Dr. Seuss Log Cabin

Done - and I'm quite pleased with the way it came out.  Switching to the red with white dots for the final logs was definitely the right decision.

So what did I learn from this project?

• My trimming can still use some work - mostly in the area of not letting the ruler slip as the best measuring job can go astray when the ruler shifts ever so slightly - step one is to move more slowly. Step two is to spend the extra time to rotate the block rather than try to trim across the top.
• Using a directional print - such as fussy cutting the faces/characters, means that one should plan ahead a little more.  If I were to do it over again, I'd rotate the faces in each subset of four rather than have all of them oriented the way the Lorax is here.  Also - the blocks that have the red stripe at the base of the character stand out better than the ones that do not as those blend into the light logs.

When I trimmed the last logs and squared up the blocks, my logical method failed me. Instead of trimming the red/white dots to 1.5 inches, I trimmed so that the finished block would be the required 10.5 inches.  Somewhere in there though, at least one of the other logs or perhaps the center block didn't get trimmed correctly as a few of the blocks have narrower logs than others, which leads to a little wonkiness on the final assembly.  A better way to do this clearly would have been to trim the red logs correctly and then square up the block.

 Once I finished squaring the blocks, I tried a couple layouts to find the "just right" one.  I quickly confirmed that I didn't really care for the first one - with the four faces of each set clustered together.  Then moved on to a traditional diagonal strip - and while I do like it (and this one is Gus's favorite), I don't feel like it does justice to the characters.

So I moved on to the winning combination. Then also added the striped fabric which I had cut originally for the outer logs on each block.  I thought about using it as sashing - which would have worked for the first layout, but not so much for the final choice.  Unfortunately the strips are a bit narrow to use for the binding, but I think I will use them as a small border and then bind with a solid red.  The backing for this quilt is going to be primarily the black & white scatter print with red accent pieces as early on, babies are drawn to red/white/black combinations.

And let me just say - thank goodness I took a picture of my design as I sewed the first four blocks wrong and had to remove those seams and rearrange to get them going in the correct direction.

Gus then helped to model the final for now product - it is now safely stored with my other works in progress until I reach the lesson on borders.

Close up of the Green Eggs and Ham panels