Home in a Log Cabin

Tonight we had a fire. We took the kids down to the gully in their pyjamas and they climbed trees and old feeders while we talked about our plans for the year, reminisced about travelling days and swapped funny memories.
In two weeks, 10-15 students will join our little community. They'll study a diploma in Biblical Studies, they'll work on surrounding farms to cover their tuition and board, and they'll have time and space to think, ask questions, grow up.
In the meantime, we're working at establishing a good homeschool routine, getting used to living a whole lot more than 30 seconds from the local supermarket, and spending my spare minutes sewing. I think perhaps it was that count down, and all the thinking and planning, that gave me the extra push to cross another old quilt off my WIP list, and an easy one at that, with just the hand-quilting left to finish.

This quilt has been in progress for about 18 months! I made a whole heap of quarter log cabins, inspired by the book Sunday Morning Quilts. And then I laid them on my bed and become overwhelmed by all that movement and colour. I kept just 16 blocks for this quilt, added this wide sashing, and the rest, I made into a lap quilt.
I backed the quilt with a mix of Drawing Room prints, which are home decor weight, and makes the quilt slightly heavier, which I like. I gave it a light machine quilting about a year ago, bound it, and planned to hand-quilt it slowly while still using it on our bed. Well, slowly is the word for it. It takes a long time to hand-quilt a queen size quilt! But oh, I love the effect.

When I lived on my farm as a kid, we lived in 5 caravans, with the plan that my dad, a builder, would build our house on the hill, in parts as we could afford it. The house never eventuated, but Dad built a log cabin annex off the main caravan we used a kitchen, with trees from the property. It was in that log cabin, that we first learned about simplicity, resourcefulness, creativity, gratitude. My dad was a skilled craftsman, and I'll always think of that place as a home, rather than an in-between, make-shift arrangement. I enjoyed thinking back on those days, with renewed appreciation for my dad's work, while I stitched my own log cabins, now in my own farm house.

And as soon as I make the curtains and some matching cushions, I'll show you it's new home on our bed! For now though, you can enjoy it in our beautiful gully.