Bento Box Halloween Quilt

I finally finished my Bento Box Halloween Quilt.  It some ways it felt like I was working on it forever, but then I thought back and it really only took me 3 weeks which considering I have other quilts that take a year or so to finally finished, this was pretty fast.

  (Note to self - don't try and take pictures if there is wind outside)

To make this quilt, I googled some Bento Box quilts to get a general idea of how they were made.  I didn't really want to pay for a pattern and it seemed like something I could figure out myself.

The basic pattern started out as a 4 inch square, surrounded by a 1.5 inch border and a 2.5 inch border.  I had a total of 12 different fabrics and sorted them into 4 color groups - blacks, purples, yellows/oranges and greens.  I cut out enough to make two blocks of each color.

Next, I made 2 charts to plan out the quilt.  For the first part, I labeled each fabric 1, 2, or 3 for each fabric group (G1, G2, G3, O1, O2, etc) and grouped the fabric together to allow a variety but also so that no colors would be in the pattern twice or left out.

I arranged the fabrics so that the blacks and purples would never touch and the the oranges and greens wouldn't touch.  This was able to give a light and dark effect. I sewed the initial blocks together following their grouping (G1, P1, O1).  The first color listed was the square, followed the the 2 borders.  After I sewed all the initial blocks together I had 10 inch blocks and renamed them using letters.

A- G1, P1, O1

B- G2, P2, O2

C- G3, P3, O3

D- O1, B1, G1

E- O2, B2, G2

F- O3, B3, G3

G- P1, G1, B1

H- P2, G2, B2

I- P3, G3, B3

J- B1, O1, P1

K- B2, O2, P2

L- B3, O3, P3

I then drew a chart to arrange the letters.  The letters are in groups based on color (A/B/C, D/E/F, G/H/I, J/K/L).  The same colors would be caddy corner to each other in the same square.  The squares that were more green and orange (A-F) were always the bottom left and upper right pieces while the black and purple squares (G-L) were the upper left and bottom right pieces. 

After I made my chart, I cut my squares into fourths and arranged them according the color alphabet chart.  I laid them out, sewing the squares together, the squares to each other and then the rows together until the top was finished.

I found some cute black fabric with green, purple and yellow stars, pumpkins, and grayish bats that I thought coordinated well with the front.  I got some silver thread and quilted the quilt in the spider web design.  I first did the long straight lines across the quilt and then quilted the web part around the quilt.  I binded the quilted using a simple black binding to frame everything nicely.

Can you see the spider web quiltling?  It stands out more in person but was hard to photograph the quilting.

Overall, I am pretty happy with how the quilt came out but I wish I did a better job with the quilting.  I had a lot of tension issues and if I had time, this is something I would have probably hand quilted but I wanted to get it done by Halloween, oh well.