Saturday, October 20, 2012

Welcome Fall

I took a hiatus from quilting over the summer, but have started working on a few projects again.

After a brief "last hurrah" heat wave in the Bay Area last week, the season is beginning to turn now --with the music of fog horns along the river in the mornings, and even a few occasional raindrops. To welcome Fall, I just made this small (12"x12") quilt to go with a cute little tabletop metalwork display that my Mom got me recently. It features a little crow button (perched on the upper left ribbon) and several (glue-on) Swarovsky crystals in the middle of the sunflower. I used Lite Steam-A-Seam double stick fusible web for the applique, and quilted a small blanket stitch around the flower petals and stem (using rayon embroidery thread) plus straight stitch-in-the-ditch around the inner border. All of the materials came from my Mom's stash. This was a perfect instant-gratification project: I started and finished it in the same day. And, it was also good (relatively low investment) practice for trying out some machine applique.

A happy sunflower, with crow friend, to welcome Fall.
I used a pattern from Amber Fenton Designs, which my Mom got with the metalwork stand:

She also got a few other small 12"x12" patterns, and I'm planning to make a little quilt to hang on this stand for each of the seasons.