Wonky Log Cabin

I had mentioned that I wanted to find another sewing project - well I did find one.  I was looking on a blog that is written by a former fellow classmate that I "met" while working on my degree.  She is a young stay-at-home mom who home schools her 3 young children, was taking classes until recently, and somehow still finds time to sew all her kids, and herself, clothes, and she spends time quilting!  Her husband is in the military and is gone a lot so she spends a bit of time parenting on her own.  Not to mention the blog she also keeps up with.  I don't know how she does all of this! Her blog is on blogger, the same as me. It's called "fancy that." Here is a link to her blog. http://nikki-fancythat.blogspot.com/  If you get a chance stop by and look at some of her posts.  She's very creative.

At any rate, she, (Nikki) had posted some pictures of the quilt blocks she has been working on.  They are called Wonky Log Cabin blocks.  I have never heard of them before but the pictures she posted of them were so cute and colorful that I knew I had to try them!

The blocks are made from all of your scrap strips of material, and it doesn't matter what size the scraps are.  Color doesn't matter either.  In fact, the more of a variety of color you use, the better the blocks look.

So today I pulled out my boxes of scrap materials and began to search for the strips that I needed. I knew I was saving those strips for some reason!  I was originally thinking that I wanted to make myself a throw quilt for keeping cozy in the evenings while sitting and reading.

Lots of colors to choose from.  I didn't even make a dent in them!

I realized, though, that a birthday is coming up for one of my daughters-in-law, so I decided to work in that direction.  I decided to make a set of Wonky placemats.  Log Cabin blocks are really easy to put together, and these blocks were even easier because I didn't have to worry about cutting to a certain size, or even keeping a perfect 1/4" seam going!  I had eight blocks sewn together in about an hour.

Using two blocks for each placemat, I bordered them with bright yellow and they were then ready to be put together with the backing, and quilted.  Here is how the finished blocks turned out once the borders were sewn on.

Here's the placemat, all quilted.  All it needs now is the binding.

Here's a picture of the back.  It's kinda hard to see the quilting.  I just used unbleached muslin for the back, and quilted enough to keep everything together.  I just stitched in the ditch, but didn't spend the time quilting every seam.

This is the point where I stopped working on all but one of the placemats.  It was getting late and I was ready to quit but I wanted to see a finished product.  So I sewed the binding on one of the placemats, and even finished hand sewing the binding to the back.

So here is the picture of the one I have finished.

Isn't it really cute, and colorful?  You can see the Wonky in the way the strips in the blocks are all different sizes and shapes.  I think this is gonna be one of my all-time favorite blocks to make!

I'll finish up the three other placemats tomorrow and have one birthday present ready to go!

Then I'll get busy and make that cozy throw for me!