August's Lotto Block is Log Cabin

The lotto block for August is now known everywhere as Log Cabin, but it was first published by the Ladies Art Company, in 1895, as The Log Patch.

It was later published as American Log Patchwork, again by the Ladies Art Company, then, in 1911, as the Colonial Block, by Joseph Doyle in The Patchworker's Companion.

Finally, in Ruth Finley's 1929 book, Old Patchwork Quilts and the Women Who Made Them, the author identifies the block as Log Cabin . . . and, it seems, it has been the Log Cabin block ever since.

If you have come from the Quilting Forum on about.com, you'll recognize the popular colorway I've chosen for us this month. It started with a baby block shower for one of the members, hosted by me, which was followed by a handful of swaps of this charming bright six inch block.

Pattern Notes

You may make your blocks using traditional piecing or paper foundation piecing technique.

The foundation pattern is found on Marcia Hohn's quilter's cache site here. Be sure you do not have any "shrink to fit page" options selected for printing and that you measure the reference square when printing Marcia's pattern.

I was sure I could go back far enough on the forum on about.com and find my OLD directions there, but search was broken when I tried to find mine or any old swap . . . the basic cutting measurements are:

RED center square is cut at 2 inches
Logs are cut at 1-1/4 inches wide

Whichever technique you use, be sure to begin by adding two COOL logs to the center and end by adding two WARM logs.

Note: I originally had this backwards (in the sneak peek email and in this blog post–if you have made blocks the wrong way 'round as a result, please contact me.

I still have a set of swap blocks from one of those swaps–I didn't manage to make as many as I wanted . . . and I confess that I'm hoping that I'll be inspired this month to add to my "collection" and maybe even end up with enough for a quilt top for me.

But many people DID make wonderful quilts from those swaps and you can find many examples of their quilts online. Here's one made by Stacy, that might inspire you.

Fabric Guidelines

This month, your log cabin blocks should have RED centers. If you make multiple blocks, you may use the same red fabric. You will add WARM colored logs to one side from the red-orange-yellow side of the color wheel and COOL colored logs to the other side from the green-blue-purple side of the color wheel.

The fabrics may be solids, tone-on-tones or multi-color prints that are predominately the color or color group specified. So for example, you might use a solid red for your centers or a red print that has a very small amount of another color that "reads" as red when you look at it from 5 feet away.

You may repeat the log fabrics in more than one block as long as none of your blocks turn out to be "twins."

This month, the BRIGHTER the BETTER . . . but, if you don't have a lot of brights, that OK, too.

Check out the original quilt, made from the blocks from the block shower for Daniel's mom and notice how it is a little different and definitely interesting, perhaps because it isn't completely made of BRIGHT fabrics, like those from the swap blocks.

And, because I can't resist sharing these great quilts, here's one more, with a different layout, made from more swap blocks with borders added by Chimene.

I found all of these quilt photos on Webshots in albums of quilters whose names I recognized. There are more on Webshots that you could find with a simple search for bright log cabin quilt and I'm sure a browse through Flickr would reveal many, many more beautiful bright log cabin quilts as well.

I know things slow down in summer when it's HOT HOT HOT . . . but I hope we can put together a nice set (or two) of these nice bright log cabin blocks for someone to win and enjoy this month.