Craftsy Block of the Month for May 2012

1. Modern Log Cabin Block

This Log Cabin block is supposed to be very improvisational.  There is no measuring or pre-cutting of strips.  The only suggestions were to skew the block so that the centre is framed and is off-centre.

Framing the center was easy.  I used a tulip fabric for the centre and chose to sew a narrow frame around it. 

To keep it off-center, I added narrow borders to the right and bottom of the centre block and added wider borders to the left and top of the centre block.  This was done to the second and fourth borders.

The finished size of this block measures 12-1/2" square.

2.  Wonky 5-Sided Log Cabin Block

This log cabin block is also improvisational and needs no measuring or pre-cutting of strips.

Rotated 180 degrees, it looks like a house!

In the beginning, there was a basket full of scraps.  The two suggestions were to create a wonky 5-sided log cabin block and to give it a scrappy look.

For the centre of the block, I chose to make a house which has 5 sides.  This was my first attempt at creating the 5-sided wonky log cabin block, but it was so small that I decided to frame it.
  

A second attempt to create a 5-sided block didn't succeed because the diagonal cut (green triangle at bottom right edge) was too small.  So I tried again.

For some odd reason, I found it really hard to keep from squaring up the block.  Notice the first time a wonky side was introduced, it was very soon after squared up so that the fifth side was lost.  The same thing is about to happen here.  So it's back to the scrap basket, as I try to finish up the block.

I usually try to maintain some order in the work place, but not so today.

The cutting table looks the worst.

Before attempting to create a truly wonky log cabin block, it looks like this mess will have to be cleaned up and order restored, which may help the brain to function better. Well, that never happened.

Instead I moved right on to creating that diagonal fifth side.  Here is tip #1.
To create that wonky side requires a (brave) deep cut spanning at least a couple of strips.

I realized that in order to maintain the diagonal edge, the two sides adjacent to it has to be trimmed  along its bias edge. This is tip #2.

And Here is tip #3.  When a strip is being added to this bias edge, the strip must be longer than the bias edge, so that it doesn't fall short of fabric when it's trimmed.

Having a bias edge on one side of the block didn't seem to do it, so I chopped off the adjacent edge. and created another wonky side.  And here's how the block ended up.  It finished at 12-1/2" square.

Now here's the really strange part of this entire exercise.  I ended up with a basket that has more scraps than when I began!  Don't ask me how that happened :)

Cheers & happy quilting!