A little Log Cabin quilt

I worked for a few years in a quilt shop whose owner stocks the shelves generously with fabrics known in the quilting world as “1800 Reproductions.”  These are fabrics that companies are putting out based on historical research into colors, themes and designs used by quilters in the 1800’s, including during the American Civil War.  I didn’t care that much for them at first, thinking them too “old-fashioned” and preferring to make my selections from the batik section of the shop.  But so many of my colleagues, not to mention the shop owner, were making truly beautiful and sometimes breathtaking quilts with these 1800 Reproductions, or “Repros” for short.

So I started buying a few pieces — especially the saturated blues, greens, reds, golds and deep pinks — and I soon found the fabrics had their own charm, richness; even a depth to them that was compelling. So I bought more. And then more.

I did quite a bit of patchwork with them, some of which I finished up, but other pieces I put away because I was soon moving on to something else.

Recently, while looking through my stash of “Repros” for some fabrics to make a large Broken Dishes quilt (written about here in an earlier post) I pulled this finished Log Cabin top out of one of my bins and was surprised at how much work I had put into it!  And also wondered why I had sort buried it away.  The finished strips, i.e.”logs,  are only 3/4″ wide, making each separate block finish at 5 1/5″. I’d used dozens and dozens of prints and hues, many of which I’d forgotten I ever had in my collection! So I decided it needed finishing up and of course, it demanded to be hand-quilted.

Now that is is finished I love it enough that I’m thinking of making another one, only much larger. And I still have of plenty of “Repros” in my stash to get me started. I even have small plastic bags of already cut strips (because I can’t bear to throw anything out!) so I could start tonight if I wanted. And then, when I’ve used up my stash, I can go back to Nancy’s shop and purchase so more of these gorgeous fabrics and just keep going, letting it grow bigger and bigger.

The Log Cabin is a common and well-loved traditional quilt pattern, in part because it is so versatile in terms of how one can arrange the individuals blocks (the light corners and the dark) to create a multitude of designs. Traditionally a Log Cabin block starts with a center square of red, to represent the hearth or the heart of the home. But in this version I began with whatever color my hand fell to and let it be as “scrappy” as it wanted to be. 

For the back of the quilt the rebel in me chose a grey and white print by a contemporary designer and because the piece wasn’t quite large enough I added a bar of rust red.

This little quilt measures about 33″ square and would make a nice wall hanging or table-topper.

Price $50.

SOLD.