It's a Finish! Fall Festival

Fall Festival

Celebrating the joy that comes from jumping into a big pile of colorful leaves. 

60 x 75

It's a finish! 

(Pardon the blurry photos. I was dodging raindrops and trying to hurry.)

It all started a few years ago with a six inch Chunky Churn Dash swap with a fall theme. 

You can also kind of see my free motion machine quilting on my DSM in this photo. I quilted tree branches with leaves horizontally across the quilt. 

I assembled four Chunky Churn Dashes, some Flying Geese and a 3 inch Nine Patch into a 15 inch block and when I ran out of Chunky Churns I substituted some framed four patches in a couple of blocks. 

Some alternate patterns emerged when the blocks were assembled into a top like four Chunky Churns bordered by Flying Geese with 9 Patch cornerstones or even some simple four patches. 

 Here you can see a little more of the leafy tree branch quilting. I used a scrappy binding. 

The backing was a soft flannel sheet from the thrift store. I had to let the seams out a little bit in order for it to be big enough.   I pieced together leftover batting for use in this quilt. 

This will go into the donation/gift stash which is very low at the moment. When the time is right it will go to a new owner. 

This was my goal #10 

for 

Q2 Finish-Along

I participated in four Chunky Churn swaps in order to challenge myself to make quilts with different layouts.  This was quilt number 3. The first two follow. 

CCD #1 -  The patriotic themed Chunky Churns were combined with snowballs and orphan blocks in a patriotic theme. It was a Quilt of Valor for my brother-in-law. 

CCD #2 - Chunky Churns in 30s fabrics. I combined them with another old swap - calico spools and actually made a border which is unusual for me.

I have one more to go - floral Chunky Churns. 

Oh Scrap! at Quilting is More Fun than Housework

It's a Flimsy! Fall Festival

Fall Festival

60 x 75

It's a Flimsy!

Several years ago I participated in several themed Chunky Churn Dash swaps - patriotic, 30s, fall, floral.  I wanted to challenge myself to set them all differently with alternate blocks.  This is quilt #3 using the fall themed blocks.   I originally intended to make a bigger quilt and use two different 15 inch blocks like above - one with four Chunky Churn blocks, geese with dark corners for sashing, 3 inch 9 patch for center and another with four framed four patches and light corners on the geese sashing.   I intended to make 18 of each and set them 6 x 6. 

After I made 18 of the blocks using all my Chunky Churn Dash blocks I didn't feel like making 16 more blocks (I made two for a test run) using framed four patches so decided to make a quilt with 20 blocks instead - 18 with Chunky Churns and 2 with Framed Four Patches. 

 The two blocks with the Framed Four Patches blend in but also stand out. 

 I love quilts with fall colors. 

It looks like a pile of leaves I'd like to jump into. 

 And there's some secondary patterns.

I kind of like that too. 

I have a flannel sheet I might use for the backing. I think I will have to let out the side seams because the width of the quilt top fits just inside those two seams with no fabric left to spare and I think I need a little wiggle room in order to quilt this on my DSM. 

Spools and Churns: Calicoes Meet Thirties Reproductions

Churns and Spools

68 x 86

It's a top!!!! 

(And when it is finished I can mark two UFOs off the list). 

I combined two swaps - a really old six inch calico spools/muslin swap from a loooooooong time ago and a 30s repro/solid chunky churn dash swap from 2015.   I only had to make a few more blocks of each in order to have a large twin sized quilt, thank goodness. 

I actually participated in four chunky churn dash swaps of different themes with the intention of challenging myself to set them all differently.   I finished the patriotic themed one (alternate blocks were orphan patriotic themed Snowballs and Twinklers) and sent it as a Quilt of Valor to my brother-in-law, Bert. 

 And, hey!!!!...LOOK...I actually added a border!   In case you don't know...most of my quilts are borderless  because I prefer to make lots of blocks and can never think of what to add as a border anyway.   I like the border but this was a border with lots of little waste triangles left over that I now feel I need to deal with.  (Note to self: if you ever add a "rick rack" border again make sure you have an even number of blocks per side so they meet up properly in all corners.  You don't want to have to deal with figuring out what to do with those two odd corners ever again.)

And now for some reason I feel like I need to make a red and yellow quilt (or make catsup, salsa and/or spaghetti sauce). 

From the Parts Department: Fall Festival

Fall Festival

4 - 15 inch blocks so far

Back in 2015 I participated in several themed Chunky Churn Dash swaps - Patriotic, Floral, 30s Reproductions and Fall.   My intent was to see how many different layouts I could come up with for the Chunky Churn Dashes.  It was sort of a self-imposed challenge. I blogged about it back in October 2015.   So far I have only finished a quilt from the Patriotic blocks - a Quilt of Valor for my brother-in-law. 

Fast forward to this year and Kaja ( of Sew Slowly blog and Ad Hoc Improv Quilting monthly linky co-hostess)  issued a quarterly challenge to use alternate blocks so I dug out the floral themed Chunky Churns and then dug into the Parts Department for some fall themed four patches and framed them so they were the same six inch size as the CCDs.   I also found some fall themed 3 inch 9 patches for block centers.  I didn't have any Flying Geese in the Parts Dept. so made some alternating dark and light cornered 1.5 x 3 inch geese (finished size).   

I came up with two different but similar 15 inch blocks. 

Parts Dept.

So now I guess I'll see how many CCDs I have and make some dark cornered flying geese so I can make up those blocks.   Then I'll know how many four patches I need to frame and how many light corned flying geese I need to make for the alternate block.