Log Cabin Medallion Quilt Finished

Its been ages since I last posted: I've been totally obsessed with machine quilting this log cabin quilt!

I've mentioned before how this quilt was pieced years ago and then sat in the closet: now I know why-I think I just couldn't figure out how best to quilt it. I finally decided to quilt the log cabin medallion simply in the ditch using free motion...I'm happy with the result! I usually don't use alot of quilt- in- the- ditch in my quilts, certainly not as the "default" pattern but it really worked well on this quilt.

After I got the log cabin done, which took much longer than I thought it would! (the quilt is 80" x 96" so all the quilting took longer than I thought it would!), I couldn't decide how to quilt the pieced border-I'd always thought that I would quilt diagonal lines following the squares and in the end that is what I did with some extra diagonals added and a little quilt in the ditch again.

The pieced border is made up of two blocks-a double 9-patch and a Jacob's Ladder. (On the left is the double 9-patch which is a little hard to see because the blues have blended a bit in the pix) I got the idea from a quilt in Nifty Ninepatches by Carolann Palmer (its from the early'90s). When I started this quilt, it was going to be simply a Chimney and Cornerstone Log Cabin but when I tried different fabrics for the border I just didn't like anything. Then I thought of trying the double 9-patch/Jacob's Ladder in the border and I loved it! I love how the Log Cabin just seems to float on the border.

I also really like all the diagonal squares across the border picking up on the squares in Chimneys and Cornerstones. I always like to see what happens when I put two different blocks together-usually something interesting shows up.

All of the fabrics in the log cabin have been repeated somewhere in the border, two blue fabrics have been added as the "background" fabrics of the border squares and the red was added to give a little zing.
Its turned out that I finished this just at the right time. Yesterday my friend Maureen of the O'sheehan Quilt Gallery called and asked if I had a quilt for the new exhibit she's having at the Gallery! I think this quilt will fit in with the theme-an overview of the different possibilities with quilts-from traditional to contemporary.

If you're a member of the AQS, you may remember reading about Maureen's gallery and B&B and the quilt shop, the Quilt Center in the Fall 2007 issue of the AQS magazine. It was a great article with pictures of the gallery and quilt shop (and even a picture of me teaching a Baltimore Album class :)