Log Cabin Pillows

Do you ever get a little too excited at those first few signs of spring? While I'm proud to say I'm not one of those weirdo's who starts wearing shorts and sandals in May, I do however have occasional delusional thoughts that as soon as the sun comes out it must mean that summer's just around the corner and I'd better start outfitting my home for it today. But of course in typical Nova Scotia fashion the sun disappears for another few weeks only to be replaced by rain, rain, fog, drizzle, and clouds.
Which perfectly describes today, the day I've finished some summery pillows for my patio seating. I know I should really just stuff them in the closet seeing as how they won't be used for another few weeks, but how can I hide my pretty new creations? (This is what I said to my husband when he asked why the couch was suddenly overrun with pillows)



I've always loved the look of pillows as seating especially outdoors on sunny summer days. After drooling over log cabin patterns in Susan Beal's book "Modern Log Cabin Quilting" and then seeing summery floral oversized pillows on Soulemama, I just knew I needed to make myself some log cabin patio pillows.

As I sat on the floor in my crafting nook, surrounded by piles of fabric scraps trying to imagine patterns I suddenly felt really overwhelmed. Should I do light to dark? Or solid against print? Or pinks vs blues? Aaaah! Too much choice for my slightly hungover brain to handle this morning! I regained my composure and quickly selected a palate of corresponding and complementary fabrics and then set off to sew without planning a thing, which resulted in the pillow in the second photo. After finishing that one I felt more calm and collected and planned the blue & yellow one in the first photo, modelling it after one from Beal's book.

Have you ever wanted to try quilting? Pillows are a great place to start, because well there's not actually any real "quilting" involved but you can get a good sense of the work involved in sewing together all the strips and forming a pattern.