The past weekend I had the opportunity
to really get things done.
I attended my second ever virtual retreat.
Hosted by the Idiot Quilter out of Ontario Canada,
70 dedicated souls arrived from their perspective time zones
and had a wonderful day quilting, chatting and learning together.
With all that chatting and learning,
I had time to really make progress on a few of my projects.
You may recognize this crazy log cabin center,
from the middle of three other black quilts
that were finished not too long ago.
They each end up with a unique border and this one is no different.
First of all, there was a little mystery to be solved.
I thought that I had 30 blocks remaining
which would let me make a 5 x 6 center,
a nice size twin top.
The project box proved to only have 20 of the centers.
They were all nicely squared up and ready to go
with the black backgrounds all set around the colorful center.
The sewing workroom and stash area were searched
quite intensely and no additional blocks turned up.
Producing more wasn't really an option.
The middle was destined to be set 4x5,
using the 20 blocks in the project box.
Now to decide on a border.
This stage was finished at the Buddy retreat.
The virtual treat was a perfect time to complete this top.
The look with two black borders and a scrappy strip in the middle,
was quite appealing but had
already been used on one of the first three crazy quilts.
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It was very nice but I thought it needed something different.
There were slashes on one and zigzags on the other.
The third had leaning pillars,
so maybe this one could use vertical pillars.
I listened to some great lectures by quilters
from all over the world,
and had lots of time to stitch up
a bunch of pillars for the outside
Now it was time to put it together.
The pillars were laid around but they looked a little" too floaty".
Then we tried putting them next to the center quilt and using
pieced strips bordered by black around the outside.
That didn't seem to work either.
As often happens, one of the quilters said,
" Just switch them."
Wow, was that successful.
Now I just had to figure out how to finish up the corner connectors.
The inside pieced border, with two black strips on either side,
was finished with a small mitered square.
After a few adjustments, it worked just fine.
Then to finish the turning for the outside pillars.
I had considered doing the borders all together
and then mitering the whole corner,
but decided against it just because I couldn't imagine the look.
Left over corners from the zigzag quilt
provided the inspiration.
I made up a larger diagonal blocks to fit.
This top finished measuring 56" x 66"
Just a reminder, here are its three fellows.
There is even enough striped fabric to make a matching binding.
Next up finding a suitable back and pinning.
Stay Safe and sew on!
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