Playing with quilting

I have been thinking about having a go at quilting for a while, living in the US now I kind of have to. I did a bit of patchwork when I was little but always by hand, not on the machine. When I saw a log cabin quilt-along come up on a sewing forum I decided that this was the perfect opportunity to get started. Log cabin quilts seem to be universally described as perfect for beginners, each block is made up of strips around a central square. The strips represent the logs in a log cabin and traditionally they have a red centre to represent the hearth. They are usually made with a contrast between light and dark, this means you can make bigger patterns when the blocks are sewn up into a quilt.

I'm not sure I'm ready to tackle a whole quilt just yet so my plan is to try and make some cushion covers for our living room. The quilt-along isn't due to start until 1st March so for now I'm just planning what to do and making sure I have the supplies I need. I have bought a jelly roll (pre-cut 2.5" strips) of the gorgeous Momo Wonderland fabrics, which should hopefully brighten up the very beige room.

This black and white cushion was made from a cheap bundle of fat 1/8ths from Jo-Ann's, just to test out how it all works. I quilted the top by 'stitching in the ditch' (along the seam lines) because I don't think I'm quite ready for free-form quilting just yet. The edges are finished by folding over the backing fabric and stitching it down. I didn't put a zip in this one because I was being lazy, but I will probably try and do that for the next ones I make.