Sew Your Stash Series #13 - 12" Lincoln Logs Block!

[Music] [Music] well hello and welcome back to my sewing room today is february 19th 2021 and this is another episode of my sew your stash series and it is episode 13 and it's called lincoln logs block these are my lincoln logs blocks they measure 12 and a half inches right now because they are not sewn into a quilt but they will finish at 12 inches so i've been sewing my lincoln logs blocks for a long time because as you know by now i sew for my scraps and from my scrap baskets so this block is a twist on the log cabin so i called it the lincoln log because you kind of build it the same way as when you play with lincoln logs or you make a log cabin so meaning the traditional block usually has a smaller square when it's a log cabin and then of course all the strips will be different lengths as you go around and build upon that center square but they are typically all the same width in my lincoln logs blocks these i'm using one and a half inch strips and two and a half inch strips in the same blocks and that way i can use up a lot of my one and a half inch strips here's my one and a half inch strips basket and i know that you've seen this really a lot fuller and i'm pretty excited that it's down to almost halfway so i wanted to make this quilt again so that i could you know kind of get that down and my two and a half inch strips i've made this quilt so many times i think the one you saw hanging on the design wall in my opening video was probably like 12 years ago but it's the perfect stash buster quilt it's perfect for this series because i love it because i can use my one and a half inch strips my two and a half inch strips and because i'm cutting these center squares four and a half inches then that means i can use either my bin right here this this is my four and a half and five inch squares so you can use charm squares or five inch square stackers and if you have leftover five inch charm squares like we always do you can easily just put a four and a half inch ruler on there and cut around it to make it a four and a half inch square and or if you don't have a bunch of leftover squares you can use your here's here's one of my five inch strip baskets i don't know if you can see that but that's one of my five inch here's the other one i can just take those and just cut four and a half inch squares from there but for this quilt since i already have a pretty good variety of four and a half and five inch squares i'm working from that bin so that's the center square four and a half inch and then before i um let me just finish showing you my strips that i'm using so i've showed you the one and a half now i've used the one and a half in both of these this is block one and this is block two i'm gonna explain that in just a second and then here's my two and a half inch bins and they're they're pretty full but they're getting down but it seems like i'm always adding to my two and a half inch bins the most and so that's why i love this block so the reason that there's this is block one and this is block two so you start with the center square the same size and then i always add at the top but notice on block one i start with one and a half inch strips and i surround this and then in block two i start with two and a half inch strips and surround it and then move on to one and a half block one i do one and a half and then a two and a half inch round and then end with a one and a half so it looks pretty cool when you sew them together and when you sew them together you don't need to worry about seams you can like you could turn that so that there's no seam if you wanted to or you could turn it so that these two seams line up it's not a big deal i just like how they look like when they're sewn together and i usually alternate block one and block two and um some of these use the same size of strips even though they're in two different blocks so i wrote down my cutting and let me just show it to you so so here's block one let me put this here so that you can get a screenshot you get that whole thing in there so if you're watching this on your phone just take a screenshot so that you can either copy this on you know your copy machine or you can write it down if you're watching it on your uh smart tv on the big screen or your ipad or something like that you know just take a screenshot or take a picture of your tv anyway this is just easy way for you to copy it down and that way you can get the measurements so this is block one as you can see i've lettered every piece and written down how many of each one so if it has a two in front of it you need two of those if it doesn't have anything in front of it that means you only need one to make one 12 inch number one lincoln logs block okay so here's number two and that's the same thing i have still labeled this a in the center because on both blocks it's the same but i went ahead and finished the alphabet meaning on block one this one ended at j so then i just started with k and went around here so that all of these strips had different letters assigned to them so that when i was laying them out on my design board you know i could tell the difference of what was what okay so here's one more paper and what i did was this is what i needed to cut out of my one and a half inch strip basket and what i needed to cut out of my two and a half inch strip basket and if i cut this many of each one of these sizes that meant i can sew one number one block and one number two that just kind of gives you an idea of you know like you need several of the one and a half by ten and a half you need three and four for both sizes so you kind of know how many you need you know a lot more of as compared to others you only need a few and i just when i start cutting i just i just grab my basket and start cutting a bunch of these measurements and then i label them so how i label them on my design board is i use my sew handy stickers right here and so this is well let me put it down here flat can you see that whole thing so here you can see these are a's so here's a bunch of four and a half inch squares are going to be