You’ll have seen that I plan to complete Sherri’s mystery block a month quilt and yesterday I shared the test blocks which I made into my third Project Linus quilt, well today I’m sharing the log cabin block I made for my own quilt.
So while I knew that I’d use the Lewis and Irene fabric bundle which I picked up at the Newark Quilt Show in January for the block’s centres, I didn’t know what to use for the borders. I wanted something quite bold for one of the colour ways, as our house is predominantly white, and although I like that I’m also keen to add colour through accessories and furnishings.
But it was the borders that made me think twice, and more than twice really. I ummed and ahhed about whether I should add them as I go along, or wait until the final block is completed later in the year. The pluses for delaying meant it would give me longer to decide which fabric to use and I could be sure I had enough of that; but the downsides were that there would be a lot of quilt still to complete at the end of the year, and the chances of that happening could be low. But I might not have enough material to use the same on the borders throughout, though I remembered that it really didn’t matter so much on the quilt I’d just completed - but you see my dilemma.
In the end I just got sewing, and hoped I’d work it out along the way!
Sewing the central block
Having completed the test blocks I felt pretty confident to try the block for my own quilt; as well as learning how not to cut off the point of the roof, I also learnt that I preferred the darker border colours on the bottom half of the block, and the lighter ones on the top. Perhaps for this block because they were representative of the ground and the sky respectively - who knows.
I’ve also worked out recently that pulling the fabrics together for a quilt is one of the most enjoyable aspects for me, but while I thought these were busy, I thought they would probably work.
But with the block sewn, I was less sure. The more I looked at it the more I was less sure - and nor did that help my borders dilemma. When looking at it again with fresh eyes, and realising the thing that pleased me most about the sewn block (on the left in the picture below) was the placement of the door handle, I realised it was time to try again.
However perfect and completely unintentional the door handle placement was!
And so I tried a second combination of fabrics - one that’s much less busy, and introduces a plainer element for the sky. This worked so much better, even though this time the door has no handle.
Happier with my block it was time to deal with the dilemma.
Adding borders, or not?
I tried many combinations before I made my decision, but as you can see I’ve added borders.
My main concern was not having enough fabric and ending up with a quilt that looks as if it was of two halves. But in the end I’ve made peace with myself and have mitigated this as far as I can. I’ve bought an extra metre of both of the outer light borders, ideally I’d have bought a metre of the pale background star border too, but I was only able to get half a metre of that. So the lights will be my constant, or that’s the plan anyway.
For the darks - or the bold jade green borders, the material is much older and hunting down similar quantities wasn’t going to happen, but I do have other toning fabrics which were all part of the same set. I think they came from either a magazine subscription or a competition win, but I have ten or so of similarly coloured AGF fabrics which I’ll use interchangeably. The colour will be the constant rather than the pattern for this border, and I’m pretty sure it will work.
And so, on went the borders.
I’m really pleased with how it turned out, and I know it’s bold - but that’s also by design as my working theory is that this will be a quilt for our spare bedroom which will have a rather ornate headboard (well it will once I’ve recovered it!).
So it needed to be bold to get the attention I’m sure it will warrant once its complete.
Join me next month to see how I get on with the next mystery block, and check out my posts which contain charity quilts made from the test blocks.