Susie's Sunroom: Gail Abeloe

Quilts in the Pumpkin Patch

Welcome to Susie's Sunroom, and Day 3 of the Blog Hop! I was invited , by my new friend, Sheri, to share a fall project with you, in her Quilts in the Pumpkin Patch Blog Hop.

Day 3 You are here at Susie's Sunroom

Thank you so much, Sheri, from Sunshine in the Attic blog, for organizing this fun way to meet different bloggers and see new projects! I enjoy their inspiration and talent ! Here is the lineup of bloggers:

September 19th Sheri -- Sunshine in the Attic
September 20th Maggie -- Maggie's Empty Nest Days
September 21st Susie -- Susie's SunRoom you are here !
September 22nd Celine -- Espritpatch
September 23rd Yevette -- Evindie
September 24th Judy -- Judy's Fabric Addiction
September 25th Elaine -- Summercrafter
September 26th Patricia -- Quilting Lines

I had a lot of fun finding a project to celebrate the arrival of fall. I was constantly drawn to anything with tree leaves. And when I saw this pattern, I knew I wanted to make it for the blog hop!

The project :
A Wall hanging called Tumbling Leaves from allpeoplequilt.com by Gail Abeloe
This is a free pattern ! (click Here )
I like this random arrangement with the two different sizes of leaves.

Tumbling leaves wallhanging from All People Quilt.com

The finished quilt is 27 in high x 46 inches wide
The blocks are- 9 in square and 5 in square
Fabrics used: Tic Tac created by Kim Schaefer Andover Fabrics in 5 fall colors
Fall leaves fabric David Textiles
Cream tonal , with smallflowers, for background
Blender brown , scraps for stems

Fabrics selected for my Tumbling Leaves

Fabric amounts needed:

5/8 yard cream print ( background)

3/4 yard total assorted (blocks)
1/8 yard mottled brown (stems)- scraps will do
1/4 yard brown print (inner border)
1 yard leaves print (outer border)
1-1/2 yards backing fabric and binding
33x51" batting I used Pellon FF987

What worked for me ( from a newbie quilter): use SCANT quarter inch seams for piecing , and for the seams to put the blocks together. I had to use the scant quarter inch to ' preserve' my point tips when joining blocks together. My measurements then turned out to be very close to the pattern. Make a test block and measure it, to see what works for you :) I read that many factors influence our seam allowances... thread type, fabric weave, the presser foot we use....

Sewing a scant quarter inch seam, using my 1/4 inch foot on my Viking

The leaf blocks were made by piecing squares and half square triangles together.

I marked the diagonals on the cream squares, to make the half square triangles

Then I sewed on each side of the line, with a SCANT quarter inch seam. I kept on sewing, to make a chain of blocks.

I needed to sew every seam with a SCANT 1/4 " seam to ' keep' my points

I used the blanket stitch on my Viking to applique the little strips onto a triangle, to make the stem pieces

Next, I laid out all of the squares, to see what each leaf would look like. I switched around colors to make them random , and ' pretty to my eye.'

Leaf Block layout:

Looking at the large leaf blocks....and arranging the colors. I put the final selections onto a mini project board to move to my sewing machine easily.

Left side is unsewn / Right side is sewn together

The next step was to join all of the large and small leaf blocks together. (Note: I still used a scant quarter inch seam, so I didn't lose the leaf points in the seams. )

Then it was time to add the borders:

Inner: 1 1/4 inch wide strips I chose the dark green/brown TicTac fabric. I love this color!

Outer: 4 inch wide strips I used my leaves fabric. I had this fabric in my stash, and can't believe how well the Tic Tac Andover fabrics matched that leaf fabric!

Attaching the outer border... the leaves fabric

Before I cut the backing, I had to decide what color and kind of binding I would use. Because I decided to use this small quilt as a table runner by this time, I chose to use the "backing as binding" method to bind it. I learned this technique from a tutorial by Rae, of Made-by-Rae.com, featured as a guest at Pretty Prudent.com. It makes a clean and crisp border, with minimal bulk, that I can machine sew. Simply add one inch to each side to the backing. This extra inch on each side (after quilting) is used to fold- over to become the binding on the front.

I chose to make the backing from the gold Tic Tac fabric. I also had scraps left from the other fabrics , and decided to piece them together to form a strip in the center of the gold fabric, to make it wider than 42 inches.... I needed it to be 50 inches wide

I needed final measurement of backing to be

31 inches tall x 50 inches wide before quilting

I sewed pieces together of: 21 1/2 in plus 8 inches plus 21 1/2 inches ... all 31 inches tall

** Note: the above picture shows a quilted back. It was not quilted until all pieced together to be the back piece of 31 in tall x 50 in wide

This created the backing, with enough fabric to add one inch to every side, that will become the binding.

The next step- add the batting between the front and back. I used Pellon FF987, a fusible fleece, for the batting. I can quilt as little or as much as I like with this fleece.

Quilting- I put my walking foot on the machine. I decided to quilt around the outside of each leaf shape, and in the ditch around the dark brown inner border. Then, I wanted to add a "movement" feel to the quilt, so I decided to make some "wisps of wind" in some of the negative space spots.

A wisp of wind

I trimmed the backing to be one inch bigger than the front, on all four sides

The backing is pressed and double- folded over to become the binding on the front

Next step, folding down the raw edge , after the corner is is folded

Machine stitching the binding with my walking foot

And now it is done! My fall dishes look pretty with this runner.

My Tumbling Leaves table runner by Susie's Sunroom

Tumbling Leaves Table Runner front side

Pieced Back of the Tumbling Leaves Table Runner

The swirls remind me of little gusts of wind that stir up the leaves

The Tumbing Leaves Table Runner... Welcome Fall !

Thanks for stopping by today . I hope to see you tomorrow, Sept. 22nd, over at Celine's blog... Espiritpatch. I can't wait to see everybody's projects!