Turquoise crazy log cabin baby quilt

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Instructions

Look up log cabin quilts in Google Image, and try adding terms such as "crazy" or "modern" to the search string. You're making a basic log cabin quilt with strips of varying widths which are added randomly, instead of in a specific colour order.

Templates, stencils and a special ruler that helps you draw circles up to 34" diameter are quite useful for the circular shapes, leaves, paisley motifs (sold as feather templates) and hearts. Look up log cabin quilts in Google Image, and try adding terms such as "crazy" or "modern" to the search string. You're making a basic log cabin quilt with strips of varying widths which are added randomly, instead of in a specific colour order.

Templates, stencils and a special ruler that helps you draw circles up to 34" diameter are quite useful for the circular shapes, leaves, ...
Read full instructions »

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Difficulty:

Category: Quilting

Type of item: Functional

For: Children

Style: Casual, Traditional, Mod

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Materials

Cotton quilting fabrics, including a jelly roll, and polyester batting.

What was your inspiration?

Patchwork - Crazy log cabin quilts I'd seen online, particularly in the turquoise/light green colour combination.

Quilting - traditional Welsh quilting. It's not traditional to team Welsh quilting with American patchwork, but after a little thought it was easy to adapt the patterns and it turned out beautifully.

What are you most proud of?

Learning how to design Welsh quilting, for which I am indebted to the book "Making Welsh Quilts", and then adapting it to a quilt made with blocks and sashing, instead of the traditional medallion-style piecing.

Dealing with a badly-cut jelly roll!

What advice would you give someone starting this project?

Don't use a jelly roll unless you are absolutely sure that it has been cut perfectly; the constant battling with fraying edges isn't worth having a little less cutting out to do. The blocks in this quilt are 11", although they could be any size. The strips are most commonly 2" finished, but I also sliced some of the jelly roll strips in half to give 0.75", and then added fabrics from my own stash in 1" and 2.25" widths.

Get that book on Welsh quilting, it'll teach you enough to design your own. If the sashing contrasts with the blocks, as in this quilt, then you will need to break off your overall design for the sashing and continue it in the next block. You can see that I've put a simple cable design in the sashing. I sewed this quilt by hand; if you wish to do this sort of quilting by machine, you will need to be happy with stopping and starting a lot for the various motifs.

The quilting generally followed the sketch above, except in one respect. The border quilting is a zigzag with small circles, instead of a plain zigzag.