used for both blocks so this is for the number one block right here so this is b c d h i j but before in between those here's the round efg for the two and a half inch strips and so i just kind of lay them out so that i i can kind of look on my paper or you know i go in alphabetical order so i know if i just did an e then i need to do an f type thing and i'll explain that more as i'm showing you how i sell the blocks sounds like it's like a lot of complicate you know complicated cutting but it really isn't um because it's just the width of strips are the same i just grab them and just chop off the length that i need and throw them on the pile according to the marking that i have here so this is everything i need for number two besides an a here that i grab so that's how i have it set up and so that's how i sew from them and it is pretty handy to do it that way and i just love these blocks i love how i can just use any kind of fabrics any style i can use you know very vintage looking fabrics some vintage reproduction prints and move into modern as well this is just you know florals stripes dots games whatever you have in your stash you can even use light ones and then excuse me dark ones and then a few lighter it doesn't matter you can just mix and match i normally don't use my background fabrics in here i use um just like all prints but some with quite a bit maybe you might call that one a busy background but i like how it all looks together i like how it's all scrappy and my advice when you're cutting your scraps is just to do a big variety of colors and then your blocks always turn out great these blocks finish at 12 inches like i say and you can just keep sewing as many as you want and you know until you have a twin size quilt or just a lap size or even a table runner or four of these can go together for a 24 inch pillow it's really a great stash buster okay i think i chatted enough about the cutting and i hope i've explained that well enough and let's go over to the sewing machine and i'm going to sew a number one and a number two lincoln log block okay so here i am at miss dolly and i have my seems so easy guide taped on with my washi tape here's one with pins on it and um i'm going to be using the quarter inch seam allowance when i sew these on and i don't like to use a scant for those of you who have asked quarter inch scheme seam allowance i like to use an accurate one so if you're one that likes to use a scant you can follow the inside of this line but i like to follow right on this line right here when i do my quarter inch seam and so this is the lincoln logs block number one so what we're going to do is start out with a four and a half inch square and here's my a let's see i've done that color i think i want to do i want to do a red so i got these out of my basket and i like to just go like this right before i sew just to make sure yeah that's four and a half inches all right and not just assume it's exactly four and a half inches but um most of the time it is very rarely do i have a problem with that okay so what i like to do with my blocks is start the strip on the top right here so the first thing i need to do is go to my b pile right here and pick one of these to add to the top so what i do is i just try to pick one that is not the same color that's a nice good contrast and that's all i do i just grab one and when i say to the top obviously i'm going to sew it to the side here but then when we turn it it's going to be at the top and again just run it through my machine now normally i would be probably sewing three or four of these block number ones at the same time but for filming i just want to show you how to do one block so i'm using my scrappy strips in between to save on thread and to save on time so with each strip i just go over here set my seam real quick and just press it away from the center square all of these are going to be pressed away from the center square now the next step i want to do is i'm going to add here so i'm always going to be adding turning my block rotating it to the left and that's where i add my next strip so i added this one so it's time to put something on the left so that is the next strip size which is c which is a five and a half inch one and a half by five and a half and so i'm just going to pick something that maybe why not why not do that orange gam and then i just simply lay it on the top here line them up and start adding okay so i think you get the idea of this because i don't really like talking over my machine i'm just going to continue sewing always rotating it after pressing and adding to the left and i'm just going to have you watch me probably speed up the process a little bit and just as a side note for those of you when i speed up the video if you want to see it slower i don't know if you realize this but you can watch it in slow motion so you could slow it down if you really wanted to if you think i'm going a little bit too fast but i don't really think you need to watch me sew the block in real time so because especially what is repetitive is this so again i just set the seam press it and now i'm always going to add to the left so i need the same size strip again for that one so i'm going to repeat two in a row the same size and i'm just going to go ahead and start sewing [Music] okay so for block number one you know that now that you have one round of one and a half inch strips then it's time to add the two and a half inch strips so this is the top this is the last one i added and you can tell that because there's no seams so this was you know i did this one first second third and fourth and now it's time for me to add the two and a half inch strip at the top so that's e and let's see i haven't used the brown yet so let's add that next and i'm just going to continue on now and go ahead and do a round of the two and a half inch strips and then i'll go ahead and end with one and a half inch strips [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] do [Music] okay so here we have block number one finished it will finish at 12 inches when it's sewn into your quilt and right now it should measure 12 and a