Little Cabin in the Woods

It is difficult to keep a secret from a loyal reader. For this quilt, my brother and I conspired against my dad to make a Father's Day quilt. He is rather difficult to shop for and often says he only wants a card. I suggested this idea, and my brother loved it. He would buy the materials, and I would put in the work, so the quilt would be from both of us.

Dad has a cabin in the woods of the Wet Mountains near Westcliffe (really a nice house, but we call it a cabin). I've been wanting to make a log cabin quilt for his cabin for years. Dad's favorite colors for decorating are forest green and tan or brown. The brown section of the fabric store was a bit to dark and none of the fabrics would do the nice stepping from color to color, so I went a little more on the cream side. It will still match the furniture he stained. The blue is mostly my addition because there are so many beautiful blue sky out there.

Log cabin blocks are crazily versatile when it comes to layouts. It's especially true if you do a 36 block square king. I took a bunch of pictures to prove this point, but really, these options are only the tip of the iceberg. These first two are zigzag, and the one I thought I would most like.

Notice how just setting the zigzag off by one block can change the look of the quilt. The lighting in these pictures is not the greatest, which I think makes it a bit harder to see how the patterns work or don't work well with the fabric. My middle dark is a bit more olive than it looks in real life. If I were to go with a zigzag,  I would pick the first one, because both seem to make the cream stand out more than the green, and I like how it is balanced in the first picture more than the second.

With the diamonds, again I laid it out to show both the green and the cream focused.

And again, I think it looks a bit better with the cream than with the green.

This block pattern is called pinwheel. I did this for one other quilt and I liked the look of it for that one. For my dad and for this set of fabrics, I felt it was a bit too turbulent.

Fields and Farrows is a common block lay out. I've done it several times, but mostly on small quilts.

This is my typical go-to on a square quilt - Barn Raising. It doesn't work well on a rectangular quilt and doesn't work at all on an odd-numbered block quilt.

To me, doing the same direction on all blocks is a boring kind of pattern. One of the reasons I love log cabin quilts is that by rotating the block, you get the secondary pattern. To me, this just looks like a "normal" block and an average quilt.

Arrow is another interesting option. This works well as long as you have an even number of blocks width wise.

 So... my final choice? None of the above. I liked the diamonds the best, but it was not turbulent enough... it looked too plain, so I decided to make the center diamond the opposite color. I considered making it like a nine patch of diamonds, but it was a little too turbulent. I think this has just the right amount of action to keep the eye moving, but enough peace to let it rest.

The colors in these photos are much closer to real life. There is still a bit of olive, but it doesn't quite jump out as much as the flash showed.

 Since I moved, I don't have a plushy grass to take my photos in or a nice clothesline to tie up, so I had to settle for the gravel and a lint roller.

I also had some trouble in the final steps. My floor was smaller than the quilt. If I make a lot of king sized quilts, I may have to move some furniture. This quilt was approximately 110 x 110.

How Many?

I am often asked how many quilts have I made, and to be honest, I have no idea. So today, I am going to attempt to count them all. I may have to update the list as I think of more I forgot about, and once the list is made, I may add to it to help keep track. I'm going to guess that I have made more than 90. we'll see if I am right at the end of this post. Only ones that are completely finished count. I may add the partials at the end of the list so I can keep track of them and add them to the list later. This will likely be the only post I regularly edit to add more, but I will clearly mark when I start adding.

To make things easier size wise I'll stick to this: S = tree skirts, table runners and other oddities, M = mini (12"x12" or smaller), W = wall hanging (13" x 13" - 44" x 59"), B = baby/lap, T = twin, F = full, Q = queen, and K = king.

