Fall Tablecloth/Wallhanging in Progress

Hi.  I’ve been working off and on to do a Fall tablecloth.  I’ve just about finished it.  It’s finished size should be about 26×36.  Here’s a look:

This is one leaf square.  The colored pieces are made from templates traced onto the various colored fabrics.  In trying to get a Fall leaf color, one has only to think about the fact that a fall leaf can have so many colors in it.   This tablecloth will have six leaves, each a bit different.  I’m even including a mostly green leaf as there’s always a few of them around.

We’ve had so much rain this month that I don’t know if we will get any beautifully colored leaves this Fall.  My tablecloth might be the only ones I see!    These pieces are just laying there, nothing sewn except the stem which is hand-appliqued.

So now I just have to stitch each template piece together as shown here.

Sorry, a bit blurry!   Then I sewed the sections together in thirds, or columns.

So it’s all pieced together…..and I realized I’ve placed them wrong.  Can you see what’s wrong?   It could probably stay this way, but I know it’s wrong so it won’t stay that way.

So, right there where I’ve taken out the stitching is the error.   The two mostly orange pieces should not be so close together.   No problem; rip it out (otherwise known as “frogging”-ribbet) takes a little time but it can still be fixed at this point.

I managed to get through all six leaves and with an extra day to work on it (I was given the day off since it was raining and there’s not much that could be done today in the rain), I’ll have it ready to reveal tomorrow on Sept. 23rd, the Autumnal Equinox.

By the way, this pattern was in a Quiltmaker magazine back in the early 90’s.   I made a wallhanging with just four leaves in “way back then” and kept the remaining fabrics in case I wanted to do another one for someone.   When I came across the project bag with the magazine still in it, there was a photo of a table runner cut from a different magazine (Keepsake catalog, same era) and I decided to make a tablecloth, rather than the runner.   Our table is quite small and a table runner looks nice, but it is hard to balance plates of food when the plate sits partially on the runner and partially on the table.  It makes my DH crazy, so I’ve been turning table runner patterns into tablecloth patterns by adding extra borders or additional blocks.  This one has six different colored leaves.  I better get sewing if I’m going to finish it up for tomorrow.  I put the blocks together (and forgot to take photos), and then added two borders today.

Off to finish the tablecloth so I can show it to you tomorrow and place it on our table for the first day of Fall.