half inches now i did want to tell you something that i'll probably get questions about so i'm going to try to answer that right now so sometimes when you're sewing a scrappy block like this where you're adding rounds a lot of times a lot of people will just take a whole long strip and just add it around and trim as you go meaning like it's longer than it's supposed to be and then you just stop and trim it at the end i don't like to do that for two reasons one i think it takes too much time when i could just sit and cut out of my my scraps you know for a couple hours and you know put on a movie and do some cutting and then have a big pile of scraps that i can sew with but really the main reason is because i think it makes the block wonky this way i have cut the length that i need and so i know that they're supposed to fit and so that tells me when i'm making a mistake or if i'm not making a mistake i really like how that is for instance this this last piece you know i could pick up a pile that i thought was correct and go to lay it on and realize that that was wrong because it was too short so i like having them cut the exact same way and if you sew your sorry if you keep your scraps like i do in baskets i love that they're already one and a half inches wide two and a half inches wide and all you have to do is chop them off at the ends to cut the correct lengths but i really love how that looks i love that i have newer fabrics in there i think this is a newer one and some really old ones in there i love that one this is one of my favorite prints from my friend pam from pam kitty morning she did this as part of one of her fabric collections and i love making scrappy quilts because it just takes me down uh you know memory lane and i just love how they look so here is block one and now i'm gonna go ahead and sew a block two which is let's see let me grab this so here's block two and you can see that block two starts with the four and a half inch square but then with the two and a half inch strips and then i do two one and a half inch strips on the outside so i'm going to go ahead and sew that in the exact same way i'm just going to do some happy sewing a little bit sped up for you and let's get going all right so i've got my block number two set up here so i can have that as a model and i just need to pick i think i don't think i've done a green center yet so let's start with that and that means i need to pick okay any of those will work why not why not do the top one or i don't know let's do this red one [Music] i'm going to stop right here and talk about this for a second because see how you can see that there's a little bit of green left over here all you have to do is measure six and a half is grab your ruler every once in a while this happens and see which one is correct so can you see that measurement right there i've lined it up right there and i can see that it's correct that the green one is correct so the blue is a little bit short so when you go to add that seam you can just compensate a little bit these are very forgiving blocks so it's really not going to make that much of a difference but i just wanted to show you what you need to do you know when that happens and how you can correct that and you can kind of see that here let me stick this on a design board so you know what i'm talking about so visually you can see that it kind of is a little bit short in there so when i go to add this next strip let me let me pick one and i'll show you what i'm what i'm gonna do okay so let me grab the color oh that's the wrong size strip i can't grab that one i forgot i need to do one out of the same size okay so here's a yellow one so when i go to lay that there i know that this green is correct so i'm going to lay that right there and it's going to hang over just a little bit from this blue because i know that this blue goes under a little bit and i'm going to just pay attention to my yellow ignore the blue and the green underneath it because they're lined up correctly and at this point i usually don't pin as you can see but at this point you know you could if you wanted to just to keep that in place and make sure that it's not gonna you know go anywhere okay back on to my regular sewing [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] do [Music] [Music] all right so here's block number two and i did want to um tell you that when you're pressing you want to make sure to kind of use the side of the iron and not just the tip so that you get all of these pressed all the way back and you don't have any folds and that will keep your block accurate as well so let's go back over here here's another block two of the lincoln logs block you know i could sell these blocks all day i just think they're so fun and as you can see i have oh whoops i have a little strip catastrophe over here but as you can see i have plenty of strips and all sizes to keep me sewing for a while and see all those fun strips so this is how i like to sew i usually take a day and cut a bunch and then i like to like you can see my view here from the sewing room you can see my tv right now i've got just got a fire on it so that um you know there's no noise going but i turn a movie on and i just sew and um it's just therapeutic it's calming i love it i love playing with my scraps i love keeping my scraps this way saving them using leftovers making something beautiful out of my leftovers and relaxing while i'm doing it so one of the things that i've been watching right now is i re-watch this every couple of years and it's on you can get it on prime video right now or hulu i think i think you can get it on both but it's um lark rise to candle candle ford and it's one of my favorite series so again lark writes to candle for it if you're looking for something good to watch or re-watch that's a great one and so i hope you'd enjoyed sewing with my stash um today and with me in my sewing room and i will chat with you later

Channel: Lori Holt

Views: 91,445

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Id: EFkHpyG3Ljg

Length: 27min 34sec (1654 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 19 2021