Roughly Chronological Order by Finish Date:

Blue Log Cabin  for me - T 98
Green Forest Pinwheel for Dad - T 98
Star for Mom - Q 98
Star for Ming - W 98
Happy Trails for Deb - W (also M) 99
Double Irish Chain for Micah - T 99
Fan for Josh and Rayna - Q 00
Fan for Mom S 00
Kimono Applique for me -W 00
Pokemon Dog Bone for Jacob - B 01
Veggie Tales Triangle in Square for Luke - B 01
Musical Log Cabin for Dr. Hardy - W 01
Taz Double Irish Chain for Marty - F 01
Double Irish Chain for Garfield - W 01
Lavender and Blue for Anna - B 02
Crazy Teacher for Sara - F 02
Pinwheel Sun and Stars for Merlin - W 02
Kimono Applique for Haiku - W 02
Green and Blue Log Cabin for Connie - W 02
Fancy Pinwheel for Mulan - S 02
Cat Outline for Siam - W 02
Double Irish for Sakura - W 02
Ballet Boxes for Neeva - B 03
Blue Willow Log Cabin for Jeff - W 03
Blue Willow Log Cabin for Jeff - K 03
Blue Willow Log Cabin for me - M 03
Pink Log Cabin for Sofina - T 03
Stars and Bars for Hermione - W 03
Stripes for Gandalf - W 03
1/2 Log Cabin for Dandelion
Blue and Green Log Cabin for me Q/K 03
Christmas Pinwheel for The Popejoys B 04

*this is where it gets murkier and poorly documented*

Star Sun Flowers for Deb B 05
Joyful Kaleidoscope for Joyful Heart - M 06
Trellis for the Brookses - B 06
Cream and Sun Flower Pinwheel for unknown - W or B unsure 06?

*back to decent documentation, though I may have missed photographing some in my forgetful excitement to wrap and give*

Star Quilt for Maria - Q/K 07
Boyd's Bears for coworker's daughter - B 07
Quilted Sewing Machine Cover for me - S 07
Rose Lap Quilt for Rose  - B 07
Strawberry Shortcake for unknown baby - B 07
Hot Air Balloons for Abdiel - B 08
Pinwheel Log Cabin for KariJo - Q 09
Care Bears for Joyful Heart - B 09
Bunny Table Runner for Deb - S 09
Squares for Nandock - K 09
Calico Cats for unknown - B 09
Sea Glass for Joyful Heart - M 10
Mending Hearts for Joyful Heart - Q 10
Camping Quilt for Rick - T 10
Music Table Runner for Teresa - T 10
Watercolor for donated - B 10
Four Seasons for Rhonda - W 10
Ballet Bear for donation - B 10
Fairy for donation - B 10
Blue Cat for donation - B 10
Pink Cat for donation - B 10
Windsor Star for Deb - W/M 10
Fruit Punch for donation - B 10
Flannel Kitty for donation - B 10
Brown Lamb for donation - B 10
Pooh for donation - B 10
Bears and Bubbles for commission - B 10
Monkey Pinwheels for Landon - B 11
Autumn Leaves for me - W 11
Mountain Log Cabin for Dad - W 11
Log Cabin for Deb - W 11
HS T-shirt Quilt for commission - T 12
School District T-shirt Quilt for commission - K 12
My Little Pony for Nova B 13
Lavender and Lace for commission - B 13
Spring Applique for Grandma Kary - Q 13
Watership Down Landscape for me - W 13
Lamb Quilt for commission - B 14
Horse Quilt for commission - B 14
Lamb Quilt for Ragnar - B 14
Chinese Quilt for Matzes - B 15
Mustache Quilt for Scarlett - B 15


*So, at this point I have 78 listed. I'll have to see if I magically remember 12 more to make my guess right. I am sure I missed one or two, but I doubt I missed 12*

Little Cabin in the Woods for Dad - K 15
Puppy Fun for Nathan - B 15
Baby Animals for Amanda - B 15
Dragon for Elania - B 16
Elephant Zendoodle - B 17
Fox in Hearts - B 17
Fox in Hearts Wall Hanging - B 17
Deer - B 17
Sea Turtle - B 18
Log Cabin for Chris - Q 19

