Arboretum

Welcome to my Arboretum, a most colorful forest of fabric trees.

This quilt wasn't even on my radar. One day I just happened to notice a few Kaffe Fassett fabrics in brownish colors on the shelf and suddenly quilter's ADD took over. Since it's fall, those browns and rusts were begging to be used and leaves seemed the perfect fall subject.

Inspired by those fallish prints, I looked through my Pinterest board on leaf quilts for inspiration. Several pins sparked ideas. Unfortunately, the pin I was most inspired by led to no further links or information, so I took off on my own.

I did a quick layout in the computer to determine the quilt size and number of blocks I would need and settled on 9 rows with 11 blocks per row for a total of 99 blocks. The blocks are 5.5" x 8" for a finished size of about 60" x 72" . . .  a nice large throw.

Next I pulled a ton of prints in a range of fall colors. Starting with the browns and rusts, I added reds, oranges, golds, yellows, greens and even purples. As I said in my previous post, more is more as far as I'm concerned. More variety makes for more interest and more visual activity.

I cut one rectangle approximately 6.5" x  9" from 99 different fabrics. I was determined not to repeat any fabrics and easily found more than 99 in my stash. Next I pulled strip scraps in the same color range for the veins (branches) and cut them 1" wide.

At this point in the process, I planned to add small triangles to the corners of each block to give it a leafy shape. I thought I'd use solids and tried a couple of different light blues as you can see here.

The more blocks I made, the less I liked the corners. Then my husband wandered in and said he liked my trees. So my leaves became trees with branches.

The piecing process for the branches was completely improv. First, I cut a print rectangle in half top to bottom. Then I made angled cuts in both halves. The placement and angle of each cut was random. Most blocks have three angled cuts. Some have only two. Others have four or even five. There's even a couple with just one. The 1" strips were sewn between the angled cuts and pressed toward the strips. When both sides were done, the center strip was added between both halves. The finished block was then trimmed to 6" x 8.5"

I auditioned each strip fabric for each print as I went choosing not to cut too many of any one fabric. Some branch fabrics blend with the tree fabric and others have a strong contrast. Having some of each allows for the overall effect to come in and out of focus as you look at the quilt.

I had no preconceived idea of how to arrange the blocks but as more of them went up on the design wall I liked the look of the horizontal runs of color that were starting to happen. Once about 3/4 of the blocks were up I could begin to see what colors I needed more of. At this point I let go of the idea of 99 different trees and inserted 5 blocks of the same fabric called Shark's Teeth by Brandon Mably. To me this print looked like trees on hills. Repeating this fabric offered a very subtle pause within the forest.

I considered staggering the rows (below left) but it just looked too busy. There's a lot going on with all the prints. Keeping the tree trunks lined up (below right) provides a subtle sense of structure and unity.

It was quilted by Cara of Sew Colorado Quilting with a leafy design appropriately called fall foliage. It's subtle but the leaves have branches just like the trees.

I had hoped to get some great 'in the wild' photos with glowing red/orange fall foliage. Unfortunately we had a very early hard freeze and the colors just haven't been pretty. I settled for some yellow trees near home. My favorite pic is the opening photo near the city arboretum. The sign is what actually gave me the idea for naming the quilt Arboretum. It seems quite fitting.

Arboretum . . . a botanical garden devoted to trees.

So many people have asked about making this quilt. If you make one similar to mine, I'd really love to see it. Tag me on Instagram @springleafstudios and use #arboretumquilt to your posts.

While making Arboretum, I discovered that Scott of Blue Nickel Studios has a new pattern called TreeTime that is really cool. Check it out here. Or take a look on Instagram at #treetimequilt. It's a different, yet similar idea and I love what he did with the his trees.

UPDATE: While doing a little online shopping, I just happened upon a new to me tree pattern that is very similar to what I made. The construction method is different but the result is close to the same. The pattern is called Tangled Trees by Lizard Creek Quilting Here's a link to that pattern.

Linking up with Wendy and her Peacock Party.
Also Kelly and Needle and Thread Thursday.
And Cheryl's Monthly Favorite Finish .

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A Little Fall

Just thought I'd share a couple of weekend fall photos. Old quilts  . . .  new photos. I really like the outdoor pictures of quilts that are popular in the quilting world these days and have been trying to take more of this style when I can. I know this type of photo usually has nothing to do with the quilt's function and maybe doesn't even make sense to some of you. But they are so much fun to compose and style I can't resist. It's also a great way play up the quilt's theme or even the name.

Enjoying all the fall colors recently, it occurred to me I better get out and try for a couple of good photos before the color and leaves are all gone. And since I don't have any new, more modern quilts that fit the fall color scheme I took out these two older quilts.

