Scrappy Liberty Log Cabin

I started making log cabins using my long Liberty Lawn scraps.  

I made no attempt to separate dark and light, and most of the blocks were totally random in terms of colour.  All I did in terms of planning was to avoid repeating any design within the block.

This one looked nicely yellow after the first round, so I stuck with it.  In the image above, its the one block that stands out.  In a good way or a bad way? I left it in anyway.

I ended up with 42 6 inch blocks which I put together 7 x 6 and its big enough for a cot / crib quilt.

It'm thinking about the best way to quilt it - it's so crazy and busy I don't want to add too much.

Linking up at She Can Quilt for Scraptastic Tuesday

Green Giant Log Cabin

Now that it's finished I like this quilt again.  It was hard to do it justice in these photos taken on a dull day - the shot cottons, particularly the Oakshott Sargasso, look twice as good in real life.

I think I like the back almost as much as the front:

I prefer not to think how much these fabrics cost. I've had the liberty in stock for two or three years, so that does not count, does it?   But I know that if I wanted to sell this quilt it would be hard even to get the cost of the fabrics for it.

Stats

Finished size: 52 inches by 52 inches

Fabrics:

Liberty Lawns  Sydenham Palace, Manning, Forty, Caesar and Growing Fonder  as well as various shot cottons (both Oakshott and Kaffe Fassett).  The binding is Sydenham Palace.

Quilt Top: 3 inch strips in court house steps pattern

Quilt back: Remnants from the front.

Quilting:  Random wavy line in a green variegated sulky.

As it's a Friday Finish. I'm linking up with Crazy Mom.

WIP Wednesday

These shot cottons have less weight than the fabric usually sold for quilting.  The seams are puckering.   It does not seem to want to lie flat.  At the moment I don't like my giant log cabin block very much.

It also looks dingy (rather than subtle, which is what I going for), but I'm blaming the weather for that.

It needs to get bigger.  Perhaps I will like it again later on. Determined to finish this before starting something else.

Shot Cotton and Liberty

Look at these.  I've been adding and subtracting fabrics for a while.

As usual I can't decide.

Which fabrics? Which design?

  

Maybe a huge log cabin block? 

Yes, maybe.

Still thinking.

I do know one thing though - must get a decent camera.

Krumply Kona and Liberty Log Cabin

These cushion covers are proper Kona - yet I find myself plumping them up every 5 minutes.  When I see lovely cushions on people's blogs they never look like this - OK they may have been freshly plumped for the photo, but I wonder if they always look smooth and neat.  

Perhaps the secret is in the density of quilting and/or the type of wadding (batting) used - I used some leftover polyester.  The one on the left is not quilted at all, and that seems to get the worst of the crumples.

Oh, and an update on last week's tiny skinny log cabin - I made a second one and sandwiched the two together to make a key fob for our old shed.  

The two liberty prints used here are Mitsi in pink and Jugendstil in grey.  I think these folded log cabin blocks look best if you only use two fabrics.  This is a great way to use up tiny liberty scraps.

Thanks to everyone who passed by last week and those who commented on my first ever blog post.  Thanks also to Crazy Mom Quilts whose brilliant blog and weekly link-up helped me to get started with this blogging lark.

Skinny Log Cabin

Log cabin blocks have always been my favourite.  They are easy, use up small scraps, and have many variations.  In August there are a lot of birthdays in my family  - two of them will be getting log cabin quilted makeup bags. I hope they will appreciate the depredation on my hoard of Liberty Lawn.

This blue and yellow bag has logs 3/4 inch wide.

For the blue one I went down to half an inch wide.

I started to wonder how small I could go with these log cabin blocks.  Valerie Campbell-Harding's book Strip Patchwork is the best book I know on working with strips.  Although it was published a hundred years ago in 1983 you can still find it on Amazon.  She suggests using a piece of calico as a foundation fabric for folded strips.     Using this method I was able to get down to 1/8 inch strips although by first attempt is not very square.  Here is is in the machine:

It really is very tiny.  I am not yet sure what it is for (people have learned to stop asking me what things are for- do they have to be for anything in particular?) but I expect and idea will come to me.

This is my first blog post.  I am not expecting loads of visitors, but if by some accident you find yourself here, you are welcome to leave a comment.  If I can work out how to do it, I will link up with Crazy Mom Quilts for finish it up Friday.