log cabin quilt: block 2

2 down, 14 to go. still enthusiastic.

after the success of the first quilt square, i was anxious to start a second. the goal is going to be 2 squares a week, and hopefully get this thing done in under 3 months. this square posed a particular problem, in that one of the fabrics i wanted to use was very light weight and slippery. this problem will come about again in future squares, as quite a few of them utilize this material in different colors and patterns.

• red silk satin
• gold/ blue silk stripe (the problem child)
• mustard velvet
• cobalt silk satin
• navy velvet

many many years ago, i worked for a brand that tried to launch a men's silk tie collection. they wove up about about 5 yards of various silk stripes for a presentation, but it never panned out so they gave me the fabric. it's far too light weight for this project, so i tired to stabilize and reinforce it with some muslin. there are 2 ways i can think of to do this: the old fashioned way- basting the silk to the muslin, and the new fashioned way: heat'n bond those fools together.

i went old fashioned on this one. which is to say, i cut the strips of muslin and the strips of silk, and basted them (wrong sides together) just outside where the real stitch line would be. then i assembled my square in the same manner as before:

initially, it seemed like this was going to work well, but the final result was not so hot. it was much easier to work with backed in muslin, and i was amazed at how straight all the stripes stayed, but there was many a pucker.

that displeases me immensely. in the next block, this fabric will be heat'n bonded to the muslin. fortunately, there's plenty of it to make this block over again. which will happen, because this color/ print combo is rocking my world.