January Log Cabin - 4. Scrap Quilt

I know I said the next post was going to be about the actual sewing, but it seems that plenty of people are still going with their fabric selection and cutting, so this might be more help.

Crazy old me (blame the preggie hormones) decided to cut out a scrap quilt to sew this month too, just to show how the blocks can be arranged.
It was actually very cleansing in a way, I sorted through all the scraps I had, the stuff I didn't like etc.  I tried to keep mainly to florals - keeping away from medium tones and serious brights, and this was the pile I ended up with.

In here there are some lovely fabrics, expensive etc, but there are also some real cheapies!  Some of these are also 25y old - from when I first started patchwork when I was about 10.  I'll save that story for another month.....

So:

Step 1 - iron everything.

Step 2 - cut into 1.5" strips, and put into piles of lights and darks.  That whole pile turned into this lovely little ensemble.

Step 3: Cut into the lengths.  I'm doing 16 blocks (4 x 4) so I need to do everything on the cutting list 16 times.  Arrange in pretty piles.

Step 4:  Arrange into piles so each block is already organised.  I then hold them together with a pin at the top.  With a scrap quilt you want as much randomness as possible, so you will try to ensure each block has no repeats of any one fabric, or at the very least the repeats are far apart from each other.

Step 5: Sit back and admire.  All that selecting, cutting and organising only took me about 4-5 hrs, and that will make a 48" quilt top which once you add borders to, will be a nice size quilt.  It would sit on top of a queen bed, perfect for naps!

I don't have to cut anything else for this whole quilt now.  Its completely precut!  It might take me 4-6 hrs to sew it, I haven't bought anything for it, and it cleaned up my stash at the same time!  What could be easier :)

You can see that overall there is a strong contrast between the left hand side and the right hand side.  If you squint your eyes, it gives you a very good idea of what the overall effect will be.

Once I have pieced these together, I will be able to show you the different effects you can make with 16 blocks, so if you decide you quite like the log cabin block, you might decide to make a whole quilt from it, rather than using it as one of your sampler blocks.  Its really up to you.


So tomorrow will be sewing shots, and I will help you out with chain piecing, 1/4" and ironing.  Really - once you are at this point, the hard work is done.
Happy New Year!!