I just don't know if I can do it..

I washed the quilt.  I folded it and put it in the box.

I took it out again and did another photoshoot..

I sadly put it in the box again but I'm procrastinating from taping it up and actually driving to the post office..

I gotta fall in love with a new quilt fast and forget about this one.. it's just so hard. 

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..

the December crunch

I spent 7 hours working on this quilt on Thursday, from basting to attaching the binding.  I tried to take some pics along the way and thought I'd share my process. (I had really wanted to write this post Thursday, but once I started working, I didn't want to stop to post, and then once the quilt was at a good stopping point, my arms were too tired to post, haha).

I timed myself during the basting and binding, and found that it took just about an hour to baste, and then only another 60 minutes to cut, join, press, pin and attach the binding. 

At the end of the night I took the quilt down to the living room to show C, shook it out and said, "Ta da!" hoping he would be as impressed with my progress as I was. 
Me: "Look, I did all this today"
Him: (not really phased) "how long does it usually take you?"
Me:  "For the amount of work I did just today?  About 8 naps."

I would have liked to take more pics of the quilting and squaring up, but it was already dark and I knew they wouldn't come out that great.  I did snap this one of my improv binding holder-- usually I wind binding around a piece of cardboard as I press it so it's more manageable to attach to the quilt.  Well, I cleaned the sewing room last month and couldn't find a piece of cardboard anywhere.  But, george had been playing with his train set in the sewing room earlier, so I grabbed one of the track pieces and.. it worked perfectly.

Part of me thought I should just push on through and hand stitch the binding like a mad woman so it could be done for a Friday Finish.. but that didn't happen.  Guess there's always next week..