The Granny Cabin Sew Along starts September 16th! Over 500 people have joined, will you?!
The third Granny Cabin I made was the Scrappy one! After making the Add It Up one and the Heather Ross baby one, I really wanted to test my scrappy amounts while writing the pattern. And this one, I am keeping for me!
Because the end goal of this pattern was to make the ultimate picnic quilt, I knew I wanted to do a riff on patriotic colors. What is more summery here in the USA than a 4th of July inspired picnic quilt? We have Memorial Day in May, 4th of July in July and Labor Day in September - all holidays in the warmer months that we usually celebrate outside.
I played with my stash and ended up with some black, blue and periwinkles for the main blue family. And for the red family I went more blush, peach, pink and coral. Originally, I was going to do a solid white background but then thought I'd better just go 100% scrappy and pulled a bunch of my low volume prints out.
So many people have asked for the fabric names of what I used and I finally typed them all up. Unfortunately, a lot of these prints are old and out of production so I didn't link to any stores. But in general, it'll give you a great idea of fun lines to use. Here ya go, from top to bottom in the photo above:
Cotton + Steel XOXO in Ballet
Blueberry Park Melon Plus
Heather Ross Kinder in Spring Blooms Red
Cloud 9 Gingham Check in Coral
Snap to Grid in Cotton Candy Pink
Add it Up in light pink (can't find it anywhere on the internet)
Heather Ross Kinder Apples Pink
Heather Ross Kinder Apples Red
Flower Shop - Thistle in Night
Friedlander - Shirting in Sky
Harriot - Scallop Single Border in Blueprint
Leah Duncan Wild - Island of the Moon in Night
Leah Duncan Wild - Bwindi in Blue
Add It Up in Party Hat
Cotton + Steel XOXO in Chocolate Chips
Add It Up in Bone
Snap to Grid in White
When organizing where I wanted each color to be in the blocks, I did the same idea as the baby quilt. One block went dark to light from inside out and the other did light to dark from inside out.
When I was sewing up each block, I just tried to keep the background squares as random as possible. I didn't really want too many to repeat within a given block. Then when I was sewing my whole top together, I made sure there were no big background squares right next to each other. I wanted to keep it as patchy and inconsistent as possible in that regard.
Some of my fabrics within the blocks did repeat throughout the whole quilt and some were only in 1-2 blocks. I just used whatever I had on hand. I really really really love this quilt so much.
Alysson (my assistant) and I drove around for about 15 minutes close to my house trying to find a cute wall to take full photos. A lot of times, we will drive closer into downtown Portland but we didn't have the time that day. We ended up taking photos in an abandoned parking lot and then right in front of a sketchy bar. haha
It is fun to see how each wall brings out different colors in the quilt. On the blue wall, the blues pop WAY more and against the white wall, the background fabrics get more of a spotlight.
I sent this baby off to
Jess of Threaded Quilting and couldn't wait to see her work her magic on it. I've sent enough quilts to Jess now, she gets my style. I love dense, small, all over quilting. And typically, I want the quilting to stand up to the design as much as possible. I don't want either to fall away from each other. So if the quilt is kinda in your face, I want the quilting to be in your face. Because this quilt is inspired by picnics, traditional blocks and the 4th of July, I wanted a more traditional design. Jess and I both suggested baby Baptists fans and BOOM, decision made. Jess also took the next set of photos, she is marvelous.
Isn't the quilting just AMAZING?! I love it so much. And I love the strawberry backing I used - it is super fun and will hide dirt and messes pretty well. :)
Because this is the one quilt out of the four I kept, I knew I was okay with two little boys sitting and eating food on it. We saved it for the last set up of the photoshoot and the boys were constantly asking when they could eat the food. It was basically torture for them haha. Also, where we shot there was a playground right behind it but up a little hill. So close enough to see but too far to not be able to really watch the kids play properly. That may have been the worst torture of them all. Woops! But right after we finished shooting, we all went to the playground and let the boys run around and we ate all the food. Win win!
I am also so proud to say that I grew those Strawberries in our yard. My husband made 4 new planter boxes last year and we used one 4'x5' box to have plant 6 strawberries plants, 1 rosemary bush and 1 heirloom tomato plant. The produced just fine last year but this year THEY EXPLODED. The 6 plants took over the entire bed and easily produced around 250-300+ berries. And they were pure heaven.
