Bloggers Quilt Festival Fall 2011

Hi there! Welcome to Poppyprint if you are clicking your way through the Bloggers Quilt Festival listings. Here is my favourite autumn quilt, which is hanging on my office door for the season.

I first saw a photo in Quilter's World Magazine of this wallhanging by Ellen Stuckey (I believe she's from Indiana, but I can't find a blog or website for her). I hung on to a colour photocopy of it for several years and finally found the perfect fabric. All of it was hand dyed by my friend Kathy, except for a few of the lighter fabrics, which are batik.

This entire quilt is free cut with scissors, no rulers or rotary blades. I pieced it on my annual November retreat a few years ago and made a massive mess of my work table and the floor around me! Free-piecing can be pretty wasteful, but all of the scraps were so beautiful I saved them for other, tiny projects. The quilt is not bound in the traditional way, but with a facing instead. I really liked the way Ellen had defined the two panels with an asymmetric top and bottom edge -it's a unique quilt finish.

I had a lot of fun with the quilting; using different thread colours, some free motion in the leaves themselves, but mostly straight line quilting with a walking foot on. In some cases, I used the quilting to define more leaves, like the one pictured below.

If you are not a regular Poppyprint reader, you may be interested in my recent free-cut project that I just made earlier this week in a workshop with the Quilters of Gee's Bend, Alabama. You can read about it here!

Thank you so much for stopping by. Be sure to visit Amy's Creative Side for a complete listing of participating blogs and check out all of the other amazing quilts in this Festival by clicking on the button below!

Caution: Gnome Crossing

I'm sure there's a little guy in there somewhere. Can you see him?

my back yard, early morning dew

Poppyprint in Print Take 2 + a giveaway!

Phew! I'm back. Sorry to keep you hanging for a couple of extra days, but the weather was just too gorgeous to come home and our lovely hosts welcomed us to stay on at their little piece of paradise (photos soon). If we had come home as scheduled, we wouldn't have sighted a juvenile grey whale 20m from the boat!!

Ok, here's my news. Remember back here, when I was all excited to have my first ever magazine article published? Well, now I've had my first ever original PATTERN published!! I wasn't sure when the Fall 2010 issue of Quilter's Connection Magazine would be out...apparently subscribers (like me) all got theirs last week. Mine arrived just moments before we were leaving for our last summer hurrah, so I haven't even had a chance to read the whole thing yet. There was no way I was taking it with me to get sunscreen, sand and wineglass rings all over it!

D kindly snapped this totally staged shot of me 'reading' my pattern this morning.

I have to thank Heather, the wonderful publisher of Quilter's Connection (Canada's very own quilting magazine) for the opportunity to share my work. I love this wall hanging pattern that is a breeze to sew up for your wall, a door, or for a coffeetable runner. The leaves are woolfelt applique's (I love mixing cotton and wool). It could be done with any type of leaf outline (oak? ginko?) and even green/blue colours in the 25-patches for a spring look. If you've been perusing Poppyprint for a while, you may remember that I initially designed this quilt for last year's Autumn Swap on the Quilting Gallery blog.

I have a spare copy of the magazine that I'd love to share with you! It's full of fantastic patterns and articles by Canadian quilters - I know you'll love it!

Leave me a comment and tell me your favourite thing about autumn for an entry. I'll close the comments on Monday, September 6th at 10:00 p.m. Pacific Time and then use the RNG to find the winner and let you know on Tuesday. If you are an anonymous lurker or a no-reply blogger, make sure that you leave an email address in your comment so I can notify you!

**comments are now closed, thanks for entering!**

Endings and Beginnings

There's been frost the last couple of mornings. A sparkly white dusting on the tips of the grass blades and all along the roof tops. The local mountains even had a skiff of snow at the very tippity tops the other day! Fall is coming to a close around here, which means the moss is growing thick on our apple tree and it's time to pick that very last delicious, crunchy apple...

When we first moved into this house 9 years ago, the apple tree was so healthy and happy. We must have had 100+ apples that first summer. I think we may have stressed the poor thing by pruning some of the lower, kiddie-eyeball-level branches in those first couple of years. Some people say there are so few bees that pollination isn't really happening like it used to. Whatever the cause, there were only about 20 apples this year. Sad.

Our perennial bed is looking mightly droopy and tired. Everything's gone yellowy, fallen over and is in dire need of a clean-up. The hydrangea is the last hold-out on the colour front.

So, on to new things! I received my swap partner today for the Quilting Bloggers Fall Quilt Swap. This is my first time participating in a swap. I've been busy spying on my partner already, sifting through her old posts, looking for clues as to what she likes, her quilting style and home decor. We have to make a small wall hanging, no larger than 12" X 24" by January. I've got some ideas and I'm looking forward to getting started soon.

First, my Mystery Quilt is calling me. At guild last night, we received the first set of piecing instructions. All I have to do now is press this mess and get going!!!

...but really first-first, there are the Hallowe'en costumes to finish up!

I am SO looking forward to a 4 day retreat coming up. I'm hosting 23 women at this perfect place where we will sew, eat, hot tub, walk in the woods, look at the ocean and laugh. A lot. Departure in only 8 sleeps!!! I love retreats.

Don't forget to visit sew, mama, sew and vote for your favourite Stash Buster Tutorials. Voting is open until tomorrow!!!