Cute & Fun Trick Or Treat Quick Quilt And Cricut Panels To Create A Mini Quilt

As you probably know I LOVE Halloween and I loved trick or treating as a kid and then taking my own kids out for trick or treating. Not surprisingly I made most of my kids Halloween costumes when they were growing up. I loved how trick or treating just brought out the fun from the dark and my imagination of ghosts and witches and monsters roaming around. Let me know your favorite Halloween Trick or Treat memories in the comments below.

I would decorate the house with lots of pumpkins and have a huge spider and spider web on the front. We dressed up as pirates when my kids were older to hand out candy and we had up to 300 kids one year at the house. Trick or treating is my blood!

The trick or treating experiences I had are the inspiration for these mini-quilts I made. I wanted 3 small quilts and I wanted to use my Cricut to make the scenes instead of raw edge applique. I had never done this before, but I think it turned out fabulous! The designs are very detailed and it would have been very hard to cut out for applique. Also, it makes the quilt making process much faster! Don’t worry if you don’t have a cricut, you probably know someone who does! They would probably be happy to cut these patterns for you.

I chose an Iron-On HTV that can be washed, so I can hang these and wash them at the end of the season. I also incorporated some Half-Square Triangles into the little quilt to give it a traditional twist.

The Cricut patterns are available along with more patterns for free in my Resource Library. To access all the free patterns in our Resource Library you can fill out the form below and receive the password.

The Cricut designs are SVG files that can be opened in Cricut Design Space. The designs are already set up to be printed so that you don’t have to arrange the different parts on your little quilt. It is also set to the right size for a 12″ x 12″ mini quilt.

Material List for One Mini-Quilt

To make three of these quilts, triple the materials listed.

I used fabrics from my stash, but for the sunset background fabric I think this Pink Nectar batik from Fat Quarter Shop would look beautiful too!

For the 3″ squares I found this beautiful Purple Princess Batiks from Fat Quarter Shop that would really pop out from the Pink Nectar batik.

1 – 7″ x 12 1/2″ cut from Sunset batik fabric (this will be where your vinyl will be ironed)
2 – 1 1/2″ x 12 1/2″ strips from the Sunset batik fabric (top and bottom pieces)
6 – 3″ squares of purple fabric (like in my HST squares)
6 – 3″ squares of pink fabric (like in my HST squares)
Black HTV or any color you choose. This is the HTV I used – Caregy Heat Transfer Vinyl Premium from Amazon
Small Backing material (approx. 18″ x 18″)
Quilt Batting (approx. 18″ x 18) – I used a Bamboo batting like this one from Fat Quarter Shop
2 – WOF 2 1/2″ strips for the binding
Thread for piecing (I used Aurifil 50wt)
Thread for quilting (I used Sulky Rayon 40wt Variegated)

I have also made a short video showing how to put together this cute little quilt. Written instructions with pictures follow or the video is below.

Make the HTV design

First we will make the HTV design to be ironed on to the 7″ x 12 1/2″. Download the Designs from our Resource Library, don’t forget that the password to the Library is at the bottom of all our newsletters.

I have the Cricut Maker machine and that is how I made my vinyl designs for these quilts.

Once you have the design loaded into Cricut Design Space, it is ready to make. Choose “Make It” and don’t forget to choose “Mirror On”, although it really isn’t a big deal with these designs. I chose “Everyday Iron On Vinyl“, but choose which material matches what you are using. I always choose “More” pressure, it helps with weeding and the small cuts in the design.

Now that you have your design cut, weed it carefully.

At this point take the 7″ x 12 1/2″ piece of fabric and mark a 1/4″ line across the bottom of the fabric. This will be our guide to put our HTV design on the fabric. I did this so that the design would sit above our 1/4″ seam and would be in the seam. I used a Frixion Pen because it disappears with heat.

Take your HTV and line it up with the line you just drew and iron it onto the fabric according the instructions for the material that you use.

