Autumn Leaves

This quilt was something rather different for me.  It's the first time that I actually bought a kit, thus I did not pick the individual fabrics.  It was also the first time I worked with stricktly batiks.  I have always loved batiks, but they are generally out of my price range.  This quilt is close to show quality, but there are enough imperfections that I don't know if I will ever enter it.

 

Autumn is my favorite time of the year.  I hardly decorate for any season, but for some reason, I really get into decorating for fall.  My glass pumpkin collection manages to get a little bigger each year.  When I saw the kit for this wall hanging and the example made up in the quilt store, I fell in love.  I was in luck.  It was December, and the one kit they had left was on sale.  I couldn't have gotten the same fabric or even cheaper fabric for the price I paid.  I was thrilled.

I have heard people rave about how wonderful duct tape is, but I am in love with masking tape.  I recently painted a bathroom and had lovely sharp edges where the white ceiling paint met the light green wall paint.  I use masking tap all the time when I quilt straight lines.  it makes a great guideline to follow, while pealing off easily and sticking well enough to use for several lines.  I used masking tape in this quilt to make large diamonds in the green and smaller diamonds in the burgundy.

For fun, I tried using one of my decorative stitches while I quilted.  Every other line is a leaf vine.  It added a nice extra texture to the quilt but it posed many challenges.  It took about twice as long to quilt, and I had to be very careful about getting the fabric to move freely back and forth under the feed dogs.  The picture above shows off one of the changes I made to the pattern.  The original pattern did not miter the corners of the orange border.  To me, the strips looked choppy and weird in the corners, so I decided that this would look more finished.  I was quite pleased with how it turned out.

(Autumn Leaves, 43 x 58, May 23, 2011)

Landon's Quilt

Landon was born on April 29, 2011.  I asked his mom how she was decorating the nursery and she said zoo animals especially monkeys and light UND green.  I liked this pattern because there was lots of room to show off the monkeys in the background.

 I have been having more issues picking baby fabric in the past few years.  It seems like the fabric is always picked over when I go to the store.  I had lots of monkeys to pick from, but the complementary fabrics were a different story.  I generally don't like solids.  I don't think you'll find a single quilt on this site that has one in it.  The closest I get is tone on tone in a cloudy tie-dye style.  I like the depth and texture that these fabrics add.  When I chose fabrics, I am very picky about the color, but I am almost as picky about the pattern/texture of the fabric.  I think the finished product of this quilt is generally good, but there were several fabrics I wish I could replace.

Given that this quilt is for a boy, I would rather leave the pink out.  Unfortunately, red looked awful with the green monkey print because of the little pink dots.  It also did not match the brightness of the other colors.  Purple was also a problem.  For some reason, purple tends to be the color that has the smallest selection.  It tends to be half the size of even the next smallest color.  Purple prints also tend to have "girly"  prints like butterflies and flowers.  I finally went with the dragonflies because they were the least offensive.  The yellow also gave me issues.  Yellow is another color that is in the monkey fabric, so it had to match.  The only fabric that was close was a stripe.  Generally, it is not a great idea to throw a geometric print in with a bunch of soft, curvy prints, but it was my only option.  The only reason it works is that the stripe is very subtle.  Had it been yellow on white, I would not have even tried.  The monkeys on white is the only fabric that I believe was truly was a mistake.  They're cute and match the green monkeys, but they match too well.  The pinwheel blocks disappear into the background.  If I were to do this quilt again, I would use a white on white print or the brown baby print for the pinwheels.

I will admit, I only went to one fabric store.  I almost never go to more than one for many reasons.  When picking out a quilt, a fabric can change positions within the pattern several times.  There was a time when I was going to do the white as the background, or as the border and backing or there was another monkey print that I was going to use.  If I had tried to put it together by going to several stores, I would have had to get several yards of each material so I could cover any position the fabrics may take.  This leads to a craft room full of useless fabric and lots of extra $$$ spent.  I also don't generally mix quality of fabrics.  If I go and find a fabric at Jo Ann's, I would not pair it with a fabric from an independent quilt shop or Wal-Mart.  The quality is not the same, so they would have different textures and likely would shrink at different rates.  Colors tend to come and go like fads.  A single store is more likely to have matching complementary colors.  They do sets of fabric that are designed to go together.  Taking one piece of fabric to another store is generally unlikely to give good results.  The best matches for that fabric were in the store where it was purchased.

I am  my worst critic.  I use each quilt I make as a learning experience.  I can't say there is a single quilt I have made that I am completely happy with and would not change a thing.  In all honestly, I think this quilt turned out rather nice, and I bet Landon will love it and drag it around until he finds out that it says "baby" on it and shuns it because he's a big boy.  I simply wanted to make a point.  I have been quilting since 1998, and I still have a lot to learn.  I enjoy it, and I always look forward to the next quilt.