Hi, I’m Jenny from the Missouri Star Quilt
Company. Take a look at this gorgeous quilt behind me. This is a curved log cabin. This...I
just have to tell you about the log cabin block because, really, this was the first
quilt I ever made, was a log cabin quilt. This one is really special and fun because
it has just a little bit of different pizazz on it and I’m going to show you just how
to do it. So, to make this quilt what you’re going
to need is a jelly roll, which is a two and half inch strip, and a honey bun ,which is
a one and half inch strip. That’s what gives it the curve. So, we’ve got this great square,
here, and we’ve got the smaller pieces on one side and the larger pieces on the other
side and it make this curvy look to it. Now, the log cabin is so much fun because there
are a zillion ways to set this and if you just look up log cabin blocks you’ll just
be amazed at how many different blocks you can, or how many different looks you can get
from this block. I love the log cabin block. So, let’s get started here. The first thing
we’re going to need is a two and half inch square for our center. Now, the two and half
inch square is traditionally, it’s going to be red for the heart of the home or yellow
for the light of the home, and it’s going to be one of those colors. Either red or yellow.
So, I’m going to do mine red. Actually, you can do it any color you want. That’s
just the traditional, old way. So then we’re going to have these little squares, like this,
and we have to start building our logs around them. So, the first thing we’re going to do is,
we are going to take our one and half inch strip and we are going to add logs to two
sides of this block and both sides are going to get the small, the small pieces on them
and how I do this is, I take my little middles and, instead of cutting all the pieces, which,
for me, takes a lot of time, I just take a strip and I sew, I sew all a quarter of an
inch and I’m just going to add piece after piece after piece and sew all one side, like
this, and then clip them apart. So, it’s a really easy way to get a whole bunch done
at once. So, let’s go ahead, and I’m going to sew
these on, over here. Go to the sewing machine and we’re just going to lay this on here
and sew a quarter of an inch and I’m just going to go ahead and sew and then, right
before I get to the, to the end of this block, I’m going to put another one in there. So,
I just slide another one in there, like this, and, I’ll just do a couple of these so you
see how to do this, but I would decide ahead of time how many blocks I wanted for this
quilt and then I would go ahead and do all the centers at once. So, this one happens
to be thirty six blocks and so it makes a quilt that’s about seventy-two by seventy-two.
It makes a nice big square and so it’s, it’s, it’s a pretty good sized one. So, what I do then is, I cut these apart.
When you cut them apart you can either use your scissor or your rotary cutter. I’m
just going to use my rotary cutter, right here, and then you want to iron these open.
So, what I’m going to do is, I’m just going to press them back. Let me scoot these
to make sure you can see what I’m doing here. For the log cabin you kind of come up with
a cool color scheme because you’re going to kind of do lights to darks or you can do
it all scrappy, or, or, you know, really, however you want it. I kind of tend to do
mine lights to dark and that’s just how I like to do it, but that really is personal
preference. So now, we have this one, this one little piece on, and we’re going to
add another log to this side. Now, a good way to remember which log is coming to next
is, whichever piece is fully across, that’s the piece you’re going to sew to. So, I
put that piece on the top and this will make a little more sense to you as I sew a few
more. So, I’ve got this on the top, like this,
and I’m going to lay my other one in there, just like this. If you can get them in snug
enough, you don’t even have to trim both sides, you just have to make a cut between,
but you have to be pretty careful if you’re doing that. Alright, so let’s go ahead and cut these
apart. And, again, I’m just going to use my rotary cutter and slide this along here.
Make a cut. Make a cut. Make a cut. And then we’re going to iron this back again. So,
this is the first side of our little log cabin, right here, and you can see we have two logs
on here. You can also see how this log goes all the way across the top. So now we know we’re ready to add our logs
to the second side and we’re going to start and go from light to dark. So, I’m going
to take this lighter, and a really good way to tell whether your strips are light or dark
is to use your red glasses. So, I’m going to take this lighter one, this is the strip
that goes all the way across the top, and I’m going to lay it right side down on the
edge of this strip and, again, I can go ahead and do the same thing with all of my pieces
and it doesn’t matter if they’re all the same or if you just want to choose light strips
and mix them all up. That’s kind of what I’ve done here; I’ve just kind of mixed
it all up. So, we’re going to sew some of these together, like this, and I’m just
going to lift up that foot and slide that one in and then slide this one in, and I do
really love the scrappy look. That’s one of the reasons I love the jellyrolls
is because even though they’re all coordinating, they’re all a little different. So they’re,
they’re, they come across scrappy. So, we’re going to trim these off this strip and, remember,
if I was making all my blocks, I would just sew down and put as many on a strip as I could.
And then we’re going to iron this piece open, here. And then I’m going to grab another,
a different light for the next block. Now, again, when you look at this, this piece
right here is the piece you see that goes all the way across the top. All of these have
a seam that goes in someplace else, so this one goes all the way across the top. I’m
going to grab this light one and I’m going to put these so that this, this seam that
goes all the way across is the one we’re going to lay down on a strip and, for me,
it falls at the top. You know, obviously, it’s going to be at the top or the bottom,
but I put it at the top, sew it down, like this, and add another and
one more. And I just want to take you through a few
of these rounds because it’ll be real easy for you to see how it goes together once you
just get the hang of it and for me the key is remembering that the last strip that I
sewed on is the one that goes all the way across the block without any interruption
and I hope that’s making sense to you. So, let me trim these off. There we go. Now we’re
going to press them open, right here. Alright, so now you can see, let me move these out
of the way here. Now you can see that I have one side with the two and half inch strip
and one side with the one and half inch strip. Ok, again, just to make sure that you’ve
got this, I want recap this, ‘cause this is a really fun block and it’s, really,
relatively easy. You just have to get the hang of it. So, what you’re going to do
is you’re going to take your little two and a half inch square and you’re going
to add a strip to one side. Then you’re going to add a strip to the other side. So, the next thing you’re going to do then
is add your strips, your fatter strips, your wider strips, to the opposite side of your
block. So, here’s your small block, which is this part right here. Then you’re going
to add you wider strips. Then you’re going to go back and add these smaller strips and
I have one of these right here so you can see. So, now I have two here and two here.
So you’re going to add this one and you’re adding this one. Now, it’s time to go back and add these
wide ones, which is what we’ve done here. Now, we have two small strips, two wide strips,
then you’re going to go back and add your last wide, your last small strip and your
last two wide strips. And so then you get these awesome blocks that are just about this
size. Now, you can make this, you can go on and make them as big or as small as you like.
It’s going to depend on your, your center, but with what we’re doing here, all your
blocks are going to come out right about this size, which is going to be just about, oh,
I would say ten and half inches square. So, just about that size. And then what you’re
going to do is, you’re going to lay them out. Now, we have laid these out so that they make
this kind of curvy thing that goes around and I would suggest that you go online and
look at Curved Log Cabin images so that you can see all the different ways that are there
to lay them out because this is one of those blocks... this is really what got me hooked
on quilting was because, when I made a log cabin, I realized that if you just turn that
block, you know, a quarter of a turn, a whole new something would appear and I was so smitten
by that. I mean, I literally just, that’s really what got me hooked. So, this is a great block. All it took was
one jelly roll, one honey bun, and about a yard and half of fabric for your border and
you’re going to get this great quilt that’s about seventy-two by seventy-two. So, we hope
you enjoyed this tutorial on the Curved Log Cabin block, one of my favorites, from the
Missouri Star Quilting Company.
