Cheery Cherries

On Friday the first quilt block in the sampler sew-along (button in my sidebar) was posted. It was a simple log cabin block. I love log cabin blocks, but I've never made one. I was going to use my small scraps and go crazy-random but I didn't have enough that were large enough. I dug out my huge box of mid-sized scraps, and stared, and pulled things out, and put things back, and paced... I just couldn't come up with anything I liked. I was going to say "Dang it all, I'm not doing it!" when a piece of fabric caught my eye. And in that instant I knew not just what I was doing for this block but for the whole quilt. Red and white. Simple, pretty, happy, classic, and my favorite color combination. I played around with placement and then went traditional, with the lights on one side and darks on the other. It makes me happy to look at it:

Swoon.

 The cherries, the dots, the checks--it all reminds me of a summertime picnic.

 I read somewhere that a log cabin block is supposed to have a red square in the center. Normally I'd say pooh to that if it didn't match, but for this it was just too perfect.

My measurements are pretty good - I'm only short 1/8" either direction - not too bad. And our leader had the same thing happen, so I'm feeling ok with that. I'm not the greatest quilter, so I'm hoping by the end of this I'll be greatly improved. The only thing wrong with this block (I know - why do I insist on pointing out mistakes? To keep it real, yo :) is that I tried to ease in a strip or two that may have been a hair short - there's a little pucker to it where it doesn't lay dead flat, but it doesn't bug me because I know it will be fine once it's all together. 

Tomorrow another block goes up - I'm glad I picked my colors for the whole thing because I'm really excited now :)  And if I run out of prints it won't take me as long to pick reds and whites as it would to pick other colors.

Have a happy Friday! Back soon!