Falling Leaves Art Quilt

Over the last few weeks I’ve spent every free moment in my sewing room, laboring over my Renaissance Totes. I really wanted to get them finished in time for the German Holiday Market (tomorrow!), and did my utmost to make that happen. However, I couldn’t help but start another project on the side. I never thought I’ll manage to complete that, as well, but miraculously I did!

This all started when, around Thanksgiving, my workroom started to feel like a golden cathedral. The culprit was our maple tree, which remained persistently green until a day or two before Turkey Day, whence upon it metamorphosed seemingly overnight to its most glamorous state.

Being right outside my studio’s window, the tree overwhelmed the room, filling its windows and door with breath-taking reds and yellows, and shining golden light onto everything. My quiet sewing moments thus turned into a truly spiritual, almost meditative experience. In the presence of this awe-inspiring natural beauty I felt like the most lucky person on earth.

Despite being engrossed with my new tote series, I felt compelled to do something with those leaves. And so, encouraged by my “Give a Hand” quilt, I started working on a smaller, “Falling Leaves” wall hanging. Since it required many relatively-short steps, I was able to work on it on the days the kids were on vacation, and in the short intervals in-between cooking and house chores. I also pulled a few late nights this past week, with the crafts fair looming near…

First, I started by selecting an array of fall-colored fabrics, onto which backs I ironed applique double-sided interfacing. I then drew leaves on the paper side, including some maple leaves but also interesting-looking leaves from other kinds of trees:

Then I cut them all out:

I deliberately chose different-textured fabrics, as that is the most exciting aspect, for me, of working with upholstery fabrics versus the more traditional quilting cottons. By incorporating this golden silk, for example, I think I managed to convey some of the radiant light that illuminates from real fall leaves:

I arranged the composition, and ironed the leaves onto the background, fusing the pieces together:

Now the piece was ready for the labor-intensive hand-stitching stage. I started with appliqueing around the leaves. When I worked on my Hand Quilt I used only a blanket stitch. This time I decided to use several kinds of stitches, to make the work a bit more interesting. I still used blanket stitch on some of the leaves:

But I also incorporated other stitches, such as this chain stitch:

You will notice that I learned a lesson from my previous experience, and used thimbles right from the start on this one! Upholstery fabrics are really hard to stitch through… Despite my precautions, however, I still got a blister on my thumb…

When all the leaves were appliqued to the background, I went on to embroider their veins:

Then, as in any quilt, I sandwiched the three layers together: top, batting and back.

And went on to quilt them all together, using big, noticeable stitches, Japanese boro style:

I played with the colors of the thread as well as with the direction of the stitches to give the piece added interest. Here is a detail:

And the whole piece quilted:

The big stitches gave the background a crinkly look that I really like. It somehow reminds me of the bark of a tree, or of a forest floor.