Log Cabin Quilt in a Day

We had so much fun yesterday.  We went to a quilt class at church.  One of the sweet ladies so kindly offered to teach the rest of us how to make Log Cabin quilt blocks using the Quilt in a Day method. We used this book.  

You really can cut out and piece a whole quilt top in a day!  We were there 6 hours, and this is what I got done:

{Yes, there is a little hand reaching into the picture above!}

I just love how bright and cheery these fabrics are.  We don’t have many fabric stores available to us here, so we just went to Walmart.  They didn’t have a large selection, but they did have these, which were the quilt of the month fabrics, I think.  We thought they would go well in the girls’ bedroom.  I haven’t even pressed these blocks yet, I just cut them out and sewed them up and came home so I could nurse my baby (he’s 18 months now, so he only nurses here and there when he feels like it, and then at night)!  

Anyway, I was so excited to learn how to do this.  It was such a special time to be in a room full of ladies and girls visiting, sewing machines whirring.  I took my older daughters with me, and my mom was also there.  We all brought a sack lunch with us, and we ate quickly, as we were all excited to get back to our sewing!  Now that I know what to do, I think I could have accomplished even more in that 6 hours than I did.  But I was very happy to have these 12 blocks done.  Everyone left with a stack of completed blocks, and I think several ladies got even more done than I did.  A couple of young girls brought other quilts to work on, and it was so neat to see all the different fabric choices and patterns.  We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves!  🙂

“In great-grandma’s day, quilting was a wonderfully creative pursuit for women in many areas of the country.  When women married or had a baby, friends and families gathered together to make the quilts they needed to keep warm.  They used old, discarded clothing, cut up and patched together into colorful designs and then carefully padded and stitched to make warm coverings.  The women worked, talked, and exchanged recipes;  they solved garden, food, husband, and children problems–all while their hardworking fingers sewed.  These quilts were truly labors of love–living testaments to the spirit of loveliness that transforms simple materials and a basic household need into a work of art and an occasion for celebration.”  ~Emilie Barnes, The Spirit of Loveliness