Sunday, December 11, 2011

Sunday is for Scraps

The very first quilt I ever made was a Log Cabin quilt made from blue and mauve cotton polyester -- it was 1976, everyone was using blue and mauve, and 100% cotton was almost nonexistent.  This was long before rotary cutters, so we snipped the selvedge and tore across the width of each fabric to make 2 1/2" wide strips.  As the strips were sewn together, the excess fabric was cut off.  When all the blocks were made, their sizes sometimes varied as much as an inch.  Thirty years later, Marti Michell designed a ruler just for log cabin quilts.  Using her technique, every block comes out square and the same size.  I've been saving 1 1/2" strips to "someday" make a scrappy log cabin quilt.  And today is "someday."

I wanted a larger center, so it is cut 3 1/2" square.


The ruler is designed so the only markings are what you need to cut each "log" for your quilt.  


I began with size "c" and cut enough "logs" to have three lights and three darks on each block.


Here are the first two finished blocks.  This will be my "leaders and enders" project for the foreseeable future.



My blocks are 9 1/2" raw edge-to-raw edge.  That means I will need at least 100 blocks for a bed-sized quilt.  Maybe I should add a couple more logs to each block!


1 comment:

  1. I think most everyones first quilt was a log cabin...me included. I'm lovin' your blog, Ms. Marti!

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