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Old 03-10-2012, 06:20 AM
  #26  
Stitchnripper
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Join Date: Nov 2009
Location: Mableton, GA
Posts: 11,198
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Originally Posted by Prism99 View Post
For me, the strip piecing method of Eleanor Burns works best. I tried the Judy Martin way and found pre-cutting all those strips was way too boring for me. Also would not paper-piece this pattern because it adds so much work to the process.

I have not had any difficulty at all getting accurate blocks with the strip method, so it's hard for me to understand what is going wrong for others. I do not prewash fabric (but do test for colorfastness), so the strips I use still have the manufacturer's sizing. These yield more accurate results than prewashed fabric that is not starched before cutting. (I have wondered if this is part of the problem for others.) I also use moleskin to create a physical guide for my seam allowances. This means I can sew fast and still maintain accurate seam allowances. (Just using my eyes and a visual mark does not work nearly as well for me in terms of accuracy, not to mention speed.) Maybe this is the reason my blocks always come out fine?

Also, log cabin blocks are not that fussy in terms of accuracy. There are no points being cut off, for example. If a block of mine were to come out too wonky, I would just use spray starch to "block" it into submission (a la the Sharon Schamber way on Youtube). However, I can say that I have never had to actually do this, and all of my log cabin quilts turned out fine.
I did my one log cabin just this way and it came out great. One of my favorites.
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