A Secondary Benefit to Quilting

Yesterday morning I was starting to stitch down the binding on a quilt, and the method I love best is hand stitching. It's relaxing, and just comes out looking much nicer than when I've attempted to machine stitch binding. So . . . I was on the sofa in the family room, quilt draped over me, cat laying on part of the quilt, great "chick flick" movie playing on the TV, cup of coffee next to me and stitching away on the binding. I was totally relaxed.

My husband came into the room, stood and watched me for a few minutes without saying anything, and finally commented "you get a secondary benefit to quilting - you get to enjoy the quilt before you finish it". He does like to wrap up in a quilt, but usually doesn't pay much attention to the process of quilting. He just knows it is a hobby that keeps me happy and relaxed. But yesterday morning he finally "got" one of the reasons WHY it keeps my relaxed.

This weekend's binding was actually the second one I've worked on in the past week. The baby quilt was a recent finished project. I made the quilt for Jace - the first baby of my god-son Colin and his wife Jackie. I mailed the quilt to them on Monday morning.

The pattern is a log cabin - swirled - with each block made of just 2 fabrics. It was actually made with a jelly roll. It worked out perfectly with just enough of each fabric left to do a scrappy binding. The back is a yummy yellow "cuddle soft" so it will feel so good next to the baby.

While visiting a quilt shop a few months ago, I saw a quilt done this way, but I couldn't find the exact pattern. I'm sure it exists somewhere, but I just didn't find it. I had done a rough sketch in my purse-size notebook so I finally just sat down at the computer and played with it until it looked the way I wanted.

So here it is - my version of the Log Cabin Swirl. Click to download the pattern.