Best of Halloween 2012: Haunted House

Celebrate Halloween with this haunted house, complete with ghosts, goblin, a creepy haunted forest and a flying witch! This quilt is entirely picture-pieced, except for the shutters and flying ghosts, which are appliqued. A full-size template and fabric selection chart are included.

Haunted House, 31" x 28", by Cynthia England at England Design

Cynthia's hallmark is realistically detailed pictorial quilts. Using skills she developed as a commercial graphic artist, she creates quilts depicting some of her favorite subjects: flowers, nature, antiques and architecture. After using applique to get the realistic effect in her early quilts, Cynthia gradually devised a machine piecing technique she calls Picture Piecing. This technique breaks the design down into pieces that can all be sewn using straight seams and allows her to include intricate details and shading without a single set-in seam.

Haunted House, detail, by Cynthia England

The witches, trees and lattice images are included in the pattern and can be photocopied to photo transfer paper and transferred to your fabric. Or, you can download the Adobe Acrobat PDF files for these images and print your images directly to treated fabric or an iron-on transfer sheet.

Cynthia's stunning quilts have been winning 1st place ribbons at local and national quilting events since 1991 and have graced the pages of many quilting publications.  Essentially a self-taught quilter, she has made about 24 bed-sized quilts and over 70 wall quilts. After numerous requests to teach her technique to other quilters, Cynthia launched a line of Picture Piecing patterns and thus her business, England Design, was born. Her website shows all of Cynthia's prize winning quilts as well as the entire line of England Design patterns.