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Linen Closet-Autumn Quilt


For this quilt I went with an autumnal theme. It was pieced back in 2000, when we were still on the east coast, and it was finished on the west coast in 2009... so, it's a bi-coastal creation. (Pardon the awkward picture: it's king size and very heavy, which makes it difficult to display for photography.)  

I don't remember where the pattern came from. My guess is I saw the pattern at some point and decided to recreate it using a stash of fall foliage fabrics to pay homage to the colorful season of autumn.


Take a good look at this detail, and try to figure out what the basic block was. There are actually a couple of ways to construct this look...  

The first unit was the square made of 4 triangles, set on their point as diamonds. Then came the four smaller squares, on a pale beige leaf background, for the basic block. 

The sashing between the blocks is made up of squares, rather than a single stripe of color. From a distance, the sashing can look like a grid that separates the original block units. But the small squares can also appear to combine with the sashing, creating a larger square at the intersection of the horizontal and vertical grid lines. Viewed that way, the diamonds look like they are radiating out from that center square and you can see an "x" pattern emerge. The leaf colors and fabric patterns stand out or recede as they blend together, so, in some areas, you might even see a pale beige octagon emerge because the background color is consistent throughout. 

I love quilt patterns that are organic in this way; when different designs can be discerned, depending on how the eye breaks up the overall pattern and what the quilter has chosen to emphasize through color and fabric choices.

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