Log Cabin Playtime

Written by Diane Harris on September 25, 2020. Posted in Blog, How-tos and Ideas, Trunk Shows

Earlier this month I hosted a Facebook Live for Quilter’s World and Annie’s Craft Store. We talked about making Log Cabins using Block 1 in the Awash with Color Mystery Sampler.

I made a couple of blocks and parts to help viewers understand the ideas I was sharing, and I liked them so much that I just kept on sewing. Then I decided to open up EQ8 design software and see what other possibilities lurked! I was not disappointed.

First let me show you a few of the actual blocks that got me excited about this. Just four blocks, above, and you start to get a sense of where this could go.

Nine blocks means you can see a little more of the design start to emerge.

I had plenty of fun with just nine blocks! Do you see how there is a diagonal split across the blocks, with one side being light and the side being darker? That split across the diagonal center is what makes all these arrangements possible.

Because my mind was working faster than I could make blocks, I turned to EQ8 for help.

Here are some of the potential layouts.

If I made 30 blocks, I could orient them all the same as shown above.

Or I could rotate them so that they’re in sets of four where possible, and the colored halves form squares on point. I like this uneven look—where there are just half-squares—because you sometimes see that happen in vintage quilts. It’s very charming.

I could always do Straight Furrows, sometimes called Fields & Furrows. Simple and unassuming but this setting has movement, always a good thing.

I played around with something more unique, making the blocks form giant signs pointing to the right, or East, if you will.

Then I tried a sort of off-center medallion. Something in the quilt above feels off to me, though.

Then I realized it’s because I didn’t complete the pattern. The quilt just above feels better. Do you see the change I made in the lower left corner?

My maternal grandmother was a quilter. I can’t help but wonder what she’d have thought of designing quilts on a computer! Would she have enjoyed playing with fabrics, colors and arrangements for hours? I think so. I wish I could share this with her!

I’m saving the rest of the ideas for the next post and I hope you’ll come back for that! In the meantime, if you’d like to get started with EQ8, use code EQ8STASHBANDIT for 20% off the software and anything else on electricquilt.com.

Quilt on,

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Tags: EQ8, log cabin, make extraordinary scrap quilts, quilt design, scrap quilts