This is a quilt with something of a long story behind it, or at least a long history in its making. Way back in 2017 I wrote the directions for making this quilt. I figured out the fabric requirements, decided on how I wanted the blocks to go together, drafted color diagrams, and got them all typed up. And then it just sat there for a couple of years. Life happens, etc. etc. but I had the directions written down, so all was well and I could come back to it whenever I got ready.
In August of 2019 I decided that I was ready to make this quilt. I needed olive green, yellow, orange, red-orange, deep red, light brown, dark brown, off-white, and a fall leaf print fabric. I went to the quilt shop and agonized over the fabric choices, like I almost always do. After about 2 hours of agonizing, I bought the fabric just like I had figured up and written down. I brought it home, and it sat in the bag - for a whole year. Again, oh well, it's there when I get ready to actually sew.
Once the pandemic started in early 2020 I decided to focus on sewing project that I already had all the materials for. That way I could still sew, but wouldn't have to get out of the house. When August rolled around again (obviously August makes me really ready for fall to begin) I decided to work on this quilt. I got out the fabric and I my already typed-up, detailed pattern and got to work. I made the first leaf block and I hated it. I thought that the color placement looked good in the drawing, but I really didn't like how it looked in the fabric. The original color placement looked like this:
In the fabric, the value placements seemed all wrong. The brown near the stem and the red at the point were dark, but the orange and red-orange in the middle were lighter in the actual fabric than in the drawing, so the balance seemed wrong. Plus, in the original plan, all the leaf blocks were going to be the same, so I just couldn't bring myself to go ahead with it using those fabrics. I decided that I wanted a little variety in the leaf blocks and came up with two different colorways for them. I had to go in search of more fabric. Again, after much deliberation, I decided on new fabric, but kept the old, too. I added another orange and another brown. I rearranged the fabric placement and came up with two blocks that I really liked.
But again, life happens, and the quilt had to be put on hold. My mother-in-law, who lived 1000 miles away, had a fall, then got sick and finally passed away in January of 2021. So it wasn't until February of 2021 that I finally got the quilt top finished. I took it to the quilt shop to be quilted and in my haste to get it there I forgot to take a picture of the completed quilt top, like I usually do.
I got it back quilted in late June 2021. I attached the binding strips and started hand-turning the binding, like I almost always do. Even though I usually do hand work in the car while we are traveling, and we were making multiple trips to work on clearing out my mother-in-law's house and settling her estate, I just wasn't doing much work on binding the quilt. But finally, on our last trip to Tuscaloosa for our grandson's birthday party, I finished the binding. This was actually a month ago (August 6), but I'm just getting around to posting it.
In fact, the quilt still needs a label, which I haven't made yet. But at least I already have a name for it. I decided to call it Clearly Canadian, because with maple leaves and flying geese it was indeed clearly Canadian.
When I initially wrote the pattern up I was planning to offer it for sale in my Etsy store. But now, since it has gone through so many changes in the process of actually making the quilt, many things will need to be changed in the fabric requirements and directions before I could offer it for sale. Maybe someday I will get around to that. It seems to be a quilt that inhabits the Augusts of my life, so maybe next August, or the next. Who knows?
