Fall abloom

Hi everyone, and happy fall weekend! Fall has finally arrived here, with much cooler temperatures and lots of wind.  No really colorful leaves yet, though.  I think they mainly just gave up and dried out from all the heat that we've had, then turned brown and fell.  It's kind of weird that there is still so much green around.  Some of my flowers are also still blooming, though many of them are done.  I still have a pink geranium, some roses, and a few petunias with flowers on them.  Curious to see how long they last, really.

Here is something else I have with flowers on it-- I've finished the fall flowers quilt top:

Whoo-hoo!  I am happy to have this one done and ready to quilt up, and I think it turned out well.  Can you see all of the different fall flowers in the top? I wanted this to look like flowers at the end of the season, with mums, asters, goldenrod, and other fall flowers.  I chose beige sashing because I thought a fall quilt really called for beige. The inner border is a dark green, and the outer border is a darker beige with some interesting flecks in it.  I've had those beiges for a long time, and it's nice to see them used.

Oooh, artsy!

If you recall, this is the project I made from the bundle of fabrics I chose for Bernie's online fabric shop.  (She still has a few bundles left, and you can get one HERE.)  I challenged myself to use most of the fabrics in the bundle, with as little added fabric as feasible.  I think I did okay.  I added a cream background, a piece of green that was about a third of a yard, and a few other small pieces to accent the fabrics in the bundle.  I managed to eke out 15 blocks from the bundle, which I think is really great.  Here's all I have left:

That's a win! There's really not much there, just enough to cut into a handful of squares.  I do love the yellow fabric, so I may get some more of that, and maybe the green, too.  They're so pretty, and I can see using them in another project.

I had planned to make this a little larger and use blocks of the leaves throughout the quilt.  It looked really bad.  Really, those leaves need to be their own quilt.  Since I needed 16 blocks to make mine square, I managed to make two 6-inch flower blocks (I may or may not have stitched some of those scraps together to make it work) and paired them up with two of the leaves to make a 12-inch block to finish the top. 

Instead of having leaf blocks, I think I'll have this longarmed in a leaf pattern.  That way, I get flowers plus leaves in a pretty quilt.  Have my cake and eat it, too!  (Mmmm, cake.)

So there's another top finished!  Now it's on to finishing off the black stars quilt top, and then there are a few other things I want to get working on before the year is out.  (It scares me just to type that sentence!)

Hope everyone has a great weekend!  I'm planning on curling up with a book while it rains, and maybe searching through the project closet for a project I can finish off quick.  There's a bunch of stuff in there; I really should figure out what it all is!

Sharing at Confessions of a Fabric Addict, Finished or Not Friday, and TGIFF.