Do You want to Make Over Your Quilt? I do…

Oct 26

As I have gone through my quilting journey (which admittedly is a work in progress), I have experimented in a number of techniques and styles. Some of those techniques have popped up in many variations, and others have gracefully found their way to destash tables and yard sales. Or they may be rummaging around in the UFO files, waiting for a better idea to come up. I actually toss very few of them out – my theory is that if the project isn’t something I’m in love with, it’s not done marinating.

Then there are the quilts that I have done, completed – and I just have no connection with. This is the story of one such quilt.

This is my Autumn Leaves Quilt

When I began quilting, I had the idea to put a seasonal themed quilt in my family room. Making one for each month, seemed a bridge too far, but seasonal was something I could achieve.

This is the story of the Autumn Leaves quilt that I made. Truthfully, I am so dissatisfied with it that it rarely comes out of the closet. So, as I sat down for this blogpost, I tried to figure out why. To me, it seems as if it’s too cookie cutter, to uniform, too safe. The maple leaf blocks are pieced accurately enough, but it’s not natural to have leaves thes ame size, all lined up in a uniform grid pattern.

There’s no movement – it just sits there. Blah. Why all maple leaves? Ok – the easy answer is that that’s the block pattern I was working on. But where I live, maple trees live next to oaks, and birch – and the piles of leaves on the ground are often a mixture of all of those, in varying colors and sizes.

I don’t think this quilt has finished teaching me all that it has too, so it’s time to explore more about it.
Do I hate everything?
No.
I like (but do not love) the colors of the leaves – and one of the things that
**I do love** is the pop of cherry color up in the corner. The border print is a Hoffman and has a bit of that color mixed into it.

I took a picture of it and changed the filter to Black and White, to gauge the mixture of values in the quilt. There are no obvious holes, but the B&W did show me that the majority of the colors are medium values. I think it needs some more of a mixture of highlights and lowlights. And maybe a zinger of a color to give it some life

This was quilted by me when I was terrified of quilting, and truthfully, had a horrible machine. That’s not hyperbole, that’s truth – but when it came time to quilt on this quilt, I stayed strictly to in the ditch sewing.

If I were to make a newer version of this quilt, it would have a lot of room in it for quilting.

Truthfully, I do a pumpkin themed UFO which is also marinating – and there may be a way I do a mashup of both of them, and finally get an autumn themed quilt handing up in my family room again. I’ll keep you tuned on this one. Maybe add a pumpkin (or two) to the leaves.