During the photo below, my husband literally fell into the job of quilt holder upper in more ways than he bargained for. I told him to move a little closer to some leaves and he slid right down the hill . . . holding the quilt up all the while I might add. Isn't he sweet? Thankfully he wasn't hurt and neither was the quilt.

This shot was taken right in our front yard. We don't always have many nicely colored leaves but this year there's a nice thick layer. I love shuffling through crunchy leaves.    : )

Can you tell I like sunflowers? Besides these quilts I even decorate with sunflower and yellow dishes for the fall season. Mostly flea market and thrift store finds. Love going on the hunt for treasures.

If it's fall where you live, get out and enjoy before the leaves have fallen. We've often had a snow fall by now here in Colorado but this year has been a beautifully sunny, long fall. Hope it will last till Halloween.

Fall Sunflower Quilts

If you've followed along for awhile, you probably know I have a collection of dishes in the shape of flowers, fruits and veggies that I've mostly picked up here and there at thrift stores. Each season I like to switch it up and now that fall is officially here it's time to bring out the tomatoes, corn, pumpkins and sunflowers.

I always struggle a little with making this change because I really really love the summery flower, fruit and veggies dishes. They are all so colorful, bright and cheery. I just hate to put them away. You can see some of them here (veggies) here and here (fruits). Plus it's a reminder that summer has past for another year. But once the fall stuff is up I love it too.

Along with the dishes come a couple of fall quilts to complete the decor. I posted last week about the sunflower quilt that I've hung for years even though it was un-quilted. Probably no one but me ever really knew because it's at the end of the room and seen from a distance so most people probably wouldn't have noticed or were certainly to polite to say anything. Now it's finally done. Wahoo!!!  It looks so much better finished. More real if you know what I mean. Definitely a sight I've got to keep in mind to help me stay motivated to finish all the other UFO's.

Anyway here's the finished sunflower quilt I'm calling "Sunflowers for Vincent". It turned out relatively well if I do say so myself. I just have to spend more time practicing the free part of free motion.

The other quilt is a bit smaller and was also done years ago based on a pattern called "21st Century Bull's Eye" in a book called Quilts from Aunt Amy. The book's been around for awhile but has lots of great patterns many of which would look terrific done up in more modern fabrics. The bull's eye pattern uses a raw edge applique technique and is very easy to do. I fussy cut large sunflowers from several different fabrics for the centers and then used smaller scale sunflower prints to surround them. The backgrounds for each block are made from an assortment of green leafy prints. Every so often I threw in black, white and a touch of red. The black gave it contrast. The white added a little sparkle. And the red helped expand the color palette and add more depth. Without these extra colors everything would have been just a little too flat.

I did minimal quilting with a single free motion flower in the center of each block. Hard to see in the picture but easy to do.

So, do you switch up your quilts with the season? What do you do with them? I'd love to hear how you use all your beautiful quilty creations. Keep on stitching.

It's The Cat's Fault!

It's the cat's fault . . . I swear it is. You know how last week on WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced I said I was going to finish my sunflower quilt? The one that I've been hanging up for years every fall even though it's never been finished. Well do you ever have those quilting days (or weeks) when you're sure the quilting Gods are against you? Either the cat or the quilting Gods apparently liked the quilt the way it was . . . just a top. But I was determined to turn it into a finished top. And I wanted it done by last Friday.

Had I known what was about to transpire, I might have thought to photo document the steps so as to save you all the same frustration, but alas this was going to be a quick finish and then on to more tops just waiting to be born from my sketchbook.

First off came the quilting design and whether to mark or not. I'll admit right now that quilting is not my favorite thing. I LOVE to design. I pretty much love to piece. I do not like to quilt. And I tell myself it's just because I don't do it enough. If I do it more often it will get easier right? Every time I get my quilting mojo up and actually get a top quilted it's not as bad I think as long as the machine cooperates. Which it does half the time. The other half, I fiddle with the tension, the thread, the cat . . .

Anyway, I found an all-over leafy design that would be just fine but this quilt has no blocks to guide me and I just wasn't that confident in keeping the leaves the same scale and position so I decided to mark. But what method? I tried a stencil and pouncing with chalk. The lines were hard to see and once I pinned and did a little anchor stitching in the ditch the chalk lines were barely visible. So how about drawing over the chalk with another white marking pencil? Seemed like it was going to be ok . . . but the fabric has lights and darks. Still too hard to see.

Can you see those chalk marks?

Finally, I fell back on the golden tissue paper method. Now this works for me somewhat but it is more work to draw the design and pin in place and then tear away etc etc etc. But at least I know the design will be somewhat consistent.

Just some of the tissue paper mess on the floor afterwards.

One of these days I'm going to freely free-motion. I've done it before. I know I can do it again. It's just that quilting mojo thingy you know? Some days you have it . . . others not so much.

