Hopeful Homemaker

I have so many new quilts I hope to make, but I’m also trying valiantly to finish old projects this year.  My Log Cabin Swap Quilt is one that has waited a couple of years for quilting.


Ultimately I decided to finish it with simple straight line quilting.  It seems to be my go-to preference for finishing quilts.  When I first finish the quilt tops I’m really attached to them, and I worry I’ll ruin them when quilting.  My piecing skills are much better than my quilting skills, though I am improving and want to keep getting better.  After the quilt top has hung around for a while, I don’t feel intimidated anymore and it’s easier to finish them.  I need to work on shortening the wait time, though.


Every once in a while I back a quilt in flannel because my kids love it.  I hope my kids will snuggle with and love this one as the seasons change and it begins to cool down.  The log cabin swap quilts were the final swap I participated in for a modern quilting group that disbanded a while ago.  I’m excited to see this one in use.  It reminds me of the amazing women I met there.


None of us know what’s ahead right now.  I keep thinking that I want home to be a cozy, safe place, no matter what happens in the world.  Hopefully this log cabin swap quilt will contribute!


As I type this, I know that many are fleeing homes because of storms and fires.  Wherever you are, and wherever home is, I hope you are safe and feeling hope.  We had a conversation at the dinner table a few days ago, and asked our kids what they’ve learned in the past six months.  Their answer: gratitude.  I hope we all find something to be grateful for today, and every day.  It’s a great way to cope with hard times.

A few months ago I noticed an Instagram post about a sew along for the Jen Kingwell Halo Quilt.  I started one – back in 2016 at a quilt retreat!  After a little digging, I pulled out my blocks… all two of them.  I thought one or two blocks a week would give me a finished Halo quilt top.


I turns out that the chaos of so many scraps was a little too much for me.  Sometimes I can handle messes in my sewing room, but this one made me tense.  So I plowed ahead and finished the blocks in a month.  The only rules I had for myself were a fussy cut center square and attention to value.  Beyond that, I simply pulled fabric, cut and sewed.


I have a word of advice if you’re thinking about making this quilt.  Buy the acrylic templates .

Jen Kingwell is the designer of the pattern , and the templates do two things:  improve accuracy, and speed up the cutting process.  I didn’t have the templates, so I made my own from plastic and hand cut every piece of fabric in this quilt.  After I’d finished about half of my blocks, I was really regretting my decision.  But here we are, in 2020, and I had no idea how long it would take to get templates shipped so I kept going.  It all worked out.


Most of the time I love the process of making really scrappy quilts, like my January quilt .  Though I did not enjoy the process of making this quilt top as much, I realize it had a lot to do with the pandemic and instability of life at the time.  Still, it was good to keep sewing even though it felt complicated.  And now I have a finished halo quilt top to show for my efforts, rather than a box of pieces and a couple of blocks.


Next comes the quilting.  It’s tempting to hand quilt this like so many others have done, but I am so slow with hand quilting.  I also have a long list of hand sewing projects in various stages.  I’m leaning toward machine quilting this one just so it doesn’t take forever to finish.


Either way, I have a finished Halo quilt top!  Hooray!