My friend Sarah and I had a wonderful sewing day a few months ago. We each donated lots of scraps to a few paper bags and went to work pulling out random scraps and making wonky log cabin blocks. This is a method I’ve heard as the Denyse Schmidt method. I’ve never gotten to take one of her classes, but she describes this method in various interviews. I’m not sure if we did exactly what she would do but we did have fun pulling random bits and sewing them together. These two quilts are for sale.

This is my first with absolute random pulls. Making myself use each bit. I sashed it all in an older Cotton and Steel print. for the quilting I did big loops. I’m going to be honest, it’s not my favorite quilt. It was hard to let go this much! Measures 39 x 36″ $125

This second one I like much better. I still did it pretty randomly, but if I really didn’t like something I would pull again. I feel like I was better able to balance the values this way. I also think the sashing I chose sets the blocks off much better. And to me the backing and binding are just right for it. 41 x 52″ $150
If you haven’t tried this method yet I highly recommend it. Even if you just do a few blocks it really gets the creative juices flowing! method

I recently realized that I had a LOT of unfinished quilt tops. I decided to do something about it and in a little over a week I basted, quilted and bound nine of them! Since I’m not going to keep them all I thought it would be a good time to resurrect this blog and make notes on them here.

Trailer Log Cabin 45″ x 45″
This quilt I think I am going to keep, at least for a bit. It’s special to me because I started piecing the top over a long weekend in our trailer. The girls and I were alone in it during a few rainy days while my husband took the car, leaving us at the campground. It was such a cozy fun time. I only brought a basket of scraps with me, including a large remanent of a Carolyn Friedlander print I love that ended up being the center of each block. After the orange criss cross I chose colors I had on hand and slowly added to the quarter log cabins. Once home I got them up on the design wall I decided not to square up the centers.
I used a walking foot with my Juki to quilt this (which was easy with low loft 100% cotton batting). I machine stitched on the binding. I’m doing this for almost all my quilts now. I’ve gotten better at it and it is so much fast. A good thing when you’re finishing nine quilts! This one is going to live on the big reading chair in our bedroom for now.