The Great Outdoors Blog Hop: Maple Leaf Rag and Giveaway

Years ago I learned to play that song on the piano, along with 'The Entertainer'. Sorry for any earworms (I have one myself now, urk!) I loved the beat of ragtime, still do. Scott Joplin could write some great jaunty little tunes! And Joanne of Canuck Quilter, sure can design some great patterns! This is one of hers. I thought the tumbling maple leaves rather jaunty, and the name just popped into my head. This quilt is on my Q3FAL List which is here.

You've had several sneak peeks of this quilt under construction, but I'd bet you had no idea how those maples leaves, and HSTs à la Postcard from Sweden would end up. Well, drum roll.....

Ta da! The quilt in a tree shot I'm known for in QBL. Yup, that's in a maple tree, a silver maple, in our neighbours' front yard. This is my stop on the Great Outdoors Blog Hop for Island Batik, and I am so glad you've stopped by! My line is Dear William (that link will take you to it). Thank you so much to Island Batik for these lush fabrics, to Hobbs Batting for the batting, and to Aurifil for the beautiful threads, all supplied to me in my box back in February! Come on in, and see the quilt in its entirety!


Here are the prints I used from the collection. There are 20 in this collection, and they are available now in your LQS!

I was given 2 yards each of the yellow and black as background fabrics, on the bottom row, far left. They are Mini Springs in Smore (love that colour name, don't you?!) and Acanthus in Storm. Island Batik has the best names! Continuing from the black, aka Storm, I used Fountain in Grape, Fountain in Desert (binding - LOVE!), Vine Vertical in Grape Juice, and Large Floral vine in Pineneedle.
Top row is: Fountain in Mixed Berry, Acanthus in Cactus, Berries in Dusk, Acanthus in Mixed Berry and Fountain in Gold.

The collection makes me think of the rich autumn colours in southern Ontario. Outdoors is the theme, and I immediately thought of trees, as I am a bonafide treehugger and not afraid to admit it. I also thought of birds, which I love, and thus, the stalling ensued, as it does each month, while I debated on what pattern to use, Blaze by Canuck Quilter Designs, or another I'd recently purchased.

In the end, Blaze it was. This is a great pattern which goes together quickly, and has three different sizes. I did the large throw, but I added a row to one side, and then omitted the top and bottom black borders, as I loved the floating maple leaves across the blaze of 'lightning'.
Quilted and bound:

Black is a beast of a colour to photograph, but I think you can see this gorgeous batik print in the above shot. Here's a better shot, a closeup, of the definition in this rich fabric:

It's also a beast of a colour to quilt, with black thread...

This shot worked better, perched on the willow chair with the sun's rays angling on it to show the various leaves I quilted in the black negative space at the top and bottom of the quilt. These leaves are inspired by Kathy Sandbach; she, and then Karen McTavish started me all those years ago on my FMQ journey.

Here's a better shot of the echoed feathers (Kathleen Quilts style) I quilted in the gold top and bottom blazes. I love doing these feathers! I thought doing feathers in the top and bottom zigzag would unify these since they are two different prints. And I just love quilting feathers of all kinds; almost every quilt has 'em.

I stitched in the ditch and then did straight lines in the blaze, using a pinky-purple, an olive green, and gold Aurifil threads. You'd never know there are the feathers in the top gold here nor all the leaves in the black! Lighting is so important and I had very little sun in the morning, and then too intense in the afternoon.

I continued the straight line stitching in the black between the blaze and lower gold zigzag, using the same black for the FMQ leaves in the upper and lower negative space.

The Hobbs 100% natural cotton batting we received is lovely to quilt through and has great definition.

I used two different gold prints, Fountain for the upper zigzag and Acanthus for the lower. You needed a yard to do it in one print, so I had to improvise! That's the fun part of these challenges, making things work with what they've sent, and at a half yard of all 20 prints, and 2 each of the backgrounds, they are so generous. I used nearly all of the black though!

I chose prints for the maple leaves that would contrast with the Mini Springs background. In this strip of floating maples leaves, I stitched in the ditch with navy Aurifil, one through each frame, and then chose different colours to FMQ veins in the leaves.

