Autumn is for Applique

We’ve just put our wood burning stove on for the first time since before summer, so in our house that means it’s officially Autumn! And as much as I hate the short days and the grey skies it is lovely to be warm and cosy inside.

Regular readers will know that I have been working on a series of seasonal applique cushions covers for Today’s Quilter magazine. Issue 14 is out now and features my Autumn Garland cushion.

I’ve actually finished all four cushions now (you won’t see Winter for a few months yet) and I can definitely state that Autumn is my favourite.

I concentrated on all the lovely autumn leaves for this design with just the one flower, a chrysanthemum with variegated petals.

This is what I came up with.

I found it quite hard to design a ‘modern’ applique block that I thought people would be keen to make. In the end I went for a very stylised flower and leaf pattern with added ‘dots’. I think the background fabric really makes it.

One last applique project.

I do love to use up my class samples and back in April I was giving short workshops at the Knitting and Stitching Show in Edinburgh making these little yo-yo flowers. I ended up with 6 pieces which I sewed into 3 separate panels and made into a zippy pouch!
This in turn became a birthday present for my niece 🙂

Happy days!