One of several things that I love about living in Nebraska is the changing seasons. The fun thing is that there are times when we are able to experience several seasons within the span of one week! Generally speaking, though, our weather changes about every three months giving us a great excuse to redo the decor in our homes. For me that means changing the quilts that I have around the house.
Fall is one of my favorite seasons because, besides the cooler weather, I just love the colors. The leaves on the trees right now are now changing from all shades of green to brilliant reds, oranges, and yellows. With the addition of bright colors for Halloween, the color palette for quilts is endless! I usually change out my patriotic quilts for the fall ones on Labor Day weekend. That way we get to enjoy them for almost three full months before it is time to decorate for Christmas.
One of my favorite quilts is a cute little table runner that sits on the coffee table in our living room. I purchased it as a kit called Ghastly Ghosts from Connecting Threads. The fabrics feature all kinds of fun Halloween items from pumpkins to ghosts to spooky graveyard scenes. I did a lot of straight-line machine quilting on this quilt making it really easy and quick to put together.
The entryway by our front door is home to a couple of fun decorations. The quilt on the wall is a pattern from “Pint-Size Traditions” by Thimbleberries. I quilted this with a figure-eight design in the border, a stipple design around the pumpkin appliqués, and stitch-in-the-ditch in the blocks. The pillows in the basket on the top shelf are made from patterns found in “Little Quilts All Through The House.” I love making these because they use up scraps of fabric and batting and they are so fun to decorate with. And I could practice my hand quilting on this project!
My sewing room is full of fun quilts for the fall. On the door I have a quilt called Window To The Seasons from “Seasonal Samplers, Book 2” By Debbie Mumm. It is a fun appliqué quilt with felt stars and a moon that hang from one of the windows. I practiced my hand-quilting skills on this one, too.
Another quilt from the Debbie Mumm book hangs on the wall next to a small shelf of seasonal knock-knacks. It is called Autumn’s Splendor and also features several appliqué blocks along with the pieces blocks. I hand-quilted this one, too.
On one of our trips to visit Lindsay in Dubuque, IA, my mom and I stopped in the Cotton Cabin Quilt Shop and spotted this awesome pattern by Country Threads. It is one of my larger fall quilts and fits nicely on the wall behind my long arm machine. I stitched a stipple design in the burgundy borders, pebbles in the black borders, outline-stitched around the appliqués, and stitched-in-the-ditch in the Flying Geese blocks.
I saw the pattern for this fun quilt in the September/October 2008 edition of Fons and Porter’s Love of Quilting magazine. It hangs on the curtain rod in my sewing room. I did straight line stitching in the order border and a stipple around the appliqués.
I also have several small quilts hanging on the walls in our family room, as well as a quilt on our kitchen table, the end table in our family room, and on our bannister. All of these quilts were completed either by hand-quilting or machine-quilting on my domestic machine. I recently finished a really fun Halloween quilt on my long arm which has found a home in my kitchen. Check out tomorrow’s Facebook post to see that quilt.