While I've quilted a little bit before, I've never had any format instruction or structure to what I was doing. I've decided at this late date (in my sewing career anyway) to finally take an organized and planned approach to making a quilt from start to finish.
I signed up for a Beginners Log Cabin series at New Pieces in Albany, CA. My first class was Thursday, Oct 27, 2005 and I really enjoyed it. My instructor is Cindi Cossen.
Cindi talked a lot about the different types of log cabin patterns and the different ways they can be put together to get different effects. She had many samples and the one I zoomed in on was a simple Sampler which used only two different fabrics and three different block patterns. But the way they were arranged made all the difference.
The basic premise for log cabin is that you have a center square and several rows of strips around the square. You put darks on two connecting sides and lights on the other two connecting sides.
We spent a lot of time choosing fabrics for our projects. But, the key, according to my instructor was choosing one fabric that I really liked and going from there. With the help of Cindi and Sharone, it was really easy and fun. The second key was not trying to choose everything all at once. We concentrated on the fabric for our initial blocks. Not the back, not the sashing, not the borders.
I finally settled on a mauve focus with a rose pink for the center, a dark almost burgundy pattern for one set of strips and a beige, burgundy, rose pattern for the lighter strips.
Our homework was to put together a few blocks and see how it goes. There are two methods for the strips: cut the strips the lengths you want or sew a long strip and cut to fit as you go. Cindi told us to try both methods to see which worked best for us.
No comments:
Post a Comment