pinning is winning

these log cabin strips were looking very pretty in my sewing room where i had them hanging on blanket hangers, but i had a little more time to finish things and this was the fastest finish in the room. so i took them down, finished unpicking the misaligned strips, and got a flimsy put together.

remember how i always turn log cabin blocks the wrong way and mess them up but figured out how to work around that? well, these are all perfect and in sync. except one. just one. but that's real progress for me! i'll take it.

i didn't pin my strips the first time around, which did not work at all. the horizontal sashings didn't match up. not even close. so i decided to get my pins out and do it the longer, more tedious was. which was the correct choice.

my sashings now match across the vertical bars. yay! i was thinking as i slogged through all of this that the case for cornerstone pieces is strong. not only are the a nice design feature, they must make aligning sashings a lot more simple. but i like the look of no cornerstones on this quilt, so pinning was the right answer.

next up was the backing. i had two large pieces of wiltshire in red and strawberry thief in a deep green. i didn't use the strawberry thief on the front because it would have blended in with the dark green sashing. i have a lighter green version on the front. i think the dark looks good on the back. i included what was left of a maroon betsy and the christmas-y adelajda prints. i'm not likely to use them elsewhere and i wanted to keep some of the other two prints, so this gives me the wiggle room to have leftovers from them instead.

i had to look high and low for the strawberry thief, including going through every box in the liberty shelf that i just organized. i was certain i had a large piece in the dark green, but it was hiding. finally i remembered i started a project box for the liberty christmas quilt and found it in there. whew! that was a project. maybe i'm a tad too organized these days? or just need to adjust to being organized a little more.

pining part two - the quilt samich is put together and this is going in the handwork box for my trip.

confession - i'm not loving working with christmas colors in march. it feels wrong. we're far enough past christmas that it feels very outdated and too far away from next christmas to be exciting. what will feel good is having it done by christmas, so i'm going to take it with me anyway.