Bloggers Quilt Festival: Scattered Leaves

In keeping with the fall season, I thought I would show my Scattered Leaves in Amy’s Fall Bloggers Quilt Festival this year. My Scattered Leaves quilt is special to me because it was selected to be the cover quilt of The Quilter‘s November 2010 issue. My regular readers are probably sick of me showing this quilt (sorry!), but I thought the new visitors might like seeing it…

Fall is a favorite season in my household. So I jumped at the opportunity to work with RJR‘s Autumn into Winter fabric collection. I used just about all the fabrics in that collection to achieve a scrappy look even though the fabrics are from the same collection.

The blocks are the popular maple leaf block, with a “signature” twist. Instead of stitching and commemorating names of people, I hand stitched popular food items we enjoy in the cold months of the year on each block.

Quilting was done free-motion on my domestic machine. I quilt all my quilts on my Bernina 640E.

I used Aurifil Mako 50 threads of different colors to match the main color of each block for quilting.  Using Hobbs’ Tuscany Silk Batt makes my quilt soft and cuddly.

This quilt will be treasured in our household because it will memorialize the comfort of food in our family for many many years to come.

Thank you for stopping by.  I hope you have enjoyed the Bloggers Quilt Festival.  Should you feel like viewing more fall quilts I have made this year, here are the links: Fruit of the Vine, Cascade of Leaves.  You may also click here for my Japanese Fruit Pie recipe – a favorite at our house.

Have a blessed and fantastic autumn!

Personalization ideas for signature blocks

I think whoever came up with the idea of signature quilt blocks is a genius. The idea of signature blocks makes a quilt (which is already a very personal creation) even more personal and meaningful. These are pictures of some signature quilt blocks. Pictures are from Quilter’s Cache with free patterns on the site:

Some ideas for personalizing these blocks:

1. Names of family members for a quilt to commemorate a reunion or important family event

2. Birth particulars of a baby on a birth quilt

3. Names of guests on a wedding or wedding shower quilt

4. Names of important and famous people – Adeline Harris of mid-1800’s managed to collect signatures of important and famous people of her time, and thereby memorialized her era in this amazing quilt! The famous people comprised of politicians, poets, clergymen etc (pictures from “Quilts and Coverlets of America):

5. Names of countries on a travel quilt

6. Favorite verses on a Bible or Poetry or Famous Quotes quilt

7. Things prayed for on a Prayer quilt

8. Addresses lived at for a military family quilt

9. Love in different languages for a “I heart you” quilt

10. Titles of songs for a music quilt

11. Accomplishments in an achievement quilt

For my signature quilts, I actually stitch the words by hand onto the blocks instead of signing it with a fabric safe pen. Alternatively, one can also machine embroider the personalization on the blocks – just be sure to use the right amount of stabilizer to prevent the dense stitching from puckering the block.

I am using my Autumn into Winter quilt to record the favorite food items in the Ivory Spring household during the colder months of the year:

What interesting ideas have you used the signature blocks? Even if you aren’t a quilter, I would love to hear if you have any other neat ideas to personalize these quilt blocks.

Thank you for stopping by – I hope you have a lovely day!