One of the main reasons for choosing the log cabin design was because two of my grandsons wanted quilts to take away to college. Each wanted their favorite (U.K.) soccer team's colors. West Ham is a very old London Club whose colors are claret, light blue and black/white depending on their home/away strip. I used a rotary cutter, cutting through 8 layers of fabric at a time. The strips are 2.5 inches that were joined with a 1/4" foot. The main thing is to keep the strips "square" and one should calibrate the blocks every so often. It's easy to get slightly off on one block...then another, and in the end you'll discover your seam lines do not match.
I have made scores of hand pieced and hand quilted projects, but since time was of the essence (and I was under contract for Hidden History of Denver) I decided to keep the designs simple. Also, I invested in a quilting foot ($85.00) for my Husqvarna machine, it has been one of the best investments I have ever made. The foot enables the "quilting in the ditch" technique, but also works beautifully for geometric designs. The foot carries all three fabrics (the top, the bottom and the batting) through the dog feeds all at one time. I recommend using a quilting machine needle. The end result is little or no puckering at all.
