Thimble Pleasures ~ A full-service quilt shop

Remember the Blog entry about Scrap Therapy? Well, one Sunday afternoon, I wanted to “free-style” a quilt block – you know, make up the pattern….. I pulled out my Scrap Therapy box and looked at what 2 1/2 inch strips I had. Lots of lights, bright greens, and hot pinks. I grouped them from lightest to darkest in each color group and I started to make a log cabin block. Turns out I used 6 different strips of each color grouping and produced a 16 ½ inch square block, using only the lights and the pinks. (I wanted a large light area in the block, so I could create open space for quilting to show prominantly.) 

I made four big blocks and put them up on my design wall. Lights in the center or pinks in the center? Pinks. What next? Needs more color and design punch….. Answer: pink and green Kaffee Fasset inner border to introduce more green. ( love my scrap box! It never let’s me down) What next? I had just purchased Sharyn Craig’s “Half Log Cabin” book, so I selected a block from it to make my border. NOTE: I actually picked the half log cabin block before I completed the inner border, so I could calculate what size the inner border needed to be to accommodate the half log cabin block, these are called “coping strips” (see example below). The half logs were lights and greens with hints of pinks. Since the quilt was square, I calculated 6 half logs to fit on each side. 

This is where I got lazy, the corner blocks needed to be filled in. I auditioned the half log blocks in the corners and they didn’t add much interest…..but, I really liked them in the border. So I made up a “block within a block” pattern using pinks and lights again to echo the quilt center and to keep the eye moving out from the center of the quilt. Voila! My Logs, logs, and More Logs quilt. I had “free-styled” my own quilt deisgn. Margaret Reiswig did the quilting and I LOVE her detail in the light areas! 

I sensed some confusion about calculating the size of the inner border to fit the half logs block strips…..this is called using “coping strips” – where the added border or strip allows you to build up the quilt center to fit the size of the next row of blocks. Let’s walk through that……

•  Each large log cabins measured 16 ½ X16 ½ inches, sewn together with ¼ inch seams in the center, to create a square that was 32 ½ X 32 ½ inches ( ¼ seam allowance remained on the end).
• The half log cabin blocks were 6 ½ inches square, unfinished. A row of six half log blocks sewn into a strip with ¼ inch seams, would measure 36 1/2 inches long (a ¼ seam allowance remained at each end of the strop). Eventually, this half log strip would be 36 inches finished.
• To fit this half log strip onto the quilt center, I needed to add 4 inches to the quilt center using an inner border. Its important to remember that, you will add the border to each side of the quilt center! So, to add 4 inches finished to the quilt center, I needed 2 inches finished on each side of the quilt center. Allowing for seam allowances (¼ inc on each side) , I used a 2 1/2 inch inner border.
• The hardest part of this process is to remember to add the ¼ inch seam allowance. I ALWAYS draw this out on paper and using the cut sizes and shading the seam allowance to be sure the measurements work out. The more you do this, the easier it becomes. 

Try it. Use scraps, it will open up your ability to design your own quilts. Work with round measurements – I don’t use 3/8 or 5/8 inch measurements this way, the math is too complicated!!

Barbara

This entry was posted on Friday, January 29th, 2010 at 5:40 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.