Hi everybody, welcome to week 3 of our Into the Woods sew along. I hope you have enjoyed it so
far. We’re coming into the final stretch. Today we’ll be making this log cabin block.
It’s a really traditional block, one that you might be familiar with but I
do have some tips to make it even easier for you. And as you can see there are quite a
few of these in this quilt. You actually need 14 of these log cabin blocks. So
I saved them for last so you could take your time and sew on them and, you know,
just enjoy the process of these because they really do come together really quickly.
And it’s a really gratifying block especially with all these fun prints that come together. So
you’ve already got all of your strips cut I hope. And so now we can just dive into assembling them.
So I like to use either the diagram in the pattern
printed off next to my machine or I like to be really particular on one block and make sure I’ve
followed it exactly and then I keep one block next to me at the machine to use as a guide. And so I’m
going to use this block here since I know that this matches the rest in my quilt. I’m going to
use this as a guide to make sure that I assemble this next one that I show you exactly the same
way. So I’m just going to have this up here at the top of my machine so I can reference it. And then
I’ve got all my pieces stacked here neatly. And I’ll talk through the sizes as we add them on.
So to start out, we are going to have a 1 ½ inch red square and a 1 ½ inch white square. And
we’re going to sew these right sides together with our usual quarter inch seam allowance.
Now I do want to talk just a little bit about seam allowance on this particular block
just because since we’re dealing with these small strips, if your seam allowance gets a
little bit wonky or off, it can become really noticeable in blocks like the log cabin.
So as you can see as always I have my diagonal seam tape here. It has a quarter of an inch mark
all the way down which makes it really easy to keep that quarter of an inch consistent. This
is also a great place to use a seam guide since we’re doing a lot of straight stitching. If you
have a seam guide that you like, there’s a lot of different versions. Some screw onto the machine.
Some stick, some are magnetic. Any of them will work if you have a preference. It’s just,
you want to make sure that you have something there to guide your fabric and keep it consistent.
You might have a quarter inch foot already on your machine that will help you with that.
It’s just something to be mindful of with this block in particular. So we’re going to go ahead,
like I said, and start with our two squares. And we’re going to sew that quarter inch seam.
Alright so I have that first seam done but because of the style of this block
I’m actually going to reset and bring my ironing board closer to me so that I can sew
and press right here from the sewing machine.
Ta dah! This will make it so much easier because I can have my iron right within reach.
So actually what I’m going to go ahead and do is roll this back
and press it. And then now I’m going to follow my block just like this and I’m going to take
my 1 ½ by 2 ½ white print strip. And I’m going to attach it to this side. So my red
print is going to be down towards me. And we’re just going to put these right sides together.
And we’re just going to make our way around this log cabin.
Make sure we’re lined up all the way down.
Then we can roll that back.
Now it’s time to add our 2 ½ inch black or gray in this case piece.
And that is going to go on the opposite side of our red square. So here is this 2 ½ white print
piece that we put on. We’re going to add the 2 ½ inch black piece to this side here. We’re just
spiraling around our center. And the red is the heart of our home. And we’ll press that back.
And now we have a 1 ½ by 3 ½ inch black piece. And we’ve rotated it
once so we’ll add this to the other side here.
There we go. Now we’re back to our white. And because we’re just rotating this as we
go we can see that this 3 ½ by 1 ½ piece will fit right on this side.
Having your iron close to you for a block like this
really does make all the difference so you’re not having to get up and
press in between because this is a block where pressing in between seams really
does make a difference because you want everything to stay accurate and square as you go along.
So now we have 1 ½ by 4 ½. And we’re going to add this to this side.
Roll that back and press.
I do want to point out here, when I was cutting my pieces, I didn’t count to the outside edge of
my peak. I measured to the inside, so I’ve got this little bit of a pinked edge hanging over
but I noted that in my brain since I knew that that’s how I was measuring it. So I’m just kind
of ignoring these pinked edges completely. So now I have a 1 ½ by 4 ½ inch black piece.
And we will add it to this side here. And you can always check because all of your white pieces
should be on one side and your black pieces should be on another. So if for some reason that’s not
how it’s working out you probably have it turned wrong and you just need to reorient yourself.
And now we have a 5 ½ inch piece for this side.
And then now we’re back to the white side and this is 5 ½ again.
I always take a few stitches and then readjust and make sure I’m lined up all the way to the edge.
Press that back.
Alright so we’re coming into our last few pieces. This is our 6 ½ inch white strip. This is the last
of the white pieces that we’ll add. Again making sure I’m lined up all the way to the edge. And
press that back.
Now we have a 6 ½ inch black piece to add. And
press. And our very last piece is the 1 ½ by 7 ½. You should finish on the black side of your block.
There we go. Now we can just give this a nice press.
Ok. Just like that your log cabin is complete. You’re going to make all of these blocks the
exact same way just like we went through here. And you’re going to need 14 of these. You’re
going to have seven at the top of your quilt and seven in a row at the bottom of your quilt.
So let’s go ahead and put some of these together. When I grab my log cabins
and I decide to sew them in rows I’m actually going to make sure
that the black side of the log cabin is always down and to the right. And that’s the same thing
that I tell myself in my head over and over, down and to the right, down and to the right
so that I know I have these laid out correctly. And you’re going to sew seven in a row. Both rows
are assembled the exact same way. So let’s just go ahead and sew these two together.
And then we will just continue adding five
more to this strip. So let me do that and then I’ll meet you right back here.
Alright. So now you can see we have our row complete. We have seven log cabins across.
And this row, you can see, it actually is flipped when you put it on the top. So you have assembled
both rows the exact same way with the black side down and to the right. And it goes
just like that for the bottom row but on the top you just flip it 180. And so then
the black is up and to the left. And that’s really all you have to do for the log cabins.
It comes together so quickly. And come back next week where we’ll put all of it together.