Big Block Log Cabin Quilt
My lovely local friend GA emailed me with a plea for help. She is staying with her daughter and grandkids while her daughter endures chemotherapy, to help take care of everyone. That’s pure selflessness – and truly shows a mother’s love. Her daughter wants her to make her a quilt while she’s staying with her and chose five fabrics with which to do them:
My quilting Damsel in Distress needed some quilt therapy assistance – and that would be ME. 🙂
She thought she would make a log cabin quilt out of these fabrics, but first needed fabric requirements. They had only bought one yard of each of these fabrics and she knew she needed more since her daughter requested a queen-size quilt. Enter ME!
Of course, there are few things more satisfying to me than helping a quilting Damsel in Distress – so, not only did I send her the fabric requirements, but I also gave her the cuts for the log cabin blocks. Then, decided it may help her if I spent the week showing her how to put her blocks together. It’s what I do – rescue quilting Damsels in Distress!
I sent her the information for a square quilt, but have since thought about it added another row to the quilt so it was queen-sized without borders and just the binding. Here is an image of a basic big block log cabin quilt:
This quilt has 15″ finished and 15 1/2″ unfinished blocks – 30 total blocks. The total size of the quilt is 76″ x 91″. All seams are 1/4″. Always press away from the center block.
Another little tidbit I shared with my friend is that the traditional center block of a log cabin quilt was red – it stood as a welcome to anyone entering a pioneer home….red for the fire in the hearth and the love in the home.
The fabric requirements for the quilt shown above are:
- Red: 1 yard
- White: 1 yard
- Yellow: 2 yards
- Blue #1: 1 1/2 yards
- Blue #2: 2 1/2 yards (includes binding)
You are my heroine!! Hugs
Hello! I don’t know if you’ll see this or not, but I hope so! 🙂 This is kind of goofy, but I’ve decided to make a fertility quilt for my husband and I. I’m tired of counting days and taking temperatures and I don’t want to stress over stuff like that, so instead I decided to do something fun and enjoyable for us. I don’t actually believe in superstitious things, it’s just a fun excuse to try out quilting for the first time.
I decided on a log cabin pattern because I have a little trouble getting corners to match up, and most of the seams on this pattern don’t have that issue! I didn’t want to spend an eternity cutting and sewing tiny little logs for our king size bed, so I searched for large log cabin quits and viola, I found your most wonderful blog!
My question is how to make this (wonderfully oversized) pattern in to a king size quilt? How many more blocks do I need, and how do I figure out how much more fabric I need? If I don’t hear from you I’ll just fly by the seat of my pants, but if you could clue me in that would help a lot. 🙂 Thank you!
Your comment made me smile – having fun is what quilting and kids is all about! There are more and more questions that you need to answer before you can decide on a size for a King-sized quilt. How do you want it to fit on your bed? Do you want it to just cover the top? Cover the top and down to one mattress on the sides? Cover the top and two mattresses on the sides? Or cover everything down to the floor. In thinking about my answer, I deducted that perhaps you would only want a Queen-sized quilt – more snuggles under a bit of a smaller quilt. Plus, the blocks can all easily be seen if you are standing near it or lying under it. It may, in fact, cover the entire top if you add a border or two, as well. Ah yes, answering questions with more questions – I learned that from my professorial ex-teacher husband!
Waiting for the cutting instructions
Cynthia: Everything you need is already online. You should be able to click on this link to get to them: http://quilttherapy.com/?s=big+block+log
If that does not work, find the search box (far right column on the page) and put in “big block log” (no quotes) and all of the blog posts about that design will come up for you. Quilted Blessings!