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In the Queue

Watercolor Stripes for Micah Q/K - blocks done, needs borders, backing, binding, and quilting
Garden Trellis for me or Etsy F - have fabric
- have most of the fabric
Happy Birthday for Dad - K
Breast Cancer Set for me W - tops sewn, needs backing, quilting and binding
Star for Zach F - have fabric and some cutting

100 Posts

This is post 100, so it just feels like I should do something different. I was going to do a top 10 list, but I couldn't pick only 10 and doing many categories was clunky, so I've decided that I am going to post a random selection of my favorite projects.

This was my first and only scrap quilt. It is queen sized, and I really enjoyed making it. I have plenty of scraps and really should make another. I donated it to the Joyful Heart Foundation.

This quilt (which I use for my background) is a mini quilt and is only 6" by 8". I loved the fabric and loved how it turned out framed. This one was also for the Joyful Heart Foundation.

This was a baby quilt for a first time mom who wanted to have something in gray and lavender that was somewhat inspired by India. I loved that it was such a non-traditional baby blanket, and I went overboard on making it perfect. This may be my all-time favorite thing I've made.

Like the mini quilt, I just love this color combo. I thought this purse turned out really nice with all the extra embroidered details.

I've been meaning to post this, but haven't gotten around to it yet. Landscape quilting is rather different from normal applique, and I always wanted to try it. I really love doing it, and this may also be one of my all time favorite things.

This was the first time I tried doing applique on a tunic. It was in an auction for Darkmoon, and I still need to give a post for it.

Stained glass quilting is super cool, and I love the look. I am also a huge fan of Celtic knotwork.

 I loved that these wings used so many different skills. It isn't often that basket weaving, crocheting, beading, wood carving and floral all go together. It was a fun and imaginative project.

I haven't posted these yet either. They are spell balls made by using the Temari hand embroidered method. It has become a new favorite craft for me.

During chemo, I spent a fair amount of time doing zentangles. It was about the only thing I had the energy to do because even holding a needle and cross stitching was too hard and took too much brain power to count. I have a book full of tangles, and this was my favorite.

This was my very first super mini quilt. I wasn't even sure it would work. I love the colors and how they blend, so I ended up making this quilt 3 times... once as a tester wall hanging, once as a king sized bed quilt and finally as this super mini sample.

This was not my first wedding dress, but it was the first time I set out to make a wedding dress. The other wedding dress I made surprised me. I made the dress and found out later that she liked it so much she got married in it. This wedding dress was really fun. It isn't too often that a bride is so interested in having that much color. I really love how it turned out, and she was thrilled.


It is so hard to just stop there, but there are just too many things that are cool.

Log Cabin

By far, my favorite block is the Log Cabin. It all started when my college roommate wanted to learn how to quilt and asked me to join her in a star quilt class. She also picked up this book:

The class was a bust, but the book was perfect! If I hadn't tried my second quilt, a twin sized log cabin, I likely would not be a quilter. I hated cutting out all the little triangles for the star quilt, but I loved the strip quilting method.


Since then, Log Cabins have remained my favorite. They are fast and easy, finding colors is fun, and they offer a lot of variety in the layout phase.

A pinwheel layout for my aunt Deb.

A barn raising layout for a colorful mini quilt.

A very small tester to see if the colors work well. I don't have the final quilt's picture because it was before I had a digital camera. I call this quilt my blue willow quilt because it looks just like the china pattern.

I had some fun quilting this one... I wasn't very good at it, but I gave it a shot!

Other "l" words included a set of coffee can luminarias I tin-punched and painted (I'll likely blog about them eventually), and lace.

Applique, Arizona & Alzheimer's

For the first letter of the A-Z Challenge, I could have chosen any of these A words, so I figured I might as well use them all. I normally avoid writing about personal issues on this blog because I don't like having personal information on the internet, but this time I simply can't write about this quilt without telling a bit about my life.

