Log cabin Light and shadow

I have always admired scrappy quilts, So far I have not admired any of my own personal attempts at them. After many hours of work on this latest log cabin quilt, after many different layouts and trying various forms of orientation I feel like giving up. My son, who I can always count on for an honest opinion, confirmed my fear- IT is way too busy, there is no place for the eye to rest. Maybe I am just at the place I go to in the middle of a project where I almost always feel like it is a failure half way through, I hope this is just that- and that I will love it again, once I am finished it will be something I can admire- I hope. Maybe once I add borders and binding it will be fine. I am torn- I was going to make this a really big quilt- Now I am unsure if I want to spend that much more time and fabric on something that I may continue to dislike- How is it possible- that all of these fabrics that I LOVE individually can look so awful together... Not sure where to go from here- Should I continue on and make this beast bigger- Or call it a day and finish as is- This is where I could really use the opinion of other quilters- I think I know where I went wrong- I used to many fabrics that do not read as solids, I maybe should have went in a safer direction and stayed with two colors - or one color in a light and dark. The antique quilts that I admire have two tones or colors- The red and white quilts for example. I love and they are still relevant in terms of style a hundred years later... So, maybe I can take a lesson from this- Less is more- I am a more is more kind of person, so maybe I have to work at taming it a bit- My son said to me- Mom- quilts usually only have a couple different colors in them- and he is right. I really wish I could get some advice as to how to make this garish quilt work- Maybe the right border will calm it down and make it work- This is where I really wish I had some friends that quilt- My MIL is so far away- Maybe I can show her this and she will know what to do. I have invested some of my fave fabric as well as my MIL's scrap fabric bin into this quilt- I have at-least a hundred cabins so far.... Each log is 1.5 inches unfinished- finishing at 1 inch. This was a fair bit of time invested so far- I LOVE chain piecing log cabins- I do a dozen at a time- which makes three whole blocks at once- of the light and shadow (diamond shapes).....

Log cabin star bright and feminine

I was playing around with color, it is hard to imagine myself struggling with color concepts as i have always felt myself to have a good eye, and yet this is what i have been most challenged by. In this example, a low contrast palate that i feared was a failure once I had assembled the blocks, i am always riddled with doubts in the middle of most projects and yet again, i am pleasantly surprised with the end result. I like it, and that's what matters, right ?
I learned a lot during this quilt, through taking risks and doing something different, this philosophy does not always work, but today i am very proud of this quilt and it is definitely the finest thing i have produced to date in terms of quality of construction, craftsmanship, and the fact that it appeals to me. It is so nice to feel proud of something that I have made with my own two hands- It has taken quite a while and quite a few quilts to get here. The straight line quilting looks better in person than it does here in this pic- I could not seem to capture all of the lines in one shot. I tried with a flash, without, automatic mode and mode P. Even the pics of the backing that I took did not seem to show it accurately..... I will have to figure it out.....  I probably would not use that big bold print again in this way- this was what I initially did not like, I liked the looks of the individual cabins- once I put the cabins into block formation I saw how this was not going to work, but I had gotten this far- this is my first log cabin quilt after all, because all of the fabrics are so busy- there is so much going on in this quilt it seemed lower contrast up close- the star was at risk of being lost- which is why I highlighted with bits of white, while the border is still a busy fabric it is in neutral colors that somehow seemed to work maybe because it contrasts nicely in its coolness with the heat of the bright colors... Now I realize how important the binding is in framing the quilt- I had planned to keep the binding in a solid gray tone- then changed my mind when I auditioned this CRAZY busy fabric that I bought long ago- on sale, and it had every color in it that is in the quilt- using this print in the binding- and seeing it in a smaller scale- really changes the whole appearance of this particular fabric- I was amazed..... My other lesson that I learned while doing these blocks- If you have some fabrics you do not like- try reversing them- audition the wrong sides of fabric as well- this gem has doubled my fabric stash in one instant...

LOG CABIN STAR

This is my first attempt at a log cabin quilt. I just came back from a visit with my family and my mother in law showed me all of her finished quilts and i found every one of them inspiring. Mom had also allowed me some time going through her fabric stash. I felt like a kid on Christmas morning, such a guilty pleasure :). Needless to say, when we got home, i could hardly wait to get started on my new project, practicality won when i managed to get us unpacked first. I find i require a tidy space to get my creative juices flowing, sometime the creative pocess can in itself get a bit messy but i try to atleast get started with a tidy environment. The middle of a project can look like chaos to the untrained eye :) it is organized chaos and i am okay with that, it all gets tidied up in the end..
Anyways, mom has made some amazing log cabin quilts, i have to ask her permission to share some of these beauties with the quilt world as they are perfection, she has an eye for detail that is unsurpassed , all her points and seams are perfect, not to mention her use of colour or the hand quilting, OMG, the hand quilting is simply to die for. When i first started sewing a little over a year ago, i had had no idea just how talented this incredible woman is. My appreciation for her quilts continues to grow, i am blessed to have such an amazing teacher.
Anyway, I meant to try my hand at a light and dark log cabin quilt, where the log cabins orientation creates a dark and light diamond shapes. Mom had successfully done some really scrappy log cabins this way that i more or less fell in love with...My goal was to use all the fabrics mom had given me and anything from my own stash that would work....
So i started cutting strips at 1.5" and separated my lights and darks. Then i chain pieced 4 cabins to start. I was not pleased with the look, the fabrics just did nothing for each other, i wanted scrappy, but this was fugly looking. So i changed my colors and went to something a little safer for me- grey / white and navy, with the red center, this was way more to my liking. I chain pieced a dozen in these colors and was pleased. I hate to waste, and i still was not ready to abandon the scrappy look yet, at this point i was using more fabric from my stash, which was not the original plan. Let me just say , the fabrics i had gotten from mom are lovely, but somehow, when i pieced them together it was just wrong. Maybe, if i were to just keep piecing the fugly block would grow on me, but it is a lot of effort to make for something that was looking like it was going to be hideous. I know myself to get easily discouraged and knew how important it is to be pleased with the outcome of something i am just learning. So , the first block i finished was with my safe colours, the grey/white for the light side and the navy for the dark. Then i wanted to play around a bit with more colour and aimed for a scrappier block, again with my own fabrics i mixed it up a bit, there was not enough contrast  and i was not pleased, funny thing is, it sat on the design wall for a couple days and i started to like the low contrast in that the star shape is so subtle up close as the fabrics are so loud that the star disappears, until you stand around ten feet or more away and then the star can is easily be seen. The over all look has grown on me. Now i am unsure as to what to do as far as, Should i make one large quilt? Or make a couple baby quilts or wall hangings?
Not sure yet...
I am really proud of these blocks, it is the first project that i have used my new quarter inch foot for, and wow what a difference, this is the first time things lined up for me as well as they did. Then squaring up the cabins before piecing the blocks , really does make huge difference, i could not believe how much i had ro shave off each cabin, it all adds up...
So many cool things to do with a log cabin, chain piecing is my new bff.