Happy First Day of Fall 2022! Nancy's Trail to Kansas Quilt + Elaine's Yellow Brick Road Quilt

 At exactly 9:03 PM EDT today, the Sun will traipse across the Celestial Equator.  Do you know what that means?  It means that today is the first day of FALL, despite temps still in the nineties and the threat of boob sweat stopping us Southerners from decking ourselves out in sweaters as we long to do.  We will rip out our impatiens and plant mums, and pile pumpkins, gourds, and random bales of hay on our suburban porches.  We may still be wearing sandals for a few months longer, but we will be choosing fall colors for our pedicures from here on out.  It's all about "mind over matter" as we celebrate the arrival of Fake Fall in the Carolinas.  

To help us all get in the mood for the new season, I've been holding back a couple of Fall client quilts to share with you today.  Grab your pumpkin spiced latte, your pumpkin muffins, slather on some pumpkin spice hand cream and if it STILL doesn't feel like it's fall, try lighting a pumpkin spice candle or two.  Here we go!

Nancy's Piecing the Trail to Kansas Quilt

There is a story behind this quilt, and another story behind THAT story...  When Nancy contacted me about this project, it had been languishing as a UFO (UnFinished Object) for quite some time.  The pattern is called Piecing the Trail to Kansas by Lynne Hagmeier of Kansas Troubles Quilters, and it comes with a historical fiction "journal" that has a chapter for each month about the joys and sorrows experienced by a family of pioneers on the wagon train to Kansas Territory in the 1850s.  The quilt block for each month related to what was happening in the book for that month's chapter.

Nancy tells me that she really got into the story about the pioneer experience and had enjoyed piecing the quilt top as a BOM (Block of the Month) program at a local quilt shop, but once the BOM program ended, her enthusiasm for finishing it petered out.

Nancy's 79 x 90 Trail to Kansas Quilt, Finished at Last with Primitive Fall E2E

I'm so glad she brought this to me because it's a gorgeous quilt that deserved to be finished!  There is also a story behind the Primitive Fall edge-to-edge quilting design we selected for this quilt, featuring pumpkins, moons, stars, birds (crows?), and botanicals.

Detail of Primitive Fall E2E on Nancy's Quilt

In the pattern cover photo below, you can see the additional appliqué elements that were supposed to be added to the background of this quilt.  Nancy had had enough of this project and just didn't feel motivated to do all of that appliqué work, even though the appliqué elements were symbolic representations of the storyline about the pioneer woman's family.  

I was DELIGHTED when I found that digital quilting design that incorporated so many of the missing appliqué elements.  I've got the crow, the crescent moon, the stars, as well as the botanicals.  You would never know, looking at Nancy's finished quilt, that any part of the original pattern had been "left out."

Pattern Photo of Trail to Kansas, Showing Omitted Applique

This is the quilting design I used on Nancy's quilt:

Careful observers might notice that I tweaked this design a bit for Nancy's quilt.  I mirror-image flipped every other row of the design so half of her birds are facing left and the other half face right, and I staggered the rows with a 50% offset as well so I wouldn't have such obvious, rigid repeats.  I used YLI 40 Tex Machine Quilting Cotton variegated thread in Green to Tan to complement the traditional, folksy feel of Nancy's quilt, and we used Quilter's Dream Cotton Select loft batting.

Here's what Nancy's quilt top looked like prior to quilting:

Nancy's Quilt Top Before Quilting

Elaine's Cuddly Flannel Yellow Brick Road Quilt

This next Fall-themed quilt is also a UFO success story.  The Yellow Brick Road Quilt pattern is a beginner-friendly fat quarter pattern by Atkinson design and it's available on Etsy from multiple sellers here (this post contains affiliate links).  Elaine told me that she started piecing her flannel Yellow Brick Road quilt top fifteen (15!) years ago.  She said it "wasn't an important quilt" and much like Nancy, she "just wanted it done."

Elaine's Yellow Brick Road Quilt with Falling Leaves E2E

All of Elaine's fabrics for the quilt top as well as the backing are flannels, and this quilt is SO SOFT!  If this quilt was still in my possession rather than long since returned to Elaine, I would be cranking up my air conditioning just so I could cuddle up with this one.

Rear View: Detail of Falling Leaves Quilting on the Backing Side

Quilts with simple piecing lines and solid or tonal fabrics can really be transformed by a dramatic quilting design.  I love how Falling Leaves E2E softens the straight lines and angles of the patchwork seams with flowing curls and movement, like those Fall leaves really were swept up in a gust of wind and they are swirling around across the quilt's surface.  I used 40 wt trilobal polyester Glide thread in Honey Gold for Elaine's quilt, with Quilters Dream 80/20 Select Loft Cotton/Poly batting.

Elaine's 79 x 91 Finished Quilt

Here's what Elaine's quilt top looked like before quilting.  And no, you're not imagining things and I'm not pulling a fast one on you, either -- In between taking this photo and bringing me her quilt, Elaine decided to remove the light brown border and replace it with the deep plum border you see in the finished quilt photos! 

Elaine's Quilt Top Before Quilting, With Original Border

The Moral of Today's Blog Post

Both Nancy and Elaine were thrilled with their quilts when they picked them up, even though they had been feeling "meh" about their projects and were really hiring me to quilt them mostly so they could stop feeling guilty about having started something long ago and never finishing it.  Haven't we all been there?  Someone should do a whole TED talk about Quilter's Guilt and how to break free!  I love how Nancy gave herself permission to simplify the quilt pattern and eliminate most of the appliqué that she wasn't excited about, allowing her to move on and spend her time on the projects she's enjoying today.  Same with Elaine -- she said there were "one or two blocks" that she wasn't happy with in her quilt top when she set the project aside, but once it was quilted she couldn't even find those offending blocks anymore.  Imperfectly finished quilts are so much better than perfectly incomplete quilts glowering at you from inside of dusty project boxes and making you feel bad for wanting to move on!

Special thanks to Elaine and to Nancy for helping us usher in Fall of 2022 with their beautiful quilts.  Thank you so much, both of you, for choosing me to quilt for you!

🍂🍂🍂 PSST!!  I'd Love to Quilt for YOU!

By the way, if you or any of your quilty friends has a quilt top or two that needs quilting, I'd be delighted to quilt for you!  I am currently scheduling quilts for completion in early December, so please let me know ASAP if you are working on quilts with holiday deadlines.  Click here to learn how easy it is to book a quilt with me!

Meanwhile, my Retro '80s Building Blocks sampler is quilted and trimmed, but I'm not showing it to you just yet!  I need to make the label and get it bound first, and then I'll do a big reveal when it's TOTALLY finished.  Soon, I promise!  I'm linking up today's post with my favorite linky parties, listed on the left sidebar of my blog.  Happy Fall, Y'all!