I'm extremely new to quilting and even though I've yet to finish a quilt, I have made quite a few "practice" blocks. I've done both the nine patch and the log cabin and even though the log cabin is more work cutting all the strips I found that it is a much more forgiving block than the nine patch. You don't see the mistakes on the log cabin like you do the nine patch. And as a bonus, the log cabin looks so much more like a real quilt square, like a real quilter.