Celebrate Colour - an Australian Autumn Forest Quilt

I have been sewing like mad to get this quilt finished - from start to finish in about 10 days, which I am quite proud of considering the size (around 80" square)!!!

My inspiration when choosing the fabrics for this quilt was definitely autumn in an Australian forest. While we do have some trees that are deciduous many of our native trees and plants are evergreen, so while there are patches of orange, yellow and red, there is still a strong element of green.

You can see my previous posts for this quilt here, here and here. This quilt was a first in lots of ways for me. My first bigger-than-a-baby-quilt, my first time pulling fabrics from different lines and designers (rather than a single line), my first time using a quilt-as-you-go method and my first time using improv piecing.

My fabric choices for this project were browns, greens, oranges and golden yellows - which happen to be some of my favorite colours as well as shouting 'autumn' to me.

The sashing is mostly Kona ivory - but I ran out and only had enough to sash 13 blocks (whoops!), and didn't have time to order more before the deadline to get this finished... so I used Kona PFD for the remaining 3 blocks and the sashing between the blocks.

I quilted each square (around 19 1/2" square each) in a spiral outwards from the centre block, following the lines of the wonky log cabins.

For some reason, my camera doesn't like the orange-white spotty print and it appears to be much more pink than orange in these shots...

For the back, I had about 3 yards of a print from Amy Butler's Daisy Chain so I cut 8 backing squares from that, and then pulled various shades of yellow-green from my stash for the remaining 8 backing squares. At the basting and quilting stage I hadn't planned the layout of blocks, so layout for the back of the quilt was a mystery until I'd finished putting it together. But I actually think I like the back more than the front...

I love how the quilting looks on the back, and I think the coal-grey binding and sashing works really well with the greens and yellow-greens (I am completely in love with grey at the moment!)

The finished quilt measures about 80" square. I will definitely be sticking to baby quilts for a while after wrangling this one!

This is my entry into the Celebrate Colour competition over at Stitched in Colour.

Autumn Colours Tunic

Despite being in the midst of spring here in the southern hemisphere I made this top as part of Celebrate Colour, over at stitched in colour. I have had this fabric (some vintage fabric I bought on etsy I think...) for ages, and was inspired to make something with it for celebrate colour since its such an autumn-ish print.

I used McCalls pattern M6025 (printed in the early 90's) - its actually supposedly a dress, and I guess it could be for some people, although I prefer not to wear a dress that barely reaches the top of my legs... so I'm calling it a tunic top :)

The sleeves are 3/4 length so its pretty perfect for this time of year in Tasmania (although the weather still seems to be fluctuating between summer and winter... it would be nice if it could decide which it is!)

I'm definitely an autumn person when it comes to colour choice (orange, brown and greens) so this round of Celebrate Colour totally appeals to me!

Thanks for looking!
Jess