I HAVE FINISHED IT SUSAN

The lovely Susan set up an Autumn strip swap for us on our Yahoo group. I noticed she was asking a while back what has happened to all these strips. Oops. I had actually finished mine in January [this year] but because I was ill had not got round to doing pictures and letting her know. VBG. All that is now corrected and I am putting it here also hopefully for you to enjoy. The photo of the quilt and the back of same have been taken whilst it was pegged on my washing line so it is sideways on to you. I did turn it but it looked dodgy, so you have to tilt your head if you want to see it right way up...

I loved making it, a real challenge for me as I hadn't got a clue what to do, then that song came into my mind.....The Autumn leaves, drift past my window... then there was no stopping me. I chopped the strips willy-nilly, then joined them again willy-nilly fashion!!! I put a bright orange flange between them to make it look like 'blinds' which are open, [hahaha in my dreams] well it kind of works! then I put a batik border on and set to with the quilting...

Following is the back so you can see how I quilted it. I actually quilted it from the back and found it fun to do this way, I totally ignored what was happening on the front. Leaves were what I used for the quilting, different types of leaves. Once I had gone all over the centre part, I then put some sparkly thread in my bobbin and went round the leaves again several times, I wanted the leaves to sing to me, sadly it doesn't show up on the picture for you, but they do sparkle. I wasn't too sure how to quilt the border, then I had a light bulb moment, I slapped a piece of masking tape down and zipped along the side of it with my free motion foot, then echoed it twice with the width of the foot as a guide. Then the tape next to that and ditto, twice more. I did a bit of a jiggle at the corners as I wanted to quilt a leaf in each corner. I am really pleased with how it turned out. I will definitely quilt from the back again...

I typed the words into WORD on the computer using a font I liked, can't remember which one right now, then enlarged it to the size I wanted, then whacked it onto the quilt,  first line at the top...

second line at the bottom...

Once all the quilting was done, I did the binding using the same bright orange I had used for the flange in the centre.

The whole of the quilting and the wording was done with my free motion foot for my machine, it is the only way I can quilt.

Any questions? I will do my best to answer you on here.

Meantime, thank you Susan for the opportunity to make myself a quilt. I love it. Can we have another swap soon please?

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