Finished: Autumn UFOs

September was National Sewing Month and I spent most of my sewing time catching up on customer orders! As a reward for finishing my long work list, I decided to revisit a few unfinished projects of my own and spent a couple of very productive days completing them.

Last October, I started work on this Trick or Treat Backdoor Quilt pattern from Cottage Creek Quilts' "Backdoor Quilt" series - remember my tea dyeing experiment? I pieced all the borders, tea-dyed the background, fused and stitched the appliques, and even digitized and stitched the text - and then packed it away to be finished later.

I decided to echo quilt around the design; I didn't really plan ahead, so it turned out a bit like meandering in some spots.  The lines on the pumpkin are stitched through all layers in dark orange rayon thread.

The cat's whiskers and nose are hand stitched through all layers in cream pearl cotton #12. I think the crow should have a black bead for an eye, but I haven't found just the right one yet.

Before quilting, I added the zigzag decorative stitch above and below the Trick or Treat text. Want to know how I matched up the two rows of zigzags so well?

I used a twin needle! Since I couldn't choose between two similar thread colors, I used both. That's a trick I'll have to use again, especially with decorative stitches.

One of the projects in my 'un-started' list is a Bahama Breeze Quilt that uses paper piecing for assembling the quilt top. I was not familiar with that technique so in June 2009, I took a class at The Cozy Quilt Shoppe. The class was designed around a pattern from Norway Quilt Designs called Maple Madness. The pattern includes instructions for a wall hanging, lap quilt, placemat and table runner. In class, we made one leaf block in each size. I chose to combine them to make a pair of placemats:

Last year I pieced together the leaf blocks and borders and prepared the batting and backing. I couldn't decide how these should be quilted, so packed them away to be finished later. Sound familiar?

This year I stared at these for a long time before finally deciding to just keep it simple and stitch wavy lines across the placemat. I chose one of the curvy decorative stitches built into my machine, made it as long and as wide as it allowed, then randomly stitched parallel lines, guiding the placemat back and forth slightly as I stitched. The result almost looks like free-motion quilting. The thread is a 30 weight Sulky Blendable in variegated greens.

I'm so happy to finally have both of these projects finished! Hopefully I will find the time and inspiration to work on a few more from the UFO list soon.