cutting table to find which pieces are needed for your specific block.

So here are a few ideas for smaller projects to make with the blocks in this pattern.

• I love the idea of a ghostly tote for the little ones to take out trick-or-treating. Just make one or two ghost blocks, depending on whether the tote will have blocks on both sides or just one, and follow this tutorial for a quick and simple quilted tote bag.
• Placemats or hot pads for the seasonal table. I've just added a couple of 2" border strips on either side, and a 1" border at the top and bottom of this mockup to make it a standard 12" x 18" placemat.
  You could also make a placemat of each of the letters, plus the ghost, for a table of four.

• And while this one isn't smaller (in fact, it's a bit bigger than the original), there is even the option to make two ghost blocks and add one to either side of the word, or to the top and bottom in the case of a wall hanging. This will make the runner or wall hanging longer, which will require some extra fabric for the binding, borders, and the second ghost, but the backing that's included in the original pattern leaves enough extra that it would accommodate the longer runner.