Tuesday, November 25, 2014

Cabin in the snow

Hi all! With this being a holiday week and many, many of us in a cooking frenzy, it's a good time to take a small time out and share my year-end project. I have been looking forward to starting this for weeks!

The end of October until the first of the new year is the most stressful time of the year for me. Really, everything is due all at once, plus there's this major winter holiday that is a lot of fun but requires TONS of preparation. A lot of it is fun, and much of what I have to do is very rewarding, but it's also very stressful. Since the sewing keeps me sane even in the worst of times I need a year-end project that I can work on that won't add to the problem. I know a lot of people will be doing Bonnie Hunter's mystery quilt, but that is just too stressful for me to take on right now. Instead, I've chosen to work on this quilt by Cindy at Quilt Doodle Doodles:

This is Cindy's quilt and her picture! Isn't it adorable?
This is such a cute quilt, and it looks pretty stress-free to assemble. Cindy has run it as a quilt-along on her blog all year. I had every intention of working along, but never did. So now that it's all finished, I'm going to do it all at once! You can buy her patterns HERE or HERE, and she has many other patterns that are very easy as well. (Go buy the pattern! You know you want to!)

This pattern generally uses same-sized squares, so I've been cutting some different dark blues to use for the backgrounds for a couple of weeks (a little at a time, you know?):


I cut up several quarter yards of dark blues with stars that I had in my stash, though most of the fabric comes from this:


Let's just call that photo "artsy," okay? This was a multi-purpose Halloween costume--witch, wizard, Merlin, etc.-- from years ago.  I know for sure it's made from quilting cotton because the selvages were still on the thing. I guess it was an emergency costume. Anyway, there were nearly 3 yards of fabric here, which got cut up and is being used as the main background fabric in this quilt. (Let's hear it for recycling!)

 And heaven knows I have a bunch of scraps for all the other colors and parts as well. No shortage of those around here!

So, I started with the cabin block, which is in the center of the quilt. Here it is:


I certainly would be happy to sit in that cabin and sew for a while, wouldn't you? It didn't come through too well in the photo, but the window there is actually yellow. Winter sunshine bleached it out pretty well. The pattern shows a brown cabin with a black roof, but I chose to use red and brown. It's cheerful, and what I had.

Cabin in the snow!
I hope everyone has a very happy Thanksgiving! I say we all lock ourselves in the sewing room and make someone else stress out over the food. If you're not in the US, I hope your week is also full of food, family, and friends! And maybe a little American football and some shopping, too.

Linking to Fabric Tuesday, WIP Wednesday, and Let's Bee Social. Happy Thanksgiving!

5 comments:

France Nadeau ❅ inspiration imagination creation said...

It's never too late to start a beautiful project like this one. And you've made a gorgeous start with the cabin. The blue fabric of this merlin dress is perfect for the sky and mix beautifully with the other blue squares you used. Red being my favorite color I just love your house. Looking forward for your other blocks!

LA Paylor said...

I did this too and it was fun to have a simple project each month. I'm only one month behind, the lights. I hope to quilt it and add enough borders to lay across the king bed over the winter months. So fun and cheerful, I hope Cindy does another one next year!! LeeAnna at not afraid of color

TheItinerantChemist said...

Love how cute that pattern is, and recycling the Halloween costume is a brilliant idea. :)

JanineMarie said...

What a neat end of the year project--and that Halloween costume material is perfect!! I used to follow an academic year in my job, so I have some idea of the stress of the holidays and feel for you. Good thing you have quilting to keep you sane. I was thinking of doing Bonnie Hunter's mystery quilt, but I have some other quilts to make right now. Maybe I'll do as you do and wait until the end. I feel like I should do a quilt inspired by Michigan, after all.

Quiltdivajulie said...

Love your year end project!

Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family!!