Black and White Log Cabin Quilt Finished

It's done! I finished my black and white log cabin quilt!I really enjoyed quilting this quilt...I found several interesting patterns as I loopty-looped my way across the quilt.

I especially like this pattern that I did in this black area-it reminds me of the 19th century embroidery pattern I used in a corner of my Crazy Quilt.

This quilt was started last year for the Black and White Challenge. You can click on the button on my side bar to go to the B & W Challenge blog and see all the wonderful quilts, bags and more made for this challenge. (I even made an apron.)

I'm linking today to Finished for Friday at Lit and Laundry and Sew and Tell at Amylouwho.

Quilting log cabin and I think I've solved a problem

I started quilting on my black, white and red log cabin. I'm again doing a loopdy loop pattern-I liked doing it on my string quilt-but I'm trying to get rounder circles this time. Its gotten hot here and the air conditionering just doesn't cool my sewing room very well so I'm going to try to get some quilting in early in the morning before it gets too hot. It will be slow going-I quilted in the white on two squares and then ran out of room!Here's the back...its a Nancy Crow fabric that I've had for years-again waiting for just the right quilt. Isn't it perfect?!

Every summer I start to think about hand sewing projects-this project has been bugging me for quite a while but I think I have a solution. The stars are machine pieced and the rosettes are hand applique. After I put the rosettes on I had this brilliant idea-add leaves in a criss-cross pattern. I love how it looked basted...but if you look at the top row-you'll see the problem. It looks awful-UGH- when appliqued. I know the problem is that I should have thought of the leaves earlier! but what to do now. I tried larger leaves, different shape leaves...all to no avail.But I think I've got it solved now. Forget the leaves-what I like is the trail between the rosettes.
I'm thinking silk ribbon! I'm going to add to this feather vine-padded silk ribbon flowers. I think I thought of this because I showed my crazy quilt for the Spring Quilt Festival-I'm going to do something similar to the vines on the fan. Hope this works because this poor top has been sitting around for years! Seriously, I just couldn't think of anything and I just wouldn't give up!

Black and White Challenge: Log Cabin quilt top finished

Yahoo! I've finished! I was really starting to think that this quilt was jinxed: besides the misstep with the sashing, I blew out two irons! (I don't even know how...ok, well I dropped one but the other?!)
I am happy with the result though...I got the heavy patterning broken up by the sashing but still very evident...just the look I was going after...very graphic and just a little bit 3-D.
Here you can see all the different fabrics I used: lots of black and white prints and just a few red and black on white prints to mix up the whites.

I think the second from the last black/white is my favorite fabric...so Art Deco looking!

This black and white is a fabric I thought I'd never use...its actually a skeleton print! but doesn't it look great here...the white on the black is really bold compared to the other black/white prints.

It's a rainy, cloudy day and I think the color of the photos has suffered :(

Crazy week and Log Cabin Quilts

This has been a crazy week. It started with a trip to Tel Aviv with some friends to see a quilt exhibit celebrating the 100 year anniversary of the founding of Tel Aviv and then attending a lecture by the Australian quilter Pam Holland. The lecture was very interesting, I think Pam is probably best known for her portraits but what I found most interesting was her use of fabric pens. Now I've inked on quilts and I've even stencil painted a bit on quilts but what Pam does is really drawing and filling in and the fabric stays soft and lovely! I have to get some of those pens!


Monday, I went to the supermarked-why does it become a day long project...shopping and then putting away. I complained to my husband that night that I'd done nothing all day! His answer: if you haven't sewn, you think you've done nothing! Too true! I usually go the supermarket once a month-is that making it better or worse?

Tuesday, I finally got back to the black and white log cabin quilt-cut the sashing and sewed the horizontal sashing to the blocks, pressed and laid the rows out of the bed in the guest room. Something didn't look right! I'd had 1 1/2" in my head as the cutting width and somehow that became the finished size and I'd cut the sashing 2" wide. That's what comes of not writing things down!

