Stained Glass Log Cabin Quilt Pattern
Click on the file below to download the .pdf.
(You will not believe how incredibly easy this quilt is!)
(You will not believe how incredibly easy this quilt is!)
| how_to_make_a_stained_glass_log_cabin_quilt.pdf |
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Stained Glass Lasagna, Vertical Version
This quilt is so incredibly easy I don't think I need to do process photos. (Step 1, Step 2, etc.) If I'm wrong, let me know. This particular quilt is 48" wide and about 56" long.
Step 1) Cut bunches of 3" colored fabric strips and 1" black strips. (A die cutter can be a good thing.) You have very little control here over which fabrics end up next to which other fabrics, so choose fabrics that look good together as a group. It helps to include lights, mediums and darks. Length of individual strips does not really matter, but I tossed in some shorter strips to make it more interesting.
You can make the quilt any length, but your width for this version will always be your strip width (here 3") times 16. If you can't make the math work for you, try the horizontal version, below. If you want a 56" length, the total length of your colored fabric strips will need to be approx. 56" x 16 = 896". Don't worry if it's a little shorter or longer; with this type of lasagna quilt it doesn't matter unless you need a very specific size.
For black fabrics, cut that same length, plus...a bit. In addition to needing enough black to separate the rows, you'll need enough to put 3" black lengths on the ends of the colored strips, and enough for seam allowances when you join all the black ends together into one long strip.
Step 2) Chain piece one 3" end of all of your colored pieces (except one) to 1"-wide black fabric. Then clip them apart, and cut the black fabrics even with the colored fabrics. (I find it easier to use scissors than rotary cutter, and to cut while they're still right sides together.) No need to press yet. Then sew color to black over and over and over to make one great huge long strip of colored fabrics (divided by black strips.) If you're going for approx. 56" (this will probably not be an exact) it will be 896" long, give or take. When you have your long strip, press all seams toward the black.
Step 3) Now sew your black strips together until you have one long piece. I can't remember if I mitered the pieces together (like I do for binding,) but I don't think you need to -- a straight seam should be fine. To be safe, add a few extra inches. Better to be cutting some off than running short!! Then press.
Step 4) And now for the really, really long bit. Sew the l-o-o-o-o-ng strip of colored fabrics to the l-o-o-o-o-ng strip of black fabric. (Seriously, this took me close to two hours! Fear not, the next step will take half that. and then half again, etc. etc. I strongly recommend a book on tape or a happy podcast, or something to take your mind off how truly boring this part is.) Clip the end so black and colored fabric are even.
Step 5) (It helps to have a helper here to hold one end here.) Take the two ends and match them up. If you don't have a helper, pin or tape the two ends to a table or bed or something. Then extend the doubled fabric until you reach the fold that indicates the middle. Cut here. This will give you two long strips of color-plus-black.
Step 6) Sew the colored side of one strip to the black side of the other. Then fold and cut like you did in the last step. Now you'll have two strips, each with two strips of color and black.
Step 7) Repeat Steps 5 and 6 until you're done. Your last step will involve two pieces of eight colored strips each. I did end up cutting off a few inches on a couple of pieces to keep from having the short black strips directly at the ends of the strips. This will affect your finished length by a couple of inches. But since I wasn't going for a specific length, I didn't think it was important.
Step 8) With a seam ripper, un-sew the black strip along the top so you have colors on both top and bottom. There's probably a way to avoid this step by making a change earlier in the process, but I haven't figured it out. Let me know if you do!
Step 9) Trim edges even. Add borders if you want them, quilt as desired, etc. etc. As with Seattle Streets, I've found that an overall quilting pattern with a medium-tone, very fine thread is least distracting.
Step 10) enjoy!!
Step 1) Cut bunches of 3" colored fabric strips and 1" black strips. (A die cutter can be a good thing.) You have very little control here over which fabrics end up next to which other fabrics, so choose fabrics that look good together as a group. It helps to include lights, mediums and darks. Length of individual strips does not really matter, but I tossed in some shorter strips to make it more interesting.
