Autumn Love Block #1

So many cobwebs in this place. So many! And not the fun Halloween-y kind - it's the kind that collect from abuse and neglect. But here I am, at it again. Why? Riley Blake was kind enough to ask me to be a part of their Autumn Love Sew Along, and the answer was HECK YEAH! I love autumn, and Lori Holt's new line of autumn-themed fabrics is really beautiful. It's full of rich, deep fall colors. The best part, for an orange lover like me, is that there is no shortage of great orange prints. Typically, you're lucky to get one orange print in a line of fabric, but Lori has designed six orange prints for this line (seven including the one on the scrappy sixth panel).

A different blogger will be sharing a different block each week. I'm doing the first one, the crow and pumpkin block. It's the one in the sew along graphic.

Want to see the other blocks or sew along with Lori? Head on over to her blog for all the information you need to get started. I've got too many irons in the fire, so I'll just be doing a few of the blocks as smaller projects instead of the quilt. I was planning on just doing one project, but like the old Jacqueline Susann novel, once just is not enough.  Here's the block before I sewed down the applique pieces and squared it up to 10.5".

Isn't she adorable? I hadn't trimmed her yet, so Ms. Crow has really long supermodel legs. Next I added a 3" scrappy border all around it so I can use my 16" pillow form.

I love all the colors, and the embroidered vine by the stem is a fun touch. Then I backed it with some batting and muslin, quilted around each of the individual applique pieces, got some fabric ready for an envelope style (so many tutorials for that...here, here, here and many others), added the binding and voila...

Ready to go, out on the living room armchair. I'm in love with it. I think it's a great showcase for all those colors and prints.

I wanted to do something else with the pumpkin and crow appliques, but I wanted to change the flower up a bit and make a project that's a bit bigger. I grabbed the leaf template that was used for the flower and made a few petals for another flower design.

I cut the corners off so there was less bulk underneath the center of the flower and made a couple others with different prints as well.

The buttons will be sewn on each one after I'm further along.

Here are the rest of the pieces, stacked up and ready to be laid out. I used scraps from a couple other Riley Blake basics lines - Kisses for the bird beak and legs, and Shades for the bird body and wings and the pumpkin stems, and Bee Basics and Bake Sale 2 for the flowers.

I decided on a runner. It's not everyone's bag, but I've come to really appreciate the meditative benefits and dimensionality of hand applique. It's time consuming, for sure, but I love it. So, it's going to take me some time to finish this one. I've glued down all the pieces and gotten a start on some of the applique. Here she is in progress...

It'll be another couple of weeks before I finish it, but the effort will be worth the wait, I think. I plan to add another 3" border scrappy border along the top to coordinate with the pillow. Once it's all done, I'll post a follow up. Until then, enjoy those last days of summer!