Scrappy Quarter Cabin

Friday I pulled this stack of fabric from the shelves of my fabric collection. These will be the the beginning of my Scrappy Quarter Cabin using the free and fun tutorial by Christina Cameli. You should check it out.

The first step was to cut some of those fabrics into 5" squares. I also grabbed some from my ridiculously tall stack of 5" squares to add some more variety. Pull in the three bins full of scraps and I was off and running on Saturday morning. 

I started sewing strips and crumb strips to the blocks and by lunch on Saturday I had... well, this one block. I haven't decided if this one will make it into this quilt. I wasn't aiming for pink but there it is.

All that careful organization is now this mess next to my sewing machine. I may have more scraps than I can realistically use in my lifetime. It is nice to use some of those scraps in a project. It makes me feel slightly better about holding onto them. 

Here is the pile of trimmings for the first 20 or so blocks. You can get a sense of the color "rules" I"m using for this quilt. At this point I don't know if my strips will hold out long enough to stick to those "rules".

What rules? Well, when I do improvisational piecing I like to come up with a few rules to help the project have cohesion (this is not my original idea, many improv quilt teachers will tell you this). If you look back at the fabrics I chose for the corner blocks you will see grays, creams, minty green, light turquoise and light blue. Then, I pulled crumbs and strips from lights, including yellow and tan. Then I pulled crumbs and strips from blues, greens, and browns in many values. For the most part, I left out reds, oranges, purples, and pinks. Sometimes a little pop of orange, or skinny strip of black, makes an appearance. Of course, if I start to run low on blues and greens I'm going to have to start working with the colors I left out. This by no means a tragedy. In the end, I will have a quilt. It just may become more scrappy than I see right now. I do wonder if I have enough lights to make this work.

Tools and supplies (affiliate links):
Creative Grids 6.5" x 24.5" Rectangle
Creative Grids 6.5" Square Ruler
Creative Grids 4.5" x 12.5" Rectangle Quilting Ruler
Fiskars Rotary Cutter
Fiskars Rotary Cutter replacement blades
Fiskars Self Healing Rotary Cutting Mat
BLACK+DECKER Classic Steam Iron
Grabbit Magnetic Pin Cushion
Fiskars 8-inch scissors
Juki TL-2010Q
Quilt design software: Electric Quilt (used in this instance to calculate the number of blocks I would need for the size quilt I want to make)