Anticipating Autumn

According to the Bing Dictionary, the definition of "anticipate" is to: act beforehand to address something imminent: to imagine or consider something before it happens and make any necessary preparations or changes. And that is exactly what I did when I asked the members of That Stash Bee to make Modern Maples blocks for me back in June. I really loved the many Modern Maples quilts I had seen around blogland, and wanted one for our own home. This fall. 

I started out making this block as a sample and asked for basic leaf colors on light (non-white) solids or low-volume prints.  

Even a lighter leaf on a darker background was acceptable, and since I only received 1 of those, I made 1 more and brought my total number of blocks to 20.

So earlier this week, I took all my leaf blocks, laid them out, and cut a variety of solid and print squares, enough so I could do the 5x6 block layout I had planned. This would make a nice lap quilt, measuring 60x72".

For a backing, I used a Curious Nature print by Parson Gray. It had some leafy images and also the sense of sidewalk, which in my childhood was the place where all the most interesting leaves were found. (In fact, one of my favorite childhood activities was making leaf rubbings.)

For quilting I used Aurifil 50wt #2000, which is named "Beige" but in reality is much more interesting than its name implies and nicely brought all the colored leaves to blow nicely together. I stitched straight-lines, first making a grid along both sides of the seam-lines between blocks. Then I went zigging and zagging a bit so I went through the stem of each leaf. I added more parallel lines diagonally to decrease the amount of unquilted space, though this is one of the less densely quilted quilts I've done, with the diagonals about 4" apart.

The binding is one of my new favorite prints - Carrie Bloomston's  Collage Scratch in Putty. It was just the perfect shade to blend with the mix of backgrounds, and with its subtle lines is not really a stripe but gives a bit of that effect but in a subdued way, letting the leaf blocks really be the focus. (Click the Collage link and you can see it better.)

So don't get me wrong. I am totally enjoying these last few weeks of summer, and am not over-anticipating the arrival of autumn, but on the other hand, quilt-wise, I'm ready.

This finish is from my 2013 Q3 Finish-A-Long list. Linking up with Fabric Tuesday and Finish It Up Friday.