Log Cabin Quilt Squares with Scraps

I've been sewing since the age of eight years old, which means I have built a huge stash of scrap fabric. My favorite way to bust that stash is by creating these lovely Log Cabin quilt squares. They're really great, simply because you can just grab any scrap you want, you don't have to worry about color or anything like that, and just throw them together and they look amazing. We actually just recently made one of these for one of the employees at my quilt shop who left and we each made one and embroidered our name in the middle. And she loved it so much, she cried.

So, these are a wonderful gift, as well. And you don't have to go out and buy a bunch of fabric. You can steal from what you have from your stash. So, you can see here that I have a whole stack of two-inch strips of fabric. And they're just random.

There's no rhyme or reason to any of these. They're just what I had in my stash. Some are longer than others, and some I'll be able to use and some I won't. So, I'm just gonna keep those aside. The thing that you need to start with is a square that is 3 1/2 by 3 1/2 inches.

This is what will get you started. Now, in this case, I have a fabric with a direction. There's a cat on it, so I know which way is up. It's going to be very important that you know which way is up because you're gonna have to turn the block to add each piece. So, if you do not have a fabric that you're using that has an obvious direction, like this, you can take a pin and just slide it in.

And this one's a butterfly, so now I know that this is sideways, right? This is upside down, but this is up. But in our case, we don't need that because I've got a good direction here. We're going to take our first strip. Now, again, you don't have to cut these to size.

What I'm gonna do is I'm just gonna turn this upside down, 'cause we're doing the right sides together. I'm going to match the top edges, but, as you can see, I'm overlapping on the side here. The reason why I'm doing this is you can see that this is from my stash so this edge right here is not quite square. So, after each strip that we sew to our middle square, we're going to use our rotary cutter and square it up so it looks nice. Now, the other thing I want to talk about is your seam allowance.

We are using this 1/4-inch quilting foot. It's very important that you use a 1/4-inch quilting foot. I have tried to use my regular foot and just kind of move my needle over so it's, you know, maybe a 1/4-inch away from the edge of the foot, but the whole thing just kinda turns out wonky, so this is definitely something worth investing in. It doesn't come with the machine you have. It's something you have to special order, but your local sewing supply shop can probably order it in for you.

So, we'll slip this guy back on here. And I am just going to make sure my raw edges are lined up and I'm gonna slip a couple pins in here. And, now, I'm going to sew a stitch right down this matching edge. So, I'm starting on the fabric piece that is actually kind of overhanging. I wanna make sure that I get the whole thing.

I'm going to sew past where my block is just a little ways, too, just to make sure that I get it. All right, I've sewn all the way across. I'm gonna pull this guy out and trim my threads. I like to trim my threads as I go so that I don't make a huge mess. So now we have this piece here.

We need to now press it. When you're doing the Log Cabins, you always wanna press away from the center piece. So, I'm gonna move this guy right over there. I'm just gonna set my iron down on top of my center piece and I'm just gonna push away, just like that, so I can get a nice press on that guy. Once he's pressed, we can trim.

I'm just gonna take my rotary cutter and my ruler and I'm gonna line this up right on the edge. So, not only am I lining my ruler up right on the edge of this guy so this continues to be a nice straight line, but I'm also using the grids on my rulers to make sure I'm square with the bottom, as well. So there are several different methods that you can do as you are doing your strips, and I'll show you those as we're going. So, I'm just gonna turn it around this way and we'll line up our ruler, make sure we're square, and then we'll give it a little trim. All right.

So, now, we have our first strip. We're going to turn the whole thing counterclockwise, just like that. I'm gonna grab my next strip and I'm going to lay it on there, just like this, matching my raw edges. Now, I have a seam right here. I can feel that seam underneath here, so when I pin, it's gonna be very important that I pin that seam down.

It's possible, because this seam is away, when I send it through the sewing machine, it could flip and go the other way, and then you get a twist in some of your seams. That's not a huge deal. I wouldn't go seam ripping anything out just to fix that. But it is very helpful if you kind of pin that down so that it goes under the machine the way that you've pressed it. So now I've got some pins in this guy and I'm just gonna send him through the machine as well, starting on the little extra edge that's there.

Now, you'll notice I'm not backstitching when I do this. The reason for that is, when I sew another strip to the outside of this, it is going to sew across the seam. Like here, I've just sewn this across this seam so it's just a backstitch to the end right there of that seam. So, that kinda makes your job easier. Since there's a whole lot of sewing and quilting, you don't necessarily have to backstitch when you're putting your pieces together.