You can make the quilt any length, but your width for this version will always be your strip width (here 3") times 16. If you can't make the math work for you, try the horizontal version, below. If you want a 56" length, the total length of your colored fabric strips will need to be approx. 56" x 16 = 896". Don't worry if it's a little shorter or longer; with this type of lasagna quilt it doesn't matter unless you need a very specific size.
For black fabrics, cut that same length, plus...a bit. In addition to needing enough black to separate the rows, you'll need enough to put 3" black lengths on the ends of the colored strips, and enough for seam allowances when you join all the black ends together into one long strip.
Step 2) Chain piece one 3" end of all of your colored pieces (except one) to 1"-wide black fabric. Then clip them apart, and cut the black fabrics even with the colored fabrics. (I find it easier to use scissors than rotary cutter, and to cut while they're still right sides together.) No need to press yet. Then sew color to black over and over and over to make one great huge long strip of colored fabrics (divided by black strips.) If you're going for approx. 56" (this will probably not be an exact) it will be 896" long, give or take. When you have your long strip, press all seams toward the black.
Step 3) Now sew your black strips together until you have one long piece. I can't remember if I mitered the pieces together (like I do for binding,) but I don't think you need to -- a straight seam should be fine. To be safe, add a few extra inches. Better to be cutting some off than running short!! Then press.
Step 4) And now for the really, really long bit. Sew the l-o-o-o-o-ng strip of colored fabrics to the l-o-o-o-o-ng strip of black fabric. (Seriously, this took me close to two hours! Fear not, the next step will take half that. and then half again, etc. etc. I strongly recommend a book on tape or a happy podcast, or something to take your mind off how truly boring this part is.) Clip the end so black and colored fabric are even.
Step 5) (It helps to have a helper here to hold one end here.) Take the two ends and match them up. If you don't have a helper, pin or tape the two ends to a table or bed or something. Then extend the doubled fabric until you reach the fold that indicates the middle. Cut here. This will give you two long strips of color-plus-black.
Step 6) Sew the colored side of one strip to the black side of the other. Then fold and cut like you did in the last step. Now you'll have two strips, each with two strips of color and black.
Step 7) Repeat Steps 5 and 6 until you're done. Your last step will involve two pieces of eight colored strips each. I did end up cutting off a few inches on a couple of pieces to keep from having the short black strips directly at the ends of the strips. This will affect your finished length by a couple of inches. But since I wasn't going for a specific length, I didn't think it was important.
Step 8) With a seam ripper, un-sew the black strip along the top so you have colors on both top and bottom. There's probably a way to avoid this step by making a change earlier in the process, but I haven't figured it out. Let me know if you do!
Step 9) Trim edges even. Add borders if you want them, quilt as desired, etc. etc. As with Seattle Streets, I've found that an overall quilting pattern with a medium-tone, very fine thread is least distracting.
Step 10) enjoy!!
Stained Glass Lasagna, Horizontal Version
This one is basically the same pattern, but constructed slightly differently, so read through the above directions first.
(These fabrics are all EXTREMELY BRIGHT hand-dyes I created in a hand-dying marathon during one of our long, gray Seattle winters.)
1) Decide your desired length and width for your quilt. I complicated my measurements here by using 2" black strips between the horizontal rows because I thought my fabrics were too bright to go closer together. But for ease of calculation, let's pretend I used the 1" strips I used in the above, vertical version.
The quilt is 18 rows tall and about 48" wide without borders. Strips are 3" wide. As I explain better in the Seattle Streets directions, when you're using 1" strips to separate fabrics, your finished width will always be the sum of starting widths of your colored fabrics because you're adding 1" of fabric and subtracting 1" of seam allowance.
In this quilt, (if, y'know, I'd used 1" strips,which we're pretending I did) the length would be 18 rows x 3" = 54" Or you could do 20 rows x 3" = 60" to make it a little longer. Or 24 rows to make it 72". Make sense? Now pick your desired length and figure out your number of rows.
2) Follow steps 1 and 2 from the vertical Stained Glass Lasagna. My total length of 3" colored fabric strips needed for this was about 48" width x 18 rows = 864". To be safe, add an extra foot or two. You will end up, again, with one VERY long strip of colored fabrics separated by black, sewn to one VERY long strip of black.
3) Here's where you vary from the Vertical directions. Instead of cutting the long strip in two and sewing both together, cut individual 48" strips. Again, avoid cutting through the short black strips or having a short black strip directly on an end.
And here you're definitely going to want to learn from my mistakes and make your cuts exact! I cut all my strips approximate, with an extra inch or two, thinking it would be easy to trim them down once I got everything sewn together. I was so wrong!! When you're folding the completed quilt and trying to trim multiple layers, the seam bulk makes it nearly impossible to get a straight, even cut! So do what I say, not what I did, and get the dirty work of perfect measurement done when you're only working with one strip at a time!!
4) Once you have all your strips cut to the right length, arrange them in a way that's visually pleasing to you and sew them together. (You have a lot more flexibility in arrangement on this quilt than you do on the vertical version.
5) As in the Vertical version, rip out the seam that gives you a black strip at the top so you have colored fabrics on both ends. Alternatively, in this horizontal version, before you sew the long black strip to the colored fabrics, you could cut off one 48" piece to put on top.
6) If your edges are not even, trim the the quilt. Then add borders if you want, quilt as desired, etc. etc. Enjoy!
MORE QUILT PATTERNS TO COME! KEEP CHECKING BACK!!
(These fabrics are all EXTREMELY BRIGHT hand-dyes I created in a hand-dying marathon during one of our long, gray Seattle winters.)
1) Decide your desired length and width for your quilt. I complicated my measurements here by using 2" black strips between the horizontal rows because I thought my fabrics were too bright to go closer together. But for ease of calculation, let's pretend I used the 1" strips I used in the above, vertical version.
The quilt is 18 rows tall and about 48" wide without borders. Strips are 3" wide. As I explain better in the Seattle Streets directions, when you're using 1" strips to separate fabrics, your finished width will always be the sum of starting widths of your colored fabrics because you're adding 1" of fabric and subtracting 1" of seam allowance.
In this quilt, (if, y'know, I'd used 1" strips,which we're pretending I did) the length would be 18 rows x 3" = 54" Or you could do 20 rows x 3" = 60" to make it a little longer. Or 24 rows to make it 72". Make sense? Now pick your desired length and figure out your number of rows.
2) Follow steps 1 and 2 from the vertical Stained Glass Lasagna. My total length of 3" colored fabric strips needed for this was about 48" width x 18 rows = 864". To be safe, add an extra foot or two. You will end up, again, with one VERY long strip of colored fabrics separated by black, sewn to one VERY long strip of black.
3) Here's where you vary from the Vertical directions. Instead of cutting the long strip in two and sewing both together, cut individual 48" strips. Again, avoid cutting through the short black strips or having a short black strip directly on an end.
And here you're definitely going to want to learn from my mistakes and make your cuts exact! I cut all my strips approximate, with an extra inch or two, thinking it would be easy to trim them down once I got everything sewn together. I was so wrong!! When you're folding the completed quilt and trying to trim multiple layers, the seam bulk makes it nearly impossible to get a straight, even cut! So do what I say, not what I did, and get the dirty work of perfect measurement done when you're only working with one strip at a time!!
4) Once you have all your strips cut to the right length, arrange them in a way that's visually pleasing to you and sew them together. (You have a lot more flexibility in arrangement on this quilt than you do on the vertical version.
5) As in the Vertical version, rip out the seam that gives you a black strip at the top so you have colored fabrics on both ends. Alternatively, in this horizontal version, before you sew the long black strip to the colored fabrics, you could cut off one 48" piece to put on top.
6) If your edges are not even, trim the the quilt. Then add borders if you want, quilt as desired, etc. etc. Enjoy!
MORE QUILT PATTERNS TO COME! KEEP CHECKING BACK!!