I've pinned the bottom sash so you can see what I intended and above you can see what I got! First, I thought "I'll pick", then procrastination set in and I thought "Maybe its not so bad..."
I finally decided yesterday-I picked and trimmed the sashes and now I'm back where I was on Tuesday!
This is the colorwash log cabin quilt that you can see peeking out from under the black and white blocks. It was the first of several colorwash log cabin quilts I did and the darkest-I started doing them with mediums as the darkest value and I really liked the look even more . (I'll have to look for a picture.)

While indecision reigned about the black and white quilt, I at least decided to machine quilt one of the big bed quilts in the closet. Whenever I have a large quilt to pin-baste, I put it in the frame if its empty. (I usually just crawl around on the floor for lap size quilts. )

This quilt is also a log cabin, its a medallion log cabin with this big wide pieced border. I had to pick out on this quilt too-its been in the closet so long that I realized I had no fabric left for the binding. The quilt top used to have a narrow outer border in the red fabric-so I took that off and I've put it away for the binding. I think I'll get a new free audio book from Librivox to listen to while I pin baste.

Ah books-I found a fun book challenge at Fractured Toys while visiting around seeing everyone's VTT goodies. Its the 2009 Support your Local Library Challenge and the idea is that you read 12, 25 or 50 books this year that you've borrowed from the library and you write and share a short book review on the challenge's blog.

Even though I live overseas, luckily and happily for me, our local library has a large collection of English books (as well as French and Russian collections besides the main Hebrew collection). I've decided to join-I'm choosing the 12 book option because any more and I'll never sew! This will be fun, though I'm a bit nervous about writing the reviews-its been years and years (okay decades really!) since I wrote a book report :)
The Local Library Challenge is being hosted by J. Kaye's Book Blog and she has several challenges going on-really one to suit just about every reader!

Happy Valentine's Day Everyone!

B & W Log Cabin quilt and embroideries

I've finished sewing all the blocks for the log cabin quilt...now its time to think about the setting. I've had an idea in my head from the beginning to use sashing (like I did with the vintage log cabin quilt blocks). I like this-its bright, I can see a pattern formed by the log cabin blocks and yet each block stands out a little separately too.

Here are the same blocks without the sashing...just a bit duller and ...more ordinary, I think.

Here are two of the embroidery blocks from my embroidered summer spread which ended up being a duvet cover. These are from my vintage Aunt Martha's -I used the Pharaoh's daughter's maid and not the whole block. I love her "look". This is one of the first blocks I embroidered-at first I was going to use just one color floss but by the time I got to the grass on this block I changed my mind-so its blue with green and blue grass!

I've been thinking about it-I think she's a Pixie!

B & W Challenge quilt: log cabin

Being away at New Year's meant I didn't plan my quilting goals for this year and now its already February! So here's the plan...not too much-plenty of room for quilting serendipity.



First off, the Black and White Challenge. For my first quilt, I chose red as the extra color and log cabin as the pattern-but a log cabin with a difference. I'm still into exploring what happens when I play with color/value placement using a familiar and straightforward block-much like what I did in the Plaid quilt (9/9/08 post).

First off, all of the blocks have red used as the center and on the light side. Then I played with adding a little light to the dark side internally...

then internally and externally...to make a "mini" block in the middle...

and then the dark coming over to the light side.

This is the basic block without any shenanigans. I also varied the widths of the logs (as you may have noticed!) getting that bold black to really stand out.

I actually have 3 quilts in mind for the B&W challenge-this and one more are patterns I've wanted to play with for a while and the other is fabric based: I bought this wonderful fabric in 1992 or thereabouts and its been in the closet ever since...I will solve how best to use it this year!

I also want to continue with the idea of quilting up alot of the tops in the closet-I don't know if a quilt a month will be practicable-several large bed quilts are in there. I also want to quilt tops that I finish this year and not just add them to the pile...lets see if I have luck with that :)

I'll also have to find more storage space: quilts take up lots more room than tops!