fall log cabin, a finish

 

closing out the year with a finish from earlier this month i just realized i never posted about. i completed the handquilting on fall log cabin just as fall was about to become winter. december is christmas season, but winter doesn't technically begin until december 21st, the winter solstice and d1's birthday. so while everyone else on the quilty internet was posting about their christmas makes, i was still in autumn, and it's where i'm ending the quilting year.

i really enjoyed the handquilting on these log cabin blocks, even though i managed to bungle nearly half of the blocks when making them, which made it harder to handquilt since they didn't all follow the pattern the way they should. 

usually with a log cabin block you start at the center "hearth" square and add pieces by rotating a quarter turn each time. it's simple enough, but i turned my blocks the wrong way more than once. from a distance, they all look just fine. it's only when you study them up close that you notice something is occasionally off. take the bottom right square in the above photo - you can see the hearth is not centered because i put the very last strip on the opposite side of where it should have been. but it's still my favorite block of the whole quilt because of the fabric pairings in it. maybe someone will get a laugh out of it someday if they notice what i did.

fortunately, i seem to have got the hang of making the block correctly as i'm currently working on a christmas liberty + crossweave log cabin quilt. fingers crossed i continue to get it right from here on out!

i really love this cozy, traditional quilt made in modern prints and fall colors. there are a few prints i absolutely dislike, but they worked color-wise, so i included them. i never learn, do i? i know that putting an ugly or unsatisfying print in with prints i do like won't make me like it anymore than i already don't, but i do it anyway. and it's ok; i am actually getting better at not being bugged by those poor fabric choices. this time i even managed to make one block almost entirely from the prints i like least in the quilt, which makes me laugh now. overall, still highly satisfied with the results.

being a fall quilt, i really wanted to shoot this one in a fall setting. lucky for me, in our desert home the fall colors don't really start until december. in fact, they weren't as far along as i hoped when we took these finish photos, but they were good enough. 

i had my eye on this local riparian retreat full of changing cottonwood trees as i was finishing up the quilt and looking for a location to shoot it. i've never stopped there before even though i've driven past it several times a week for a decade now. it was a great find and perfect quilt shoot location. the only problem may be i used up all the shot locations already in this one shoot.

fall is long gone now, but there will be another one soon enough with the new year.

i wish you all a happy and cozy new year!