Here I used gold thread. I alternated between ribbon candy and figure eights in the stems.

I used the gold Aurifil for the meander I did in the block backgrounds.

Bottom three leaves done in navy, green and gold again on the bottom one.

Here's a better look at the definition, post-laundering of a leaf:

That Aurifil just sinks in like teeth into lemon meringue pie!

Yes, the quilt has been laundered and it washed up so soft and snuggly! The Aurifil threads must have been chosen with this (my surprise) fabric in mind. We had to keep it secret until July, as it wasn't available in quilt shops until then.

The black is Exquisite thread, one of the first spools I got of this thread, when I bought the greens for Shift, Callum's quilt. It's a polyester, great thread too.

I had planned to use the navy (Grape Juice!) with which I framed the maple leaves for the binding, but I didn't have enough... There's the challenge aspect again! What about one of the half yards I didn't use in the quilt? Of course! They all coordinate. Ooooh! It's a quintessential binding IMHO, like a stripe, but better!

That binding works perfectly with all the fabrics on the front, with the gold strip on the back, and with the older trees in Fall fabric I also used on the back.

The binding was machine-stitched to the back of the quilt, and then top-stitched on the front using gold Aurifil. I haven't written on the cloth label yet but I will. I am pretty sure this quilt will be for sale in my Etsy shop. And lol, I had to undo some of the binding to insert my mmm! quilts label...sigh.

Here's a shot of the entire back. We normally don't show the back if we haven't used Island Batik but this is a 15-year old hunk from Seattle Bay Fabrics (copyright 2003 on the selvage!) Don't think they're even in business anymore. I've been waiting for the right quilt flimsy for it, and man oh man, it's perfection, don't you think?

Our grass is getting greener since we had some storms that morning! The neighbours must think I'm nuts throwing a quilt on the still-wet grass and taking pictures... Oh well.

Here's another shot of the texture:

And a final one on our bed in the later afternoon sun, post-laundering:

I like to give you photos you want to lick! Well, run your fingers over anyhow, ha!

Quilt Stats SOLD
Pattern: Blaze by Canuck Quilter Designs
Size: 55 X 70"
Fabric: Island Batik
Batting: Hobbs Heirloom 100% Natural Unbleached cotton
Backing: Island Batik and an older Seattle Bay Fabrics
Quilted: on Avril, FMQ and ruler work
Threads:  pieced with 100% cotton Gütermann and Aurifil on my Bernina; quilted with Aurifil 50 wt 100% cotton and Exquisite polyester, Superior The Bottom Line in the bobbin

Thank you for reading all the way to the end! I do hope you'll hop over to Canuck Quilter and check out her patterns (her Eclipse one is stupendous). If you haven't already seen it, the July challenge quilt I made, Beothuk Star, is now a free pattern in my Craftsy shop. (affiliate link: the pattern is free, so I make nothing, but if you happen to purchase some other Craftsy swag, I get a small commission which helps with things like postage for this giveaway!)
Island Batik has a wonderful giveaway going on which you can enter here or on their blog (it's one and the same).


a Rafflecopt
er giveaway

Giveaway Here!

As ambassadors, we are also hosting giveaways on our blogs! Mine is a 2.5" strip of each of the 20 fabrics in the Dear William line. I think. More or less! It is open to everyone. 😁 All you need to do is leave me a comment below telling me your favourite outdoor activity, any season. For a second chance, tell me in a separate comment how you follow me (see sidebar for the ways!) New followers welcome. I will be verifying that you do follow, ahem! If you are a no-reply blogger, please write out your email within your comment box; otherwise I will draw another name. I will draw at the end of the hop, which is Tuesday, September 4. The winner will be emailed and then announced on my blog on September 7.
Please note that I won't be replying to comments due to the volume that arises with giveaways. Best of luck to all!

Linking up
Sew Fresh Quilts
Quilt Fabrication
Confessions of a Fabric Addict
TGIFF at Alycia Quilts
My Quilt Infatuation
Dizzy Quilts for the Q3FAL
Busy Hands Quilts