For the Love of Autumn

"Autumn is the eternal corrective. It is ripeness and color and a time of maturity;
but it is also breadth, and depth, and distance.  What man can stand with autumn
on a hilltop and fail to see the span of his world and the meaning of the rolling
hills that reach to the far horizon?
-   Hal Borland*

"The winds will blow their own freshness into you,
and the storms their energy,
while cares will drop away from you
like the leaves of Autumn."
-   John Muir*

  

I love autumn! The season brings with it change. 

Change in our schedule as we return to school, new activities and our non-summer/ more "normal" life. This also means new adventures, new friends, a new quilt guild year, new projects, new classes, the resurrection of deeply loved old projects yearning to be finished and, of course, apple and pumpkin picking and my personal favorite-- hot cider and doughnuts!

One of the first events in the Fall is our church's Dutch Fair and silent auction. This year the chair of the silent auction is my mother, so I've donated this table runner/ wall hanging.

From Pieced Tree Patterns (Forest City, Iowa), "Falling Leaves" features four easy Maple Leaf blocks which not only allow one to practice their perfect, or not-so-perfect, point making techniques as well as time playing with these rich and lovely Fall florals. The pattern is designed to create a wall hanging banner with three sections. My piece is a modification from the center section.

 

In order for the piece to be more versatile, I've added "Fast Finish Triangles". They are squares folded in half and sewn into the binding of the corners. This way small pieces can be hung with a simple piece of wood underneath the corner trianges (seen below). I learned this technique from my work with the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative (www.alzquilts.org). Here is the link to the "Fast Finish Triangles" tutorial: http://www.alzquilts.org/paqdisplay.html

Other hanging techniques are also available on that page which include hanging sleeves and the use of the multi-purpose soda can tab!

* Quotes from http://www.egreenway.com/months/autumn.htm#Autumn