A lesson in the quarter inch seam allowance

It all started because I was bored at the lake for a week.  I had under-estimated what I should take for handwork and so I went looking for a plan.  The local quilt shop had a nice Pacific Rim Quilt Company pattern called "You Are In Our Hearts" and some beautiful teal colored fabric from Jinny Beyer.  I thought "How perfect.  A pretty applique pattern that I can use for the center of a quilt." 

Steve's niece saw what I was working on and said that she liked the colors so I decided it could be the center of a quilt for Heather. I don't have a photo of the applique block available, I will add that when I put up the final quilt photos.  The applique went together without a hitch, a little fussy as it is 42 inches square as a whole cloth design but no real issues.

Knowing that the center was going to be this large applique block I needed something to frame it but not compete with the design.  I thought that a simple log cabin design in similar jeweled tones would be a nice accent.  Judy Martin's book on Log Cabin Designs had just come out so I went looking for a barn raising style of design to display the applique center on point.  I liked the layout of the "Summer Lake Log Cabin" but probably wasn't going to use the Grecian Scroll work around the outside.  Her book was great for organization of what can be a very disorganized pattern.

Once I got the central portion of the quilt blocks completed and up on the design wall I could see that the inspiration applique block was NOT going to work in this quilt.  Time to adjust and make the quilt using the full pattern from the book.  Again the blue tape fence for my quarter inch made for very consistent and easy piecing of all those logs.  I had to enlarge the quilt to work on a king size bed so I just kept making blocks.

I had the top completed in mid 2009, and then I started on the back.  The blocks are based on 1" logs making a 9" square.  If you enlarge the logs to 2" finished and keep the 9 log blocks then the finished square is 18 x 18.  The center star is made up of 16 blocks laid out 4 by 4.  With an 18 inch block that star becomes 72" by 72" - or enough to be a center of the back with fabric panels used to square it out for this large square quilt.  It actually was very easy enlarge the logs to make the back and add large sections of fabric to the edges.

The whole quilt was sandwiched in October and I started quilting on it.  I used dissolving thread for my stabilization lines because I wanted to use a feathered quilting design and did not want the straight lines remaining when I was done.  I did put it aside for a couple of months over the holidays as I worked on other things.  By January 1, 2010 the top, back and sandwiching was complete plus about 25% of the quilting.

I finished the quilting in May and am finishing the binding and trim work the first week of June.  This quilt is going to be in the Minnesota Quilt Show in mid-June.  Once all is complete I will post photos of the final results (no safety pins and batting sticking out all over).