Home for the Evening : Friends, Inc., Sept. 12, 2008

I had been planning an autumn-themed quilt for this group for a while, thinking I had until the end of Sept. to finish the project. One morning in late Aug., I heard our NPR station announce the date of Sept. 12.

I had already saved a free pattern from the Michael Miller website: Swallows by Marinda Stewart seemed to provide the basic dimensions for my quilt. But Swallows is a spring design and I needed to turn it into an autumn pattern. After looking at lots of pictures of various maple trees, I selected one as my guide and designed the quilt from there.

I made traditional Maple Leaf blocks for the 4 corners of the outside border, and included a few inches of paper-pieced Wild Geese on the corners of the inner borders. The quilting was a combination of straight stitching and free motion quilting. The inner blocks have free motion echo quilting; the outside border has large leaves in free motion.

I finished the quilt with a sleeve on the back and included a dowel for hanging, and gave it to Jan Brewer at Friends, Inc. on Wed. Sept. 10. The benefit, "An Autumn Evening with Friends," was held Sept. 12 at the Monte Sano Lodge.

Tippi "helping" lay out
the various branch and leaf pieces.

Now with borders

Finished

Front detail

Back

Back detail
Label