Sunday, October 08, 2006

Blue Skies of October


Last year, my local quilt store ran a monthly class making Joined at the Hip's Button-Up wall hangings. Button-Ups are 22" x 40" quilts that attach to a slightly larger quilted base with buttons and button loops. They're designed to let you switch wall hangings easily so you can put up new ones monthly, seasonally, or whenever you wish.

Although their primitive style isn't my favorite, I thought they'd be perfect for my grandmother, who can always use something to brighten her room at the nursing home.
I'm a fiddler, though, and can't leave a pattern alone. Nearly every month I've changed the pattern in some fashion, sometimes abandoning it altogether.

Their October is a Hallowe'en picture of a black cat and a pumpkin. It was nice, but I wanted fall leaves, so I fired up Electric Quilt and banged out a pattern.

Part of the fun (and an economic necessity) was working entirely from my stash. I particularly like the Japanese fan fabric:

and a fall leaf fabric that was fun to use in building a leaf block (a meta-leaf?):
Now I'm working on a November wall hanging. It's not going nearly as well, but we'll see if I can salvage it after a stupid miscalculation. (moral: always, always make a test block before cutting components for all the blocks. One never cuts the pieces too large.)

5 comments:

Lysnekate said...

Those are gorgeous! What a grand idea. You are very talented madame.

Anonymous said...

How very lovely - oriental fabrics are so perfect for Fall - always had gravitated to hand dyed and batik but think your choices are inspired.

Anonymous said...

just beautiful.

Heather said...

Very cheery! I think fall colours are so inspirational.

normanack said...

thanks! I've never been a fall person, nor do I gravitate to fall colors, but it was fun to work with them for a change.