Now we've got a good press on that guy, so we're just gonna do the same thing. I'm gonna use my rotary cutter here, line this guy up, give him a nice little chop, turn this guy over, make sure we're nice and square with the other pieces. Give that guy a chop as well. All right. So, we've got two out of the three.

So, we started here. You can tell because we've sewn across this guy and this guy. So, if you're ever lost, this guy is the one you just did and you're just gonna turn it counterclockwise and we're gonna grab another piece. This one's pretty chopped up on the end right there, so I'm just gonna line it up well out of the way. I'm gonna find my seam right here.

Going to pin my seam so that it doesn't misbehave on me when I'm not paying attention. Gonna get a pin across here, and we're gonna sew this one, as well. Give this guy a press. Now that he's pressed, we'll give him a chop. Now, the other thing I'm doing, now that I've got several squares built on here, not only am I lining up this edge, but I'm also looking to see if this edge is parallel with some of the other ones that I've already done.

Because we do something called Stack-n-Whack, where you take multiple pieces of fabric, you stack them on top of each other, and you cut them all at the same time, sometimes, they're not as precise as they would be if you were doing them singly. So, I always like to just check to make sure that maybe one of these is an off angle a little bit, because I don't want my, you know, square to start looking like this. I want the lines to be nice and parallel. So, I'm just checking this before I cut this. And that looks pretty good, so I can continue on.

Gonna turn this guy around. Again, I've got my edge lined up, but I can see I've got a line right here and it's running right parallel with this piece, so that looks pretty good. I can cut that guy. Remove him. All right, so we've got three pieces.

We've got one more to do our first round. So, we'll grab another piece, and we're gonna line it up, just like this. And now, we're gonna find our seams and we're going to pin it into place. So, now, I've got two seams. I've got one coming out here, so I wanna make sure and get both of them.

So, you can see, I'm pinning the ends and I'm also pinning the seams once we start to get established. Now we're gonna run this guy through the machine. Trim our threads and this extra guy, too. Give this guy a little press. Start at the center and press away.

This way, you don't get any weird folds and you can press right up to that seam. Get a nice, crisp seam right there. Okay. Gonna do my little lining up of things. Make sure everything looks beautiful.

Give that guy a chop. Flip this guy around. Make sure I'm lined up in multiple places. Give this guy a chop. All right.

Now, if you wanted a smaller block, you would be done. This guy is, let's measure him. He's about 6 1/2 by 6 1/2 at the moment. So, the nice thing about this process is you can make them as big as you want, okay? If you just wanted to do cute little squares, this is perfect.

These are really good for memory quilts, too. If you're cutting up somebody's clothing and you don't have a whole lot of their clothing, you can do smaller blocks like this and then just do big white sashing between your blocks. But we're gonna keep going. So, we've made it all the way around, we're back upright, our little kitty face is standing up straight, so we're gonna grab our next piece. We want our sheep to go like that, so we're gonna flip it over, like this.

We're gonna line those raw edges up and we're just going to repeat. First piece of our next round is done. Let's give him a little press. And then a chop. All right, this is the one we've just done.

Gonna do a quarter turn counterclockwise and add our next piece. Now, you'll notice, when I am putting these pieces together on here, I'm leaving a little bit of an overhang, but I have most of my extra piece of scrap coming out on the side here. This way, once I cut, I'm throwing them down here into my scrap basket, the ones that are salvageable. So, then, I can turn around and use them in another square of the same quilt, or even in a different quilt. So, we'll press this guy open.

And when I cut this guy here, after I even him up real nice, I still have a nice sized scrap. See, it's plenty big enough to still use in another square, so I'll go ahead and put that in my basket so I can use that later. This way, you don't end up putting anything in the landfill, I'm an environmentalist, but you also don't waste any of your fabric and you can use, like, the very last little bit of it. This is also great for snowy days when you don't want to drive to the fabric store to buy anything. You can make an entire quilt out of your scrap basket.

It's pretty amazing how far your scraps go. So, you're just going to continue like this all the way around until you have as many strips or as large of a block as you want. Once you're done sewing all of your pieces together, it is important, however, to make sure that you have an equal amount of blocks on all sides, an equal amount of strips, pardon me, on all sides so that it becomes square. Now, it doesn't matter what size the square is, as long as all the squares you're making are the same size. It's just important that they're square.

So, for example, if I think I'm done right now, you can tell, just by looking through my ruler here, that this is definitely not square. This is a rectangle. So you want to make sure and end when you have a square. So, let's just kind of look at what we've got here. You can tell the sides are uneven.

So, I have my center block right there. I have one, two strips on the top, one, two on the right, one, two on the bottom, but only one on the left. So, we need to add another strip on the left. Now, I wanna make sure I get all my seams here. It's really important that you line up the edges really nicely too so they don't fray and come apart.