I have a Janome Artistic Press that I used on High heat and press for approx. 13 to 15 seconds. I also use a Teflon sheet when pressing. I used a hot peel according to the directions and then I press again with the Teflon sheet for 5 more seconds to smooth it out.

Set your panel aside until we are done with the Half Square Triangles.

Half Square Triangles

It is time to make the Half Square Triangles. You will need your 12 – 3″ squares for this.

Layer one 3″ square of the purple (in my case) with the pink (in my quilt) and draw a diagonal line from one corner to the other. Do this with all 12 squares and you will have 12 sets you will be sewing.

Next I used my 1/4″ foot on my Janome 1600P-QC machine and I used that as a guide to sew 1/4″ from the line we drew on each side. This method will give us two squares of half square triangles!

Cut the squares apart at the line you drew and then press the seam towards the dark fabric.

Now we need to square up these little blocks to a 2 1/2″ square. I used a square ruler that had a 45 degree line and I put that line on the seam and use it to square up my block to 2 1/2″. Don’t forget to square it up using two opposite corners of the square.

Assemble the HST’s

At this point line up six of your HST Squares and start rotating them until you get the design that you desire!

So you have chosen the pattern you want with your blocks, start from the left and sew the first two together, sew the third and fourth together and finally the fifth and sixth set together. Iron the seams open on all these. Now we will lay out our three sets together to make sure we have them in the right order and sew the end blocks to the middle block to create our row of HST’s.

Repeat for the bottom set of HST’s!

Assemble the Quilt Top

This is the part where you want to be very mindful of your iron. You will now have HTV on your quilt top and you don’t want to touch the iron to the vinyl.

Lets start by sewing the Half Square Triangle Rows to the top and bottom of our 7″ x 12 1/2″ piece with our HTV design.

Give the seams a really good finger press and press it away from the center piece. Take your iron and very carefully run the tip of the iron along the seam without touching the HTV. The seams can be ironed from the front and back of the quilt.

The iron I use is a cordless iron, which I love because I can maneuver it around better without the cord getting caught on anything or getting in my way. It is smaller than most irons to, so it works well on this application. You can find my iron here- Cordless Iron.

Ok, we survived ironing the the center piece with the HTV!

Last, sew on the 1 1/2″ x 12 1/2″ strips to the top and bottom of your quit top and I pressed these seams towards the half square triangle block also. Press these seams, but again make sure you iron doesn’t get to close the HTV.

Finish the Quilt

Congratulations on your cute little quit top. Repeat all steps above to get all three quilts in this little Trick or Treat collection.

Cut your batting to the size you like to sandwich (i used a 18″ x 18″ piece of batting) and the backing was 18″ square. I used scraps from my stash to get backing materials. These little quilts will be hanging in my house and I will be the only one that see’s the back of them, so the backing material isn’t a big deal.

To keep your top and backing from slipping around the batting material, spray it with some quilt basting spray. I use “The Original” Quilt Basting Spray. For more insurance I also baste 1/8″ around the the quilt top.

It’s time to quilt! I used Sulky 40wt Rayon Variegated Gold thread for my top quilting thread, and Aurifil 50wt gray for the bobbin. Practice some of your free motion quilting off to the side of the top to make sure you tension is good and to get a little practice in before heading to the quilt.

I chose to just go back and forth on the HTV panel and top strips to look like a sky, and then I did some free motion stitch in the ditch around the triangles and on the top and bottom seam of the HST row.

The binding strips are 2 1/2″ on my mini-quilt because I don’t want to hand sew the binding on and I want to make sure my machine will catch the back when I am sewing in the seam of the binding on the top.

This mini-quilt is meant to hang at home, it will only be seem from the front so don’t fret too much about the back. The time to fret about the back is if you do a quilt show quilt. This is only meant for your pure enjoyment in your home.

Remember to repeat all steps above to finish the other two in this little three quilt series.

I hope you have tried this mini-quilt pattern, and if you have let me know in the comments or share it on our facebook page. What materials did you use?