I’ve never made a log cabin quilt! There, I’ve said it. I know, it’s hard to believe but it’s unfortunately true. I’ve always wanted to make one and have made a large half log cabin block quilt (click here for details on that one) but as for an entire log cabin quilt - never happened. Fortunately, I’m an Island Batik Ambassador this year and the challenge for February 2024 was to make a log cabin quilt. Perfect! Finally the opportunity to make a log cabin quilt.

As an Island Batik Ambassador, I’m provided with fabric to use in these challenges and the fabric for this challenge was Woodstock by Kathy Engle for Canton Village Quilt Works.

I’m not sure if they gave me this fabric because they thought I was old enough to remember Woodstock (and yes, I am!) or because I said that I liked bright colours (I’m going with this one ;) ). In any case, it’s a fun and bright collection to work with and I really enjoyed creating the Far Out Log Cabin quilt with it. And yes, I’m old enough to remember when “far out!” was John Denver’s favourite phrase.

Woodstock comes in precuts as well as yardage!

It might seem a little challenging to take a groovy collection like Woodstock and make a project with a very traditional block like the log cabin block with it but I didn’t find this to be the case. I knew that I didn’t want to create a traditional looking log cabin block quilt with Woodstock so I opted for making a design that used these square blocks to create a circular and a diamond quilt design.

Far Out circular Log Cabin block created in EQ8

To achieve the desired effect, I needed to ensure two things:

to have a contrast in either value or in colour in the fabrics I chose. In this collection, there are red, red/green, green, and blue colourways and I decided to group the red, red/green, and green fabrics together (Group A) and use them opposite the blue fabrics (Group B).
that the fabrics in Group A were wider than the fabrics in Group B. All of the Group A fabrics were cut 2½” wide while those in Group B were 1½” in width. When 4 log cabin blocks were stitched together, it created a circular effect due to the differences in the fabric widths.

As with most log cabin quilts, rotating the individual blocks can create so many different and interesting variations. In the Far Out Log Cabin quilt I rotated the blocks to create two shapes: a circular one and one that looks diamond-ish.

There are different ways to construct log cabin quilt blocks and I chose the easiest (for me) technique which was to cut all of the strips to the appropriate length and then chain stitch them together. I found this gave me a more accurate block, rather than cutting the strips as I was piecing them.

One benefit to using Island Batik fabrics was that I got more cuts out of each strip. While I might usually get 4 cuts from regular fabric where there is about 40” of useable material, I would be able to get 5 cuts from the Island Batik fabric which is approximately 44” in width. Nice to be able to make that gorgeous fabric go further!

For more details about how I made the Far Out Log Cabin quilt, watch the video here or click on the image below.

I was really pleased by how this Far Out Log Cabin quilt turned out and I think the vibrant colours in the Woodstock collection were perfect for this design. A great way to modernize a traditional quilt block!

Be sure to check out my Chatterbox Quilt’s Facebook page to see all the other wonderful quilts created by my fellow Island Batik Ambassadors during this Log Cabin blog hop.

Also, go to my fellow Island Batik Ambassadors’ blogs to see what else they’re creating at:

Brenda Alburl ~ Songbird Designs

Renee Atkinson ~ Pink Tulip Quilting

Megan Best ~ BestQuilter

Pamela Boatright ~ PamelaQuilts

Susan Deshensky ~ Lady Blue Quilts Studio

Brittany Fisher ~ Bobbin with Brittany

Preeti Harris ~ Sew Preeti Quilts

Mania Hatziioannidi ~ Mania for quilts

Jane Hauprich ~ Stitch by Stitch Custom Quilting

Victoria Johnson ~ Forever Quilting for You

Connie Kauffman ~ Kauffman Designs