A Log Cabin Quilt

I made this scrappy log cabin quilt a while ago but despite putting some photos up I never actually did a blog post on the making of it. I thought it would be good to share the making process as it is a simple idea and relatively easy to make (if a little time consuming) plus it is a good way to make use of lots of small fabric scraps, so here goes...

I began by collecting all my scraps together and cutting a huge amount of 2" strips, I think the more different fabrics the more effective it looks, I used about 80 different fabrics in total I think. Then I picked out a few fabrics with interesting designs to use for the middle bit of each log cabin square, and I cut some 4" squares out of these.

Then I just started sewing...

I didn't put too much thought into what fabrics to put together, just randomly picking strips from the pile and sewing them together in a log cabin formation...

I kept going until the squares were about 12" wide (this meant circling each middle square 4 times on each side) but it doesn't matter how large or small each block is, as long as they are all the same size. I kept going until I had made 25 log cabin blocks.

Then I just sewed them all together...

That was the quilt top complete then, it was surprisingly simple as you are always just sewing straight lines. Next up, I made a sandwich from the quilt top, my wadding and my backing fabric. I ironed out the creases on the floor and then pinned it all together.

This is my backing fabric, cute little mushrooms.

Then comes the quilting, and this was the time consuming bit. I chose to quilt it using lots of straight narrow lines, in hindsight I might have sewn them a bit further apart as this was quite an arduous task.

I used clear quilting thread which is a bit like sewing with hair, but it is extra strong and doesn't detract too much from the patterns on the fabric.

So then after several hours slumped over a sewing machine sewing straight line after straight line the quilting was complete. Like I said this was by far the most time-consuming bit and I would recommend not doing it like this! Having said that I was pleased with the effect when it was done.

Then I just had to trim the excess wadding from the sides and bind the edges and ta-dah! A finished quilt...

There are many ways this simple idea could be adapted but I thought I would share my own trial and error method. I am currently working on a much more basic design using floral fabrics that I will share when it is completed.