Mountain Cabin, Island Batik Log Cabin Blog Hop + giveaway

Welcome to my stop on the Island Batik Log Cabin Blog Hop!  Each Island Batik Ambassador was given a half yard bundle of one of the Fall 2019 collections and tasked to make whatever variation of a log cabin quilt they desired.  I was given the beautiful Catching Dreams collection, designed by Kathy Engle for Kari Nichols of Mountainpeek Creations.  The colors in Catching Dreams make me think of the Blue Ridge Mountains, so I wanted to create mountains with my log cabin. I named it Mountain Cabin.

To get the mountain look, I first thought of a Streak of Lightning setting.  I wanted to use my new gift of EQ8 to design my mountains but my skills with the program are not good enough yet and I had a deadline.  I found a printable coloring sheet and got to work trying to turn the sideways streaks of lightning into mountains.  My husband saw me with the coloring sheet and coloring pencils.  He had a better idea for getting the look of the mountains--I quickly abandoned my sketch and switched to his.  And then he even helped me figure out the orientation of each block so that I would get the lines the way I wanted them. I keep saying if you give me 20 years I can turn that man into a quilter--it may not take me that long!

The bundle I received, plus 2 different 2 yard cuts

Materials used in this project were given to me by Island Batik, Aurifil, Hobbs, Accuquilt, and Schmetz.

I used my Accuquilt Go! to cut 2 1/2" strips for the log cabin blocks.  I chose 10" blocks in a 6 x 6 layout for quilt that is 60" x 60".  That turned out to be the the perfect size for the Hobbs Tuscany 100% wool batting that I had from an ambassador box last year.  This was my first time working with 100% wool batting and I loved it!  It is much fluffier (higher loft) than I expected.  I've been sleeping with this as my second quilt and it's the perfect weight!  I think this may become my couch/snuggle quilt.

I used 18 of the 20 fabrics in the collection and I added 4 fabrics from the foundations line.  Foundations are basics and blenders (and now solids!) that are always available and coordinate beautifully with the seasonal collections.

I really wanted the quilting to mimic the mountain peaks, so I did straight line quilting using my machine's stitch guide for parallel lines. I did a slightly different interval for each color family/mountain range, though I'm not sure the different widths are particularly visible.  For the sky, I quilted organic wavy lines.  My husband thinks it looks like winds passing over the mountains.

I started with a brand new Schmetz microtex chrome needle, 80/20.  I used four different colors of Aurifil thread in the quilting--2735 (medium blue), 2770 (light blue), both from the Como blue color builder, 2520 (medium pink), and 2465 (darkish purple).  The purple was 28 weight just because that's all I had in the correct color; all the others were 50 weight, which is what I use the most. 

Mountain Peak Quilting

You can see the effects of the mountain peak quilting pretty well from the back.  In addition to the half yard bundle, Island Batik sent me 2 yards each of a dark and a light from the collection.  I used those for the backing. The blue print is Sun in Shark and the white-ish print is Beads in Thistle.  I used Aurifil 2735 in the bobbin for the mountains and Aurifil 2770 in the bobbin for the sky--so the bobbin thread isn't completely matched to the backing fabric, but it is close.  I had enough of the Sun fabric to use it in the binding as well.

As much as I love the look of the mountains, my favorite part of this is actually the sky!  The light blues in the collection plus some of the lighter neutrals and blenders from the foundations collection come together to make a perfect sky.

I've said before that the Island Batik ambassador challenges really push me creatively.  This challenge really pushed me technically.  I don't typically care for complicated layouts; if each block that looks similar has only one correct place in the layout, I'm usually not interested.  My husband helped a lot in helping me figure out the correct color placement and orientation of each block, something my brain struggles with.  Then when I pieced my blocks, I used a small piece of painter's tape to mark the center of my log cabin, since the first piece added to the block is exactly the same size.  Later, I used a sharpie to mark the row and column combination so I would piece the rows together correctly.  It worked!  I didn't have to rip any of the blocks or rows!

Want a chance to win some Catching Dreams fabric?  I used my Accuquilt Go! to cut out 2 1/2" strips of the fabric I had left, and I have 30 of those strips for a giveaway. There are two ways to enter: a comment on the blog (make sure you are not a no-reply blogger!) or visit The Darling Dogwood on Facebook--or do both for 2 entries.  If you need a prompt for a comment, tell me: if you owned a log cabin, where would you want it to be?  Mine would be in the Blue Ridge Mountains that inspired this quilt, either in North Carolina or Virginia.

30 strips of Catching Dreams

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Be sure to visit my fellow ambassador Mania to see what she made with this collection!  And you can find the full blog hop schedule here.

Mountain Cabin is my second finish of 2020.  My goal is 52 finishes by the end of the year.