Rachel's wedding quilt - wonky log cabins

Ok, I finished this one a while ago but I don't know where the time goes, I just haven't gotten around to writing a blog post! slack!!! Sometimes too, I have such limited 'free' time that when I do get some, I hit the sewing machine! I'm hoping one day the blog will write itself....

This quilt was made for my lovely cousin Rachel for her wedding present, I can't claim all the credit, it was a collaboration with my sister (she is my 'sewing guru'), we worked out the design and colour scheme together, raided our fabric collections and split the fabric, and we each made 15 wonky log cabin blocks each. I added the sashing, it's just a plain cotton calico. Each block was 10.5 inches finished, sashing 2 inches wide, and the finished quilt is about 60 inches x 70 inches.

Looks pretty great on our bed! This made me really wish I could keep it....Claudia liked it too.

The back is a plain solid with a strip of leftover scraps.

We had it machine quilted by a pro, it was the first time I've EVER had a quilt quilted by someone else, it was just too big for my machine. I do love the finish, although it does mean the detail of the fabrics don't stand out as much, if you know what I mean. What I also loved about it was not having to baste, hurrah!

I also did a sneaky little embroidery, the date of the wedding (yes, over a month ago!!!):

I hope she and her new husband love it. The thing I absolutely love about quilts is that they are potential heirlooms, if you look after them, they'll last forever. There's a lot of love in this quilt. xx

Pimp my bedroom chair (and a wonky log cabin)

I've never been happy with Claudia's bedroom chair. I bought it from Ikea before she was born, and I admit, it was a really great comfy feeding chair for all those late night feeds. But it never looked that flash. It's the Ektorp from Ikea, looks like this. Boring huh! Mine had a denim fabric cover, not terrible, but not great either.

Luckily I discovered a great website called Knesting, they do fabric covers for common Ikea chairs and sofas in various fabrics, and they have a yellow chevron, my current pattern obsession combined with my current colour obsession - perfect. They're good value and fit like a dream.

I also whipped up a couple of cushions, one I made a while ago using a couple of scrap packs from Umbrella Prints (if you haven't checked out their gorgeous range of hand screen printed fabrics, do yourself a favour, they are beautiful, and made in Adelaide!). The other is an Echino print I've had stashed for a while now. Here's the result:

I wish I'd taken a before photo.

Also made a start on a wedding quilt for my cousin, my sister and I are making it together. We've decided on a wonky log cabin block, we're making 15 blocks each.

9 down, 6 to go....

More log cabin love

I've got a lot of Heather Ross scraps left over from this quilt (which I have actually finished, but yet to photograph), I just love love love this fabric and some of it is so hard to come by. Definitely a scrappy project required, what better than a log cabin Heather Ross doll's quilt?? My favourite fabric combined with one of my favourite blocks.

I just wish I had enough scraps to make a full sized quilt like this. But I've got my eye on Heather Ross' new Far Far Away III collection....could be a future project!

My first log cabin!

I've been contemplating the log cabin block for some time now, admired them from afar but couldn't fathom how to put one together. I even bought an entire book on the subject (see last post).

Well I finally did it. With a bit of encouragement from my friend Caity over at Thomhaus (who stayed with us over Easter and whipped up a few awesome log cabins of her own) I finally tackled it. It was SO easy!! and I'm hooked. Such a great way of using up scraps, I did it 'freestyle', no measuring which was liberating, usually I'm a stickler for symmetry. Here's the result, a dolls quilt for Claudia:

The centre is a duck from the Lizzy House Red Letter Day line. I hand quilted following the squares. Backed with a pink spotty flannel:

And here it is in action! The dollies look pretty happy with it.

Cute huh. Definitely more where that came from, now I want to make an entire scrappy log cabin quilt! Just add that to the list....