Next came the thread in the perfect shade of green that my machine did not like. No problem, I had an older spool that was "close enough". Until I ran out. Still no problem, the local sewing shop sells that brand so hop in the car and rush out to get it before they close. Next day I'm quilting away and getting a little frustrated that it still isn't done when I just happen to notice that I'm almost out of thread again. And it's almost closing time for the store again. At this point I really didn't want to buy another spool for the little I had left so found another green that was "close enough". No one will even know.

Did I mention that I was planning to get this quilted in a day and be done with it by Friday?

So it's Monday afternoon, but the quilting is done . . . finally.  There are a few tension problems in one area but it's done. Wahoo!!!

All that's left is to cut the binding and sew it on. No biggie, no problem right? I'd already decided to stitch the binding down by machine instead of by hand which is my norm so the end was in sight.

This is where the cat took over. She insisted on taking a bath and nap on top of the quilt while I was attaching the binding. Every corner meant taking her on a little spin as I rotated the quilt around to sew down the next side. She didn't seem to mind at all as long as I left her alone. But at this point it was dinner time, the fam's hungry and well, since I'm stitching the binding down by machine the last part will go fast. I'll just do it tomorrow. . .

She's cute but a serious impediment to quilting.

Leave me alone, I'm trying to nap here!

So now it's Tuesday afternoon and the binding is attached. Just need to fold the binding to the back and machine stitch down. No biggie, no problem right? I'm just a few days past my personal goal. It's almost finished. Take it to my big table to fold the binding to the back and notice something strange. The binding is stitched to the back instead of the front. I can't fold it to the back when it's already on the back. How did I not notice that I was sewing the binding to the wrong side? This is where I really blame the cat. If she had been bathing on the front of the quilt I'm sure I would have noticed and taken more offense and shooed her away. But she was on the back so it didn't bug me so much and it obviously didn't occur to me that I was attaching the binding to the wrong side.

Now thankfully, just last week I had done a little binding research and read about the method where you actually sew your binding to the back, fold it to the front and then stitch down with an edge stitch (most of you probably already know about this). I gave this and another method a try but didn't love the results. I guess that's why hand stitching is my norm. Kind of like machine quilting. I need to practice more and be less perfectionist about it all.

But it's Tuesday late afternoon and I'm going to finish this d___ quilt one way or another so edge stitching from the front will have to do.

And you know what? It worked! And it looked just fine. The binding fabric really helped hide the stitches and while it took longer than I thought, it was way way less time than hand stitching. I just might try it again.

So what did I learn?

• I need to loosen up on my perfectionist tendencies.
• my free-motion skills aren't so bad after all and if I just keep quilting it will most certainly get better and better.  I'll still have to work up my free-motion mojo every time though.
• the type of thread does matter when doing free-motion with my machine.
• the color of thread doesn't matter quite as much on busy prints. I can't even find the place where the thread color changes now that it's done.
• check my tension on the quilt back more often.
• machine binding can look good. I think I'll try it again.
• And most importantly, it is possible to sew while the cat naps on top of your quilt.

It's finally done and ready to hang for this fall. I'll post about it and my other sunflower quilts next week when I put them up with my fall dish collection.

One less UFO . . . not telling how many more I have to go
. . . just keep finishing, just keep finishing.

Now if only my family would notice it's finally finished instead of just a top.   : )

Let's Get Acquainted Blog Hop

Hello all you bloggers hopping in to visit. Today is my day on Beth's Let's Get Acquainted Blog Hop. I'm so very glad she put this together for newbie bloggers like myself. I've found many inspiring blogs through participating in the hop. Hope you have too.

So welcome to my little corner of blogland. Please take a few minutes to explore some other posts and get to know my style. And be sure to hop over to Kristy's blog at Cotton Addiction today for more quilty goodness. Don't you just love her blog's name? Then on Thursday, stop by and visit Julie at That's Sew Julie and Chelsea at Pins and Bobbins.

Now for a little about me. My name is Anne and I live in sunny Colorado. I'm a graphic designer turned stay-at-home mom who has now become an empty nester turned quilt blogger/pattern designer. I've quilted for at least 15 years, but it's been an on/off affair in the midst of raising kids that resulted in lots of UFO's. Last fall our youngest left for college and it became the perfect time to fully commit to my quilting. So this year I started my blog, decided to finish some of those UFO's and ventured into the world of pattern design.

I love color and pattern so when the two are combined into gorgeous fabrics I'm definitely addicted.  : )  I'm a huge Kaffe Fassettt fan, love the new modern prints, and have become a true convert to solids. I like working with traditional blocks in a new way and I like going totally modern with more abstract designs. I've got more sketches than I can manage to sew into finished quilts but that's ok because I love the design process.

