Friday?! Already?

Just as I caught myself thinking that December was moving along nice and slow.. here we are in the middle, and another TGIFF! party is upon us.  I finished the binding on this baby last night as I momentarily set aside a pile of grading to catch up on some netflix TV (re-watching season 2 of Glee, loving every minute!), and figured I might as well finish this one off and get it in the mail before Christmas.

I started this quilt sometime in the spring? summer?  as a simple piecing-- mindless sewing project to zip through the machine when I only had a short bit of time to sew.  The blocks grew, and grew.  It was fun to play with chunky scraps and I really let the size of the scrap determine the shape of the log cabin.. I didn't trim the logs down to any certain size before assembling the blocks. 

Actually, in the beginning I chain pieced a bunch of centers onto random sized strips and then cut them apart, pressing, trimming, and repeating for the next log.  I had no plan for the blocks and no idea how large I wanted to make them.  I though I'd just keep going til they looked big enough, then measure to find  the size most of them ended up being, and go from there.  In the end I trimmed them down to 11" square.  Some blocks have 3 rings of logs on all sides, some have only 2 rings on the white sides.  Whatever.  I was really not worried about anything with this quilt, and let it grow into its own.

I threw them up on the design wall last month and this layout just sort of happened.  No thought, just play.  I finished the last 6 blocks and pieced it right after Thanksgiving.  I was hoping to present it as a housewarming present when we travel to Chicago in January, but oops, I finished it early so it can be a Christmas present instead. 

I hope it keeps its new family warm..