My husband works at a bookstore, and gets a pretty good employee discount. Recently he bought me a book called Modern Log Cabin Quilting. I had kind of a soft spot for log cabin quilts because when I worked at a living history museum in college we were working on making a reproduction of a log cabin quilt from the 1800s. At the time I hated the slow process of piecing each block by hand, but even then I thought the quilt was beautiful. Now that I'm no longer afraid of my sewing machine and I've discovered how much fun machine quilting can be, I was eager to read about modern log cabin quilts.
After reading this book, I have to say, my love of log cabin has intensified. There are so many beautiful variations and the blocks seem so versatile. So in a couple weeks I'll start work on a pattern called a housetop quilt, which is just a big, simplified log cabin square. I wanted to make a quilt for my kids to snuggle under in the living room while they read or watch TV. However, they both seem to love the quilt on my bed and my son has repeatedly requested "a quilt of my very own," so I may wind up making one for each of them. My son will pick out all the materials since it'll be his. In the meantime I'm going to practice piecing traditional log cabin squares with my scrap fabric, and once I'm comfortable I'm going to start making a quilt in a barn raising arrangement. I want to make it brown and green, and I figured I'd just use my own scraps and then pick up fat quarters of different brown and green fabrics that I like. I think it'll look okay with different fabric patterns as long as I stick with just a few colors.
I'm excited, but slightly nervous. When I made my first quilt I was winging it the entire time. Now that I've read and learned more I feel like there's a "right way" and a "wrong way," and I don't want to screw up. I'm not going to worry about it too much though...that'll suck the fun out of it. And what's the point of pursuing this hobby if it's not fun?
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