 I started this quilt about 5 years ago. It was primarily the left-overs from a block of the month kit sold by Jo Ann's. I've worked on it in spurts. I never had a plan for it, so other quilts had higher priority. With the A-Z challenge coming up, I wanted to write about at least one newly finished quilt, and this one only had a few hours of work left to finish it.

I only had the hand sewing left as my trip to AZ approached. I really wanted it finished for the A day, so I decided to take it with and do the hand sewing while I visited with my family. The day before I left, my vacation plans abruptly changed. My grandma has Alzheimer's. She left her independent living facility and somehow ended up four miles away at church, without signing out or telling anyone, on a day that was in the upper 80's.

So, rather than doing the touristy stuff we planned, we had to find her a new secured place to stay. Her old place wouldn't let her stay there unless someone was with her 24/7 and they only allowed overnight guests for 14 days. All the family was under the gun to find her a new place fast.

I've always wanted to make my grandma a quilt, and this was my wake-up call. I needed to give her one before she completely forgot who I was. Right now she knows she has a granddaughter named Melissa, but she doesn't know I am her.

I sat with her for a day as I finished sewing the binding. I decided if she liked the quilt, I would give it to her, and if she didn't I would make her one once I got home. She loved it the moment she saw it (I should mention that hot pink is one of her favorite colors). I gave it to her at least seven times. It was joyful and sad at the same time.  It was joyful seeing her happy, genuinely surprised reaction each time, but it was sad knowing that in five minutes, we would replay the same conversation.

Well, enough of the story, on to the quilt. As I mentioned before, this was a block of the month kit. Each block kit came with enough materials for two of the same blocks. Because this was just the left-overs on clearance,making a normal-sized quilt was a challenge. I tried many layouts before I settled on using rows of the same background color.

This was the first quilt I tried to applique.  I had a few false starts until I figured out how to do it. I did start and finish at least two other applique quilts after starting this one, so I felt like I did a better job on them.

The applique quilts my mom made were always finished with a thick zigzag in a matching color, so I figured that would be a good way to start.

I used the left over fabric from the kits to make the border. I wanted something fun for the corner blocks as well, so I used some leftover fabric to make a heart.

Since I started quilting this about five years ago, I was not very happy with the back of the quilt. I generally quilt much better now, and I thought the back was too messy. I was also unhappy with the white sheet. At the time, it was the only color that was close to matching. I decided to solve both problems by turning this quilt into a duvet cover. This time, I got lucky and found a sheet that was a perfect match to the border color. I used the top and bottom of the sheet for the finished edge of the duvet slit. I am not a fan of closing duvets with buttons because they can be lumpy if you toss and turn and end up with the duvet below you, so I used hook and loop tape in pink.

I really enjoyed working on this quilt over the years, and I am really glad my grandma loved it. I hope that maybe she'll remember me when she reads the inscription I wrote when signing the quilt. And eventually, I will have this quilt to remind me of her and how much she loved spring.

Jewel Tone Quilt Part 2

 If this Jewel Tone quilt looks familiar, than you've been following me for a while.  This has been one of those projects that just sat and sat. I bought the fabric in 2002. I finished the top and started the stippling in 2006. Then it sat. I finally just finished the quilt this past May.

Why did it take so long? Because stippling a large quilt on a normal machine kinda sucks. On the plus side, I love the look, so it really was worth it in the end.

Hoshi photo bomb. She stays away until she can be in the way.  Then she jumps all over me and licks my face.

The final look.  I really like the pinwheel layout of the log cabin blocks. It makes a super cheerful quilt.

Retirement T-Shirt Quilt

This is the quilt that actually caused me to make the other T-shirt quilt. I owe both the commissions to my aunt, who suggested the idea to her office.

