Low Volume Log Cabin Progress

Remember I told you that I started a new quilt?  Well, I’ve been working hard on it and I’m all ready to baste it (I keep getting distracted from that, but that’s my next step).

I kept at it and made 25 blocks in the end of entirely 2.5″ wide cut strips (so this is what a jelly roll would produce in theory…you might need a couple of them for this size quilt).  The blocks finished at 18″ square.  So doing the math on that gives you very healthy 85″ x 85″ quilt.

I started with 24 blocks and had laid the quilt out in this pattern, a fairly typical log cabin arrangement for these two tone blocks.  And I loved it, but….

That layout gave me a quilt of 70″ x 105″ I think…which just isn’t a very practical size.  I debated making 6 more blocks to bump it up to king size.  But I don’t need a king size quilt of this pattern and I wouldn’t get a full repeat of the design, only half of it.  Also, I really love this layout for blocks that are slightly smaller so that you get more of the “bursts” in the quilt. So I took them off the design wall and played a bit more.

And came up with this!

Log cabins are so fun because of all the arrangements you can do with them.  I really loved this layout for these particular fabrics because it nicely balances the low volume sections with the colored sections.  This isn’t a layout that I personally see used too often, so it was fun to experiment and end up with this.  I did need one more block for this over the first design, so a last minute addition was added.

I kept the tones and feeling of the quilt front when I chose my backing fabrics.  I ended up really loving it.  It makes me so happy when the right fabrics end up just where they are supposed to be.  These fabrics were languishing in my stash (so many of the fabrics in this quilt actually!) and just didn’t play well with other quilts I’ve worked on.  But here they are perfect together and really just the right fit for a backing.

And I even have my binding fabric picked out! This pretty blue by DS available from Joanns will be the perfect compliment to this modern, yet oh so traditional quilt.  I’ll talk more about the fabrics and colors and such when I have it all quilted and bound.  But I thought you would enjoy seeing a bit of the progress on this quilt and my thought process.  It’s been a fun, freeing project for me to experiment with.