January Log Cabin - 3. Cutting and Giveaway!

The next job is cutting the 1.5" strips.  The key here is to cut accurately.  Ironing is a must!!  Use a hot iron with steam and your life will be much easier.
A ruler and rotary cutter makes a big difference with strips, but you can definitely do it with scissors and a pencil.
There are very few straight edges on scraps, but if you have a selvedge, or its been cut well at the shop, you can be on a winner.

Use your straight edge as a guide, and cut from there.
Try to cut with the grain.  Being slightly off grain is not a big deal as with patchwork its all locked into place.  But you must never cut on the bias unless you are told to!!!  This will completely stuff your whole block up.

If you have a geometric print (like stripes)you need to cut with the pattern rather than the grain of the fabric.

So now cut strips.  You need 1.5" strips.  Not too many of them, only about 2m in total length of each colour.

Here is my scrappy block all laid out with the strips.  Doesn't it already look nicer?

And here is my coordinating block laid out the same way.

Pretty right?  The different length of strips is due to the way I cut it off the piece of fabric.  Some came from scraps, some from fat quarters, some leftovers, and some from 20cm full pieces.

Ok - now you need to follow the cutting instructions on the tutorial found here
Essentially you need one 2.5" square for the hearth, then Fabric A has 2.5" up to 11"5" strips, and Fabric B has 3.5" up to 12.5" strips.

When its all cut out it will look like this.

And then you can rearrange to make it look all organised like this....

And if you are feeling game, you can now lay your blocks out - overlapping each piece slightly so you see what the finished product will look like!
Scrap block:

 Coordinated block:

And because I had too much time on my hands today, I decided to do an extra 3 blocks with the leftovers.  These will be giveaways!  If you would like me to send you an already cut out set, please leave a comment below, maybe telling me why you are keen to give this a whirl, and I will draw on New Years Day.  You will save the time of cutting for now, and can concentrate on sewing perfectly.....  Or maybe you can work on finding a 1/4" quilters foot for your machine?

Next post:
Sewing, and the magic 1/4" seam allowance.