The Sewing Dilettante

Last Wednesday was the last sewing night for the summer, so I worked at a furious rate to get as much done as I possibly could. Having spent the last couple of Wednesday nights sorting, ironing, and cutting my scraps, I finally put a few log cabin blocks together. These are intended for a fun, little, gender-neutral baby quilt. The centre blocks are 2.5 inches square, and the strips are 2 inches wide. I'm loosely following this tutorial , and, as you can see, am pretty much randomly choosing strips in the hope that it'll all come together in the end! The one organisational concession I made with these three blocks was to ensure that each strip matched the next in at least one colour. So, in the block above, the first strip (on top of the centre square) brings out the red flowers in the centre square; the next strip picks up on that same bright red, but adds in a couple of different shades of green; the following strip is mainly lime green with thin red stripes; and t...

I've been really enjoying making log cabin blocks recently. So simple, so satisfying to make, and so appealing in their history! Traditionally, log cabin blocks were assembled with a red fabric centre, symbolizing a blazing hearth at the centre of the home. I just love the thought of quilters years ago stitching blessings, prayers, and hopes for a happy home into their log cabin quilts, and I love the thought of carrying on that tradition today! Plus, you can have great fun with creating different patterns in your quilt, depending on how you organize your strips of fabric for the outer 'log' pieces. And, each little block is a great scrap buster to boot! I had my first introduction to the humble log cabin block at Bee Blessed , a charity quilting bee in which I'm involved.  (There's a great picture of the fruit of our log cabin labours if you scroll down a little bit!) I had such fun putting these blocks together, that I decided I'd make a log cabin quilt of ...