Mini Mania: Log Cabins

September has been busy at our house! We went to southern California for a week (and took our girls to Disneyland), and we celebrated my youngest's birthday and my birthday. Couple all those things with my oldest starting kindergarten, and, well, it's been hectic. I've still sewn a bit. But I don't have much to show for it. I got the paper pieced blocks sewn together for my Christmas Seaside quilt (pattern from Vintage Quilt Revival), I've been sewing my curved blocks together for my Arabian Nights quilt (pattern from A Quilter's Mixology), I bound a baby quilt my friend made for her new baby boy and then just didn't have the energy to bind, and I got my cherry mini bound. It doesn't feel very productive, and it wasn't, but it was productive enough. I need to remember I'm not in a race. I'm a mom first and foremost, and any time I get to sew is a bonus. One thing I've liked about the mini quilts I've been making lately is that they help me feel like I'm getting stuff done. :-) Always a good thing.

I also finished a mini for the Flickr Mini Mania Challenge group. With my busy month, I wasn't sure  I was going to be able to, and I struggled with figuring out a plan for a couple of weeks. Color schemes, layouts, log cabin vs. courthouse steps...but I finally came up with a plan that I was excited to try. I didn't know how I would lay it out, but I was excited to try log cabins in an ombre effect in a couple color ways, all with solids.

Luckily, they went together quickly, you gotta love chain piecing, right?, and I got them up on my design wall so they could sit for a few days while I played around with block placement. While I thought I would do more of a gradient thing, from yellow to blue with the colors lined up, I ended up going with a pattern that isn't terribly apparent at first glance, But I really like it. And I have to admit that I fell more in love with this mini the more I worked on it, and it's one I'm really excited about. I've even toyed with the idea of making a larger quilt. We'll see...

I also really like the quilting! I saw a sample quilt with some log cabins with diagonal straight lines and knew it was going to be perfect for my mini. Thread color was tricky, but I think the gray I picked worked really well.

Anyway, I'm pleased with it! And looking forward to next month. Hopefully I'll get to it...amid the Halloween costumes and a gift for my niece who is turning 8 in December (got to get started early...so it doesn't get lost with all the Christmas prep). We'll see. We always see, don't we?