Oriental Quilt (Wonky Log Cabin Panels) Part 1

This quilt began with a fabric sale. I couldn't say no to 3$/m, so I bought 0.5 to 1m of these fabrics:


I then started to turn them into a wonky log cabin inspired by the County Fair quilt from MelanieMade (she has an awesome quilt blog, by the way!). So I happily sewed away, adding strips of all sizes, and trying to get some lopsided blocks, which I really like.

In the end, I had these 30 blocks (that's when I got really tired of log cabins), and they didn't turn out at all as I had envisioned - the fabrics were much too busy to put the blocks next to each other. It just didn't pop.

So I tried a few different fabrics as sashing, and eventually settled on simple black (on for 3.33$/m, would you say that's luck, or what?). I also tried to decide whether to put fence post corners in or not; took some photos to help me decide:


One of my teachers had suggested the corner squares when I asked her about cutting the material lengthwise, i.e. parallel to the selvedge, is that with the bias or against? I can never keep this apart...

As you can see, I decided against the fence post corners, cut lengthwise and it worked beautifully.


I put a broader black border around it, and now doesn't it pop?


I was inspired by CrazyMom to add a little detail on the back to tie the two sides together. She does this on every quilt as far as I can see, at least I don't remember seeing a single solid, one-fabric backing on her (also awesome) blog. (the weird spots on the first picture are dust on the lens or in the air, because the fabric looks just black to the eye, no spots)


Here's the binding fabric, I cut it diagonally, which was a pain and a lot of joining, but I still got enough out of 0.5m and it's redy to go whenever I have the energy to pin the quilt - a task I despise.

I started working on this quilt in January, and I think it took me about 2 weeks to get to this stage. It's definitely been a feel-good process so far!