Halloween Quilt

So I made this quilt top a long time ago, at least 5 years ago, maybe longer. It's the only Halloween quilt I've ever made. I never really could bring myself to make one because I see it as being a minor holiday and I've always concentrated my efforts on Thanksgiving and Christmas. But a friend of mine was downsizing and gave me a whole ton of fabric and there was a stack of Halloween prints and so this quilt happened. I made the top, layered and basted it and then stopped working on it. I don't remember why, it's not really that big, only 45 inches by 56 inches and I could have it quilted in a couple of days. Siobhan said it's an ugly quilt, but I am so into finishing projects lately, and when I went to the bin of UFO's and pulled this out, I just thought it's just the time to finish it up. I actually like it, even if Sio doesn't, and even if chances are good it won't get used in this house I can see myself putting it out sometime in the future. We won't always be here, so I think I'll finish it up and then store it away til some other time. I was originally going to quilt bats in the black triangles, I even made a template for one and I'm pretty sure the quilt top was marked but the lines have faded. I'll have to look and see if I still have the bat template.

Siobhan and I took a really nice bike ride the other day. We rode from here up to Cricket Creek. The forest preserve has been putting in the new Salt Creek bike trail; they had the ribbon cutting ceremony earlier this month, but I had no idea it ran through south part of Cricket Creek. It ends up being a nice ride from here, because instead of following the trail up across Lake street and then on down to the next forest preserve, we can turn off and ride our bikes around the retention ponds and then head back down one of the residential streets which will take us back to our street. I'd say it's probably not quite a 2 mile ride and a lot of it is through prairie and forest. We saw a huge praying mantis on the trail and Sio had to stop and look. It was pretty cool, but I didn't have the camera so we didn't get any pics. I need to remember to bring it with me everywhere!