School Psychologists play a special role in public education. They work with the parents, students and teachers to help students grades pre-k to 12 with special needs. They go from school to school, testing students and helping create individual educational plans designed to tailor-fit each of the children they help. For this retirement, each school sent one t-shirt for the quilt as a reminder of all the schools and students he helped.

With so many t-shirts and so many colors, this quilt was much harder to arrange than the other t-shirt quilt. They requested education-themed fabric. Apparently, April is not the season for education-themed fabric. I really wanted the black and white chalk-board fabric I had seen a while ago, but I couldn't find it anywhere.  Even the internet failed me on this one. Instead, I went for a black fabric with rainbow letters and numbers.  It was a bit busier than I like, but it was truly my best option.

I hadn't originally planned on adding  a white border, but when I laid everything out, the quilt needed some separation between the letters and the cute school fabric. With all the colors shouting for attention, white was really the only solution. It adds a nice picture frame look to cap off the t-shirts.

I fussy-cut the final border and lined up the fabric with its repeat so I wouldn't cut any of the little motifs in half. I also planned the border so that the design was always right-side-up just in case this quilt ended up on a wall rather than a bed. I finished it off with white ties and a narrow band of the black backing fabric around the edge. Again, I was asked to make whatever size worked. It ended up fitting nicely on a king sized bed, though it did not have the extra pillow-tuck room.

I was pressed for time, and the quilt arrived in the mail on the day of his retirement party. I was told there was lots of oohing and aahing over the quilt, and Ralf was very touched at the thoughtfulness of his gift.

My first T-shirt quilt

It's always fun to try something new. When I worked at Jo Ann Fabric, I often helped customers pick out the correct materials to make a t-shirt quilt and explained the steps. I'd read about them and seen them, but I hadn't actually done one. My customers would often thank me for the help and show me the finished result (North Dakota is a friendly place like that). I always felt a bit like a sham for teaching about the quilt without actually having made one. Now I can say that I've done it, and it was more fun than I thought it would be.

The first step is cutting out the t-shirts. I started with a rough cut where I removed the sleeves and collar then cut the back of the shirt off. I started with the largest design and based the size of the blocks on its width.

Some of the sleeves had designs and some of the shirts had a small logo on the front of the shirt with a large logo on the back. I cut these designs so they had about an inch of fabric around the design.

 The next step was adding a stabilizer to the t-shirts. I used woven fusible interfacing because t-shirts are naturally stretchy. If they were not lined with a woven fusible interface, they would stretch and bunch, making the quilt look really bad, especially after washing it the first time.

Once I had all my blocks ready, I headed out to my dad's cabin in Westcliffe. He has a huge living room, and I love laying out quilts there. The natural sunlight is also great, so it's worth the two-hour drive to sew in a fun location. I arranged the blocks in four lines. All of the large blocks had the same width, so it was rather easy to make the lines work.  I did have to shuffle the blocks quite a bit to get them all the same length and avoid putting two similar colored t-shirts next to each other. I have to say, I got really lucky because I was able to get all the lines of blocks within half an inch of each other.

My sewing buddy Merlin made sure that I did it right.  He is a great supervisor, but he does sleep on the job quite often.

I used denim to tie all the colors together, because what better to put with a t-shirt quilt than jeans material? I also found a maroon home-spun fabric to use as an accent. Since this was a high school graduation gift, the school colors of maroon and gold were also very important.

When I asked what size to make the quilt, I was told to make it whatever size worked with the t-shirts. It ended up working out as an extra long queen. I like making extra long quilts so there is pillow-tuck room. I also thought it would be nice to have an extra long quilt for this very tall, soon to be college student. He could curl up from head to toe without a problem.

I don't own a long-arm quilting machine, so machine quilting  a quilt this large is problematic. I also think that the rustic fabrics mixed with the t-shirts would look better with a tied quilt. I used gold yarn as a little pop of color and a nod to his school colors. They were thrilled with the quilt, and I have to admit I was really happy with the final result.