What's on the Design Wall

What’s On The Design Wall: Stonehenge Scrappy Freeform Log Cabin

tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

I mentioned in my post Things to Do When You Have a Bad “Cold”, that I’ve been working on a scrappy improvisational “log cabin” block style quilt. I thought I would show you my progress on the piece so far.

All I’ve done is lay the blocks out for now on my design wall, this is not the final design. I have a name in mind for the piece but I am keeping that under wraps until I see if the final design will work.

Each block is 6.5 inches x 6.5 inches and was made using scraps of Northcott Fabrics’ Stonehenge line which I love, as well as some small yardage pieces of Stonehenge I had in my stash.

The scraps primarily came from this quilt I made a couple years ago:

This was my pile of scraps that I started with for the piece currently up on my studio design wall which include scraps from the quilt above and scraps given to me by quilting friends:

Eventually I decided not to use the Stonehenge animal print scraps that someone gave me (and recently I donated a pile of them to a local charity thrift store so they can be enjoyed by another crafter).

Here are photos of me chain piecing the improvisational log cabin blocks via a technique I learned from Jackie Erickson at the Stitchin Post when I lived in Central Oregon.

Jackie told us in a class I took at the Stitchin’ Post that “log jamming” that is technique originated in Africa – the using of scraps to randomly put together fabric and create a larger piece of fabric, etc.

While writing this post I googled “log jamming quilting” to see if I could find any official history on this technique and found a VIDEO by the Stitchin’ Post about log jamming!!!

If you want to see a demonstration of the technique, here is the video – enjoy!

Jackie has a pattern she sells on making a log jam quilt and here is the link to it: Modern Log Jam.

image credit: stichinpost.com

I have used the technique I learned from Jackie on so many quilts over the years (as well as taught the late Terry the Quilting Husband to make quilts this way also – see post What’s On The Design Wall: Flannel “Log Jam” Blocks) that she holds a special place in my heart (and she is an awesome teacher!).

In her class she would use a shopping bag of random scraps and you just pull from that bag and “jam on” while chain piecing.

Okay I went off on a tangent on log jamming, and let’s get back to the story on this current log jam quilt in progress…

Originally I wanted to frame all the blocks in a cream colored Stonehenge fabric I had in my stash, but it turned out I did not have enough. So I used a smaller brown yardage as well as a couple fat quarters from my stash that I thought would coordinate.

Here are the resulting four (4) types of blocks:

Yes, I have not cleaned up all the loose threads from all that chain piecing I did. But I’ll do that as I sew the blocks together in whatever their final configuration.

For now they all sit on my design wall awaiting my further musings on layout…

Published by tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

Quilter, crafter, obsessive tea drinker and lover of all furry creatures (especially dogs and cats) - join me on my tierneycreates blog as I share stories from "A Crafter's Life".

27 thoughts on “What’s On The Design Wall: Stonehenge Scrappy Freeform Log Cabin”

  3. I do like the outer log arrangement by color idea. I suspect the next challenge is deciding further placement of each block based upon the inner logs. BTW: I noticed your subtle reference to ‘gifting’ your Stonehenge animal scraps – a decision made with a tad bit of angst, no doubt…always strangely hard to part with scraps/fabrics whenever there seems to be just an ounce of possibility you could use them in something!!! So, I’ll say, “Atta girl, good job!”

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  8. I watched the utube clip – and what I noticed was that some of the pieces were “cut crooked” even before put into the block. Your’s seem have similar “crookedness” – how it that happen if after you’ve cut some into the format, they should be “straight edged”

    anyway like the idea, I may try and do more semi- precise “blocks” with my crumb quilts! Which rarely seem to have crookedness

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  10. It looks great, I love this technique. I don´t know why, but I´ve always been too intimidated to try it, thanks for sharing the video and pattern, I think I´ll give it a try 🙂

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