Modified Log Cabin Quilt Completed!

This was a great moment: The last 8" of border to be quilted. What a feeling :)


I finished the binding in a day-long marathon session, added the label and tried to pick as many loose threads off as I could. They seem to be coming out of nowhere, I swear, I can still find threads on quilts I've already checked over 5 times!

I tried my new quilt-hanging method - but it wasn't big enough as you can see. Oh well, you'll see more of the quilt here than on the previously posted bed-photo anyway :)


The recipient loves it which makes me very very glad ;)

Quilting The Big One

Here it is, the modified log cabin quilt - the biggest quilt I've worked with to date - all spread out over my sewing table.


Here's a close-up of the quilting I'm doing - it'll make the coloured stripes stand out really nicely!


The quilting is going surprisingly fast, I'm nearly done!

The Monster Quilt

The blocks for the modified log cabin quilt are together:


The borders are on:


The backing is complete (and taped to the floor) - made from all the left-over pieces after I finished the quilt top blocks:


And as of Wednesday, the quilt is basted and I get the use of my living room back!


This quilt is big. Too big for my living-room as it turns out. The chairs had to go, the couch had to be moved, I had no room to move once the quilt was on the floor. It measures around 97 x 108" plus all the extra backing/batting attached to it while it's pinned on the floor.

Wow.

I've also run out of pins.

I don't even think this quilt is that much bigger than the bento box wedding quilt (I think that was around 80" x 100"), but holy cow, my memory doesn't seem to last long enough to remember my struggles from May ;)

Now I'm off to quilting it!

Cutting 8 Layers??

For Jennifer's Quilt, I bought extra-width fabric for the borders to avoid piecing. What I hadn't considered was that cutting 120"-long strips of fabric is tricky. I folded, and folded, and folded again. Do the math - that gives 8 layers of fabric. Was my rotary cutter up to it?

Yes, but only barely :) (it has gone through cutting a few quilts already, so is probably not the sharpest anymore).

I took about 3-5 cuts before I was all the way through the layers.
Like I said, they're loooong strips!

Modified Log Cabin Quilt

All the blocks are done, hurray!


The lady whom the quilt is for came by and laid them out the way she wanted the blocks to face. She ended up doing it differently from the original pattern where all blocks faced the same direction and instead had them to pretty randomly left, right, up and down.

Now I'm busily trimming everything down to 12" and then all the blocks will be turned into a queen-size quilt. One more month to go!

We decided on a pieced backing and on stippling with off-white thread in the muslin strips only so that the blue and green strips pop up, similar to my burgundy floating coins quilt (which I keep wanting to call cathedral quilt because of the see-through effect :) but that name is a bit to grave and pompous for a babyquilt, no?)

We had lunch after our layout session and I served pumpkin ravioli. I found the recipe through Zonnah's blog - she kept having it on her weekly meal plan so I thought it must be good to have it 2-3 times a week ;) - it is!
My guest brought dessert in form of these awesome dessert pizzas:


It's a sugar cookie with cream cheese icing and fresh fruit (my first question was: where did you get the fruit this time of year? You'd think I'd be used to the amenities of global transport these days but I still expect to find only cabbage, potatoes and apples this time of year :)

My Retreat Accomplishments

I managed to get quite a few blocks done for another quilt with a deadline. This one needs to be ready before Christmas and I'm on schedule so far. It's a modified log cabin with some theme blocks similar to the idea behind the character quilt (see sidebar).


The recipient picked all the fabrics and we numbered them so that I knew how many blocks she wanted off each print/colour and how she wanted the theme fabrics to be matched with strip colours.


I ran out of muslin at the retreat (I forgot to bring my stock, doh!), so I started as many blocks as I could so I wouldn't have to refer back to my instructions over and over again.
That did save me time when I got back home on Sunday and I now have all but 8 out of 56 blocks finished, hurray!


I also worked just a tiny bit on my apple baby quilt by appliqueing a little leaf to the apple stem. Well, little steps, little steps! I think I hadn't actually shown a proper picture of this quilt before, so here it is, including the applique worm:


Next, something very exciting! I learned how to paper piece (foundation piece) and do curved seams. I agreed to do a second raffle-quilt block,one of the difficult ones. I practiced the foundation piecing with my scraps and then just jumped in. I was so pleased that it worked out!

Here's the practice piece - I was so excited about the actual block I forgot to take a photo. My curves got better on the raffle quilt block, they didn't have the bumps that this practice piece has :)

And lastly, thanks to all the fabric-activities we had, I now have a pile of Christmas fabric where before I had none, and I also won this beautiful batik fat quarter: