Star Log Cabin Directions

I have had a lot of people ask me how I made the star log cabin quilt. I saw some similar quilt designs online, but not quite what I was looking for, so I dragged out the graph paper and figured out what I wanted. I wanted light squares in the dark sections, and dark squares in the light sections. I did not want stars in the areas where light and dark meet.

In the photo of my graph paper design, B stands for burgundy, L for light, D for dark and W for white. You can make this quilt with any sized strips, but my 2" strips drawer was filled to overflowing so I used those. I cut the burgundy and white from yardage, but the rest was from my strip drawers. The quilt I made was 104" square with borders. I made 64 blocks. If you'd like to make your quilt just this size, here are my notes.

64 blocks- set 8x8

256- 2"burgundy squares- 13 WOF strips
300- 2" white squares (192 for blocks, 108 for inner border)- 15 WOF strips

Lights- approximately 55 WOF strips

64- 2" squares
64- 2"x 3 1/2" rectangles
64- 2"x 5" rectangles
64- 2"x 6 1/2" rectangles
128- 2"x 8" rectangles -all of these will have a burgundy square sewn on the diagonal added to one end to make a star point, be careful, half are tilted in one direction, half in the other. A burgundy square will need to be added to the last light log added to each block, right next to the added burgundy triangle.

Darks- approximately 69 WOF strips

64- 2"x 3 1/2" rectangles
64- 2"x 5" rectangles
64- 2"x 6 1/2" rectangles
64- 2"x 8" rectangles
128- 2"x 9 1/2" rectangles - All of these will have a white square added to one end, sewn on the diagonal, again, half tilted in one direction, half the other. A white square will need to be added to the last dark log to be sewn on each block, right next to the added white triangle.

Inner border- I used green, could be any color

16- 2"x 18 1/2" strips, with white squares sewn on the diagonal added to BOTH ends. They should slope outward, making a long trapezoid.

16- 2"x 18 1/2" strips
20- 2"x 3 1/2" strips, made into flying geese units
4- 2" squares for corners.

This is the beginning of the layout, you will be making four full light diamonds across and down. Make sure to keep the half white stars to the outside.


I don't have a good photo showing the layout of the borders, but perhaps this photo will help.

I think if you look at it will the list of parts in mind, you can figure it out.

I added a 6" border as the final border.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask. I have EQ 7, but I can't figure out how to make complicated borders on it yet. I do have the layout and the block done on EQ 7, but I don't know how to put those pics on my blog. The funny thing is, I really did design this quilt on graph paper first, even though I have designed lots of quilts on EQ 7. Sometimes old school methods just appeal to me more.

By the way, in case you were wondering, I've not noticed any extra room in my 2" strip drawer ;-)