It’s Blogger’s Quilt Festival time again, and I love how Amy has simplified it. Previously you had to choose a category for a quilt that you entered, and then people would nominate and vote for a People’s Choice, which didn’t always seem like the fairest way of doing it- though I was surprised to be nominated one year. This year we just link up to the one post (go to see more inspiration!) and prize winners are randomly selected. Love it!

Here’s my entry, the long-awaited but finally quilted Bear In The Log Cabin.

There are 36 blocks, most of which have a different bear fabric fussy cut and then framed by the Log Cabin house block, but some of my favourites feature more than once. I collected these fabrics over the course of 2-3 years and ended up with way too many. It was time to finally put my idea together!

The roof parts are all from my ridiculous amount of brown scraps and hardly a dent was made, even though I made them the wasteful way! I made them that way so I could use thinner strips and have more variety of fabrics. Normally I opt for the four-at-a-time method, but these were made one by one.

The blocks were sewn together staggered style, column by column. I alternated whether I sewed the piece of sashing to the top or the bottom of each block to get that wiggly effect.

The backing is a snuggly flannel. I’ve never used flannel before but it’s so easy to quilt and it bastes really easily without puckers- warm, luxurious and not a PITA! On the subject of quilting, I just quilted the wood-y bits and the Bias Tape window panes.

Of course, I had to add a stripy binding, and this one was on half price sale! I machine stitched on the binding so that I could have it finished for this festival. I submitted it to a couple of magazines about a month back (when I had basted it) so far, but no dice just yet. If it doesn’t go anywhere it will be happy living on our sofa over the colder months.

STATS
Size – 53″ wide x 78″ tall
Number of blocks – 36
Time to make – Maybe about 35-40 hours
Fabric – An assortment of scraps, plus some woodgrain half yards I had in my stash, and Kona White background. The window panes are fusible bias tape, premade stuff. The backing is flannel, no idea what it is called!
Binding Fabric – A stripy print from Mangia Mangia by Stephanie Marrott for Wilmington.
Threads – Pieced with white Wonderfil Konfetti 50wt cotton, quilted mostly with brown Wonderfil Polyfast 40wt trilobal polyester.
Batting – My usual go to – Hobbs 80/20. It’s cheap and washes so well.
Quilting- Woodgrain style on all the wood parts, working block by block. I sewed the window pane lines down at the quilting stage too.

This was also a Finish Along finish for this quarter! The goals post is here.