When it comes to designing a new quilt, my design background takes over and I find myself exploring all kinds of possibilities. With all the exploration and variations I was dreaming up, I decided to start publishing patterns that included those extra options. Patterns are available in my Etsy shop. Each one includes 2 basic quilts plus several optional ideas. You can make several quilts and no two would be the same.

As for a blogging tip, I feel like I'm still figuring it all out but the one thing I'd say is find a QAL or something to participate in. You'll meet lots of nice people and learn/try something new at the same time. And please leave comments. Something I've come to truly appreciate. I love to respond to other quilters and find those little connections we might share. I wish I had known about blogging years ago. The work being done out there is always inspiring, and it definitely motivates me to get more done. But be careful about comparing yourself. Lots of people seem like super sewers who get loads done every week and have a bazillion followers. Another bit of advice . . . be yourself and sew what you love instead of simply copying other quilter's work. Or if you're inspired by their work give them credit. I've realized I just need to be me and do what I love. I need to stick to my own style and continue to develop my own vision. So be yourself.

If you've visited my blog before, you know I have a collection of fruit/veggie dishes along with a fabric collection to match. Each month during the spring/summer/fall I put up one of several quilts I've made with these fruit/veggie fabrics. A couple of years ago I made a series of tablerunners from a simple design I came up with and thought I'd share that with you today. Of course those original tablerunners are still technically UFO's, but this one for fall is finished. Wahoo!!! Thank you Beth for motivating me. One less UFO.

The design works perfectly with whatever fabrics you want to use. It requires just 2 fat quarters and a few strips. Easy peasy. So here goes . . .

Fat Quarter Table Runner
finished size: 15" x 48" (shorter if you prefer)

Fabrics required:
Focus fabrics:  2 fat quarters - 1 each of 2 different fabrics.
Works best if fat quarter is 18" wide but you can adjust later to accommodate a slightly narrower fat.
Narrow accent strip:  3 strips 1 1/2" x 18+"
Wide accent strip: 3 strips 2 /12" x 18+"
NOTE: I've listed the length with a + because it's best to cut your strips a little longer and then cut to size after they are sewn.

Step 1.
Layer the 2 fat quarters face up on your cutting board.
Cut 3 strips 6 1/2" wide across the 18" side for a finished size of 6 1/2" x 18+".
NOTE: if the fat quarters aren't a full 18" wide it's ok as long as you have 17" to work with. You can adjust later.

layer both fat quarters right side up.

18" side of fat quarter runs top to bottom in picture.

Step 2.
Arrange 1 strip of each fabric into a strip set as shown below. Place the focus fabrics on the outside and keep the accent strips in the center. Arrange 3 of these sets using one strip of each fabric for each set. Be sure to keep the same order for all 3 sets. Before sewing read the following if you have directional fabric.

If either of your focus fabrics is a directional print and you want them all to read the same direction, then cut each strip of one set in half so you have 2 strips 9+" long per fabric. Flip the directional fabric around keeping the same order for the strips. Make one full 18+" set and one 9+" half-set per arrangement. This will make more sense when you see the pictures below.

Strip set with pumpkins facing to the left.

Notice that the pumpkin fabric is flipped around in the bottom photo
but the other fabrics remain in the same position.

Step 3.
Sew strip sets together and press all seams to one side.

Step 4.
Cut sets into 4 segments 4 1/2" wide per segment.
NOTE: If your fat quarters were under 18" then just cut your strip sets into 4 equal width segments across the width of your strip set. It just means your finished runner will be somewhat shorter than 48".

Step 5.
Rearrange by flipping every other segment around so that the focus fabrics alternate along the sides. This is the point where the directional issues come into play. If you made the alternate sets all your directional fabric should be facing the same way. If not they will look like this. Absolutely nothing wrong with this but I just want you to be aware of what happens.

This photo shows what happens when you arrange the segments
without flipping your directional fabric.
Note the pumpkins go in 2 different directions.

Step 6.
Sew segments together into pairs and pairs together until runner is finished. Using a pin at the far side of each seam intersection helps to match the points. Otherwise pins aren't really needed unless you're a pinning kind of quilter. Press these seams open to reduce bulk.

TaDah!  Your runner is finished. Quilt it, grab a cup of tea and enjoy your newest creation.

Here's a look at two earlier runners I made. The proportions are slightly different but it's the same concept. This design works nicely with focus fabrics that come in both a dark and a light background. The lemon one is one of my favs.

Here's another one using just 3 fabrics instead of 4. Same basic construction. Just make one of the focus fabrics shorter so that when the accent strip is added on this combined measurement is the same width as the other focus fabric.  This way when segments are flipped the accent strip is staggered down the middle.

Well, that's it for my stop on the hop. Hope you've been inspired by some of what you've seen here today and I really do hope you'll come back again. It's been fun getting to know all of you.

Keep on quilting . . . Anne   : )