Not Another Project!

Just one week after I told my friend, D., "You won't find me making a log cabin quilt!" I started my first log cabin quilt.  Never say never!

I kind of wonder why I'm doing this: but I just couldn't resist.  Last week I was given a box of fabric.  No really large pieces, but lots of useful materials.  This morning I spent two hours cutting these related fabrics into 1 3/8" strips.  Each strip is about 13" long.  There are 24 different fabrics, and a total of 276 strips.  At least my design board isn't empty anymore. 

From my stash I used some old fashioned turkey red for the center square.  There was also plenty of a white on white print for the other half of the block.  You can see the setting in the open book page on the left.

  

This afternoon I started sewing, and worked for three and a half hours.  I'm making 24 blocks at a time, since there are that many different fabrics.  Here's a view of some of the unfinished blocks. There is one more round of strips to sew on each block.

This pattern is from Patchwork Quilts Made Easy, subtitled, Make a Quilt You can Be Proud of in Just Three Days! by Jean Wells, from C &T Publishing.  I've had the book for a long time, and was always attracted to this pattern. It's the old fashioned prints combined with the white that appeals to me.  I don't think this quilt will be finished in three days, but I was quite impressed with the progress from just five and a half hours of work.

On another note, we are getting heartily sick of blackbirds.  There seemed to be a host of them this spring.  They are not the most attractive birds, as they are very upset if you come near them.  Their call is a one- or two-note rusty whistle.

One pair chose this Medora juniper at the corner of the house for their nesting site.  This is an area that has lots of comings and goings, and they just get so upset, fly madly around and scold, scold, scold.

I snuck up on the nest a few days ago, and got this snap of the babies.  They looked pretty stressed.

Today S. said they were getting pretty big, so I guess that in spite of all the kerfuffle they are thriving.  If those blackbirds want to nest there next year too, I'm going to try to discourage them.  We have literally acres of excellent habitat for them.  I think they'd do much better in a more secluded area.