This was the first quilt I made for Bill and me. There was a sample up at Intown Quilters in very similar fabrics. All the purples and the limey greens are favorites of mine. This design, by Liza Prior Lucy, in Kaffe Fassett’s Quilt Romance (Rowan yarns, 2009), was also my first major Kaffe quilt. Just between us, following the charts to pick out the fabric made me crazy! I ended up looking at the picture and buying extra of everything! I’m so glad I did! I’m still using those fabrics and they’re still among my very favorites!
I love the history of log cabin blocks. The tradition, as I learned it, says that each block represents home and they often have red or yellow central pieces. The red represents the love at the center of the home and the yellow recalls the light that beckons wanderers home.
These are very precise log cabin blocks. Centers all fussy cut from the same fabric. Everything straight and even. In the beginning, it was a bit of a challenge, but I got the hang of it and really enjoyed the process. First, I cut seemingly millions of strips and sorted them simply into two boxes—one for greens and one for everything else. It’s random-esqe, as true random piecing creates design problems I can’t cope with! I couldn’t figure out how to make the chain piecing, assembly line style of construction work for this so I did one block at a time with an iron close by so I could press every strip as I went. It took a while but the colors and patterns seemed to keep me in some happy brain space and I loved doing it!
I needed a quilt larger than the 96”x96” this was designed for so I added a black and white microdot inner border and a very scrappy, striped outer border. The backing is a tropical batik with black background and lots of jewel tone colors. I repeated the black and white microdots for the binding. My finished quilt is probably about 104”x104”.
I followed my usual habit of not prewashing the fabric. I chose organic cotton batting in the thinnest weight and Regina Carter did the fabulous long arm quilting. It adds so much to the design! The finished quilt was washed in cold water and Seventh Generation liquid laundry detergent with several sheets of Shout Color Catchers. I use the dryer to damp dry—I want wrinkles!—and then hang to finish drying outside. My quilts look like photos from Kaffe’s books when they’re hanging from the front of the house!
This happy quilt lives on our bed. Somehow, it reminds me of Easter! It’s also very good Feng shui colors for that room and just shines among grey walls and bright golden toile drapes. I think this project was the one that convinced me that I am an artist!