You could get a hole in your quilt. Guess how I learned that one? So, really take your time when you're pinning to make sure those edges are lined up very nicely. That way, when you give this quilt to somebody, it'll never come apart. All right, so, we're gonna chop this guy.

Gonna make sure I line him up nice. I'm also looking at this one over here. By the way, don't let this grid fool you. I'm not using any of the numbers on here. I'm simply looking at the lines on my ruler and my quilt block.

It just so happens that the cutting mat I am using has numbers on it, but we don't need to pay attention to those. All right, so check it out. We're square again, right? So, you could use this as your quilt block, as well, but we're gonna do one more round to make it just a wee bit bigger. So, we've got two on each side here.

That means we need to start at the top again. Our little cat face is up, so we know we're in good shape. We're just going to line this guy up at the top. Get some pins in here so it cannot move around. Stitch this guy down.

Give him a press. Make sure he's laying nice and flat. Look how cute those flowers are next to the sheep. Love it. All right.

I seem to be having an accidental pink theme going on here. Chop this guy, put him back in the basket. This guy as well. All right. So, we just did this strip.

Now it's over here. Oh good, we've got some blue comin' in here. Get my ruler out of the way. Line this guy up right there. Get a couple of pins in him.

See how I'm always sneakin' down. I always like to pull this end down just to make sure, and then I can scoot it back up. So, another little trick when you're lining these up is if you scratch the fabric downwards like this, it will move, then you can kinda scratch it upward until you know it's lined up and then get a pin in it. That is how we keep all of our raw edges lined up, which is extremely important. Now, you'll notice when I'm pulling the pins, I'm pulling them really early when I'm sewing, but my left hand is holding the weight of where the pin was holding the layers together.

So, as long as I get my left hand on that pin, I can go ahead and pull it. That way, it doesn't run into the little 1/4-inch fin that's on the right-hand side of your foot that's holding all of the layers, or that's lining up all of your layers on the side of your foot there. So, you can pin the, you can pull the pins early. Usually, I recommend that you get the needle as close to the pin as possible. However, in this case, because of that fin, it will prevent your pin from going under the foot.

So just make sure you're aware that your hand is taking over the duties of holding all the layers together before it goes under the machine, and you'll be just fine. All right. This piece is barely long enough. I'll just go ahead and center it right in there. I'm just gonna do a little scratch maneuver here, make sure everything is lined up.

You can see how quickly these blocks come together, too. And, of course, because this is just the same motion over and over again, it's quite cathartic, and it's very quick to come together. There isn't any, you know, critical thinking in this project. It's definitely a nice stress-relieving project, as well. Doing all of the fun paper piecing and things like that with quilting and using the rulers to get everything on point and all that is really very fun, but if you are just not in the mood for anything that technical, this is a fabulous alternative.

Personally, I don't care what I'm sewing. I just need to be on my sewing machine at all times. All right, so we're going to clip this guy and this guy, and then we'll see where we're at. So, I have one, two, three strips at the top, one, two, three, over here, one, two, three at the bottom. One, two.

I need one more and I'm done. So we're gonna turn this sideways. We just used that one, so we'll toss that one. This one looks like it'll fit. So, we'll just lay it across here, matching up our raw edges.

Grab a pin in these guys so they don't maneuver around on ya. I'm just gonna check my seam allowance. Do a little scratch. Pull this over here, do a little scratch there. All right.

Our last side. Press this guy open really nice. And we'll trim our last sides, making sure everything's lined up. Last one. And, now, you have your quilt block.

So, this one is 12 by 12. If I put it here, you can see, it fits pretty much perfectly in the 12 by 12. Now, if you look over here, this piece of fabric is bowing out just a little bit, so when you go to assemble these, I like to just make sure all of those edges are perfectly straight. So, you can kind of sit once all your blocks are done and make sure they're all exactly 12 by 12 by trimming off the edges before you put them into a quilt. My favorite thing to do with a Log Cabin quilt is to put white sashing between all of the blocks and then I like to quilt diagonally this way through all of the squares and then diagonally this way through all of the squares.

You can also use much smaller strips. For example, if you wanna make a cute little pin cushion, you can just use teeny-tiny little strips to do this same thing. Or, if you wanna make something bigger, like a pillow, you can just keep going if you have longer strips. Obviously, you can't get any bigger than 45 wide. Well, I suppose you could if you did the length of the fabric, but that starts to get expensive.

But, really, you could just keep going with this as large as you want. So, now that your scrap stash is all busted, it's time to go to the fabric store. Have fun.