The Colors of Fall (or Autumn)

This year, Mother Nature really pulled out all the stops.

 

 Sadly, all will be gone soon ....

Kunterbunt

(translates to 'very colorful')

When I saw this wall hanging in 'Patchwork Spezial 1/2012' my first reaction was "Wannamakewannamakewannamake!!!" ;-)
Well, never it by said that I don't be willing to follow through.

The pattern in the magazine uses 22 different batik fabrics, I used 80 different of whatever I had laying around. There's some batik fabrics, but also quite a few solids. The patchwork part took up most of last weekend, quilting and binding maybe a day more. The only thing I did for the quilting was to carefully follow the edges of all single houses (as defined by having a roof)

I handstitched the label in the back

Now I only have to decide if this is going to hang here at home, or comes with my to Dresden ....

White or Gray

 Last week I bought a Jelly Roll with 31 stripes of fabric (6.5cm wide, 110cm long) in all colors of the rainbow. Since then I've been pondering what to do with this. The most recent design is below. Of course, this is only a sketch, and there will be a few more colors in the end (excel only gave me about 25 colors I could use for this).
 If I did my math right, this will give me a quilt 160 x 180cm. I also calculated how much of the background color I might need.
 Only, I can't quite decide if I should go with a white background like here:

 

Or with a gray background like here:

I'm leaning toward the gray, mostly because I would like to USE the quilt in the end, and I'm afraid with a white background it won't stay so white and crisp for very long.
What do you think: White or Gray?

Sashiko Placeset

About two years ago I discovered the Japanese quilting/stitching technique called Sashiko.
Enthusiastice about something new, I prepared three placesets, but finished only one back then and got halfway through the second.
A few weeks ago I rediscovered those old pieces of fabric with the faded chalk markings and decided to give them another whirl, updating a few things with what I learned the last weeks while quilting.

I have finished two of those, but think I'm going to go back to the one I made originally and redo it.