Ahhh, Fall how I love thee!

Have I mentioned Fall is my favorite season? It's the best season by far (sorry to make all you two season peeps jealous heehee).

The crisp morning air makes me super happy!

Even though Christmas is looming and there are a ton of gifts that need to be made, I needed to bask in the awesomeness that is Fall for just a minute.

So this Fall Mini Quilt was born! It measures about 21" square.

I pieced together the leftover strips to make the backing and then free motion quilted the whole thing. I need major practice on that because I messed up a bunch of times, but since it's living at my house, I didn't bother unpicking the mistakes.

I didn't use a pattern, but I'll give you a quickie idea of how it was made.

You need:

- 5 fat quarters (you can definitely get away with less because I have enough scraps for a potholder or two)

- an 18.5 square of white cotton (I used Kona)

- 20" square of batting

- coloring book pages!! I googled "leaf coloring pages" and got lots of choices.

- binding tape (you can buy it pre-made or make your own)

Print your leaf coloring pages. You can do the same for the pumpkin shape or freehand it like I did.

Using your favorite applique method, add leaves and pumpkin to the white square. I used THIS starch method by PieceNQuilt and a blanket stitch. Worked beautifully.

Cut four 1.75" strips for the border. Sew to white square using a 1/4" seam. Don't forget to press open your seams!

Take your left over fabric and piece together the backing. There's no right or wrong way to do it. Whatever looks best to you.

Sandwich your top, batting, and backing together. Quilt however you like. Using your favorite applique method, add leaves to the white square. I did free motion quilting, learned from THIS Oh, Fransson tutorial.

Attach binding by machine or hand. I used leftover binding from last year's turkey place mats, so I don't know exactly how wide it is. It's pretty narrow. You can use whatever width you want, depending on the look you're going for. THIS tutorial from Red Pepper Quilts is pretty awesome.

Step back and admire!

I think I want to look for more fun coloring book pages to use as applique shapes!

Now it IS time to think about that long long list of Christmas gifts to be made in less than 3 months. :X

P.S. - I'm having major spacing issues with Blogger. The spaces between lines disappear when I publish a post, which makes the text harder to read. Any tips?