It's In The Bag

I enjoyed reading all your comments on my little swatch sampler. Almost to a person, you mentioned the cornmeal sack on the back, so I've added one to the giveaway, along with a souvenir bag of cornmeal and pamphlet of yummy recipes. Good luck everyone, and thanks for playing along!

All your names are in the bag... 

and the winner is Jan of Be*mused. 

Congratulations, Jan! Please email me your address and I’ll get your gift in the mail. 

Testing, 1-2-3 Testing

Hi everyone! I've been having issues with my blog photos enlarging. Apparently, dragging photos into place to rearrange them in Blogger disables that particular function. Who knew? Anyway, I think I've got the kinks worked out. 

Click on the photos in this post and if they enlarge leave a comment. I'll enter your name in a giveaway of reproduction fabric swatches like those in the quilt below. The drawing will remain open until Nov. 25. 

 from a line of Harriet Hargrave fabrics as they  The simple one-patch layout was inspired by vintage fabric swatch books and salesmen's sample catalogs which arrange fabric samples in a similar fashion.

The cornmeal sack adds vintage charm and eliminated the need for batting.

"Swatch Book Sampler"

  7 1/2" x  7 1/2"

machine pieced, hand quilted

1996

Trick or Treat

In spite of great weather for Halloween, we were well into the witching hour last night, before anyone rang the bell. Very few trick-or-treaters showed up, so we have loads of candy left. It's fine with me; that’s why we buy our favorites. I’ve paired my morning cup of coffee with a couple Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and think an Almond Joy might go well with cup number two.

Here’s your Halloween treat, a “liberated” log cabin quilt, one of the first things I made after reading Gwen Marston's book, Liberated Quiltmaking. 

It loosely follows the traditional log cabin format of light and dark strips, surrounding a center square, but the trick to "liberating" it is...

-the “squares” are irregular in shape,

-the surrounding strips vary in width, and aren't necessarily cut straight. 

-the strips don’t follow the traditional sequence of lights on one side and darks on the other.

The hand quilted cable design in the sashing, brings a little order to the chaotic blocks.

Oh, and the sashing is that color!

Liberated Log Cabin

20" x 27"

machine pieced, hand quilted

 Diane Burdin,1996