If you think quilting is too difficult or too complicated, you’re not alone. Cutting hundreds of pieces and joining angled seams can be tough work! But log cabin quilting—an artful and simple way to piece strips of fabric around a central square—is different. From the intuitive construction through the straight-line stitching, this style of quilting is simple as can be.

In Modern Log Cabin Quilting, Susan Beal outlines the entire process from start to finish, including basic quilting how-to as well as extensive design, fabric, and embellishment information. Since all log cabin designs follow the same formula, once you master straight lines and right angles, any of the 25 projects in this book are possible. From stash-friendly designs like the Charming Camera Case to more ambitious undertakings like the Vintage Linens Quilt, there’s sure to be a project that will get you into (or bring you back to) quilting!

Check out the book’s flickr pool right over here.

Order the Book

You can order Modern Log Cabin Quilting through Powell's Books, Barnes and Noble, Amazon, or your favorite local bookstore. 

Market Tote Project (page 141-144)

The Market Tote project (page 141-144) has an error on the first page when indicating seam allowance. It asks for a 3/8″ seam allowance, but you should use a 1/4″ seam allowance instead (see photo above). Earlier in the book, on page 31, I had recommended wider seam allowances for certain fabrics (like denim) but that advice was primarily meant for large-scale piecing and quilts (like the Winter Woolens and Housetop Quilts, for example). The incorrect, larger seam allowance ended up in the note starting the instructions for the Market Tote, which is a smaller project pieced more closely. I really apologize for the error.

If you have pieced your Market Tote blocks with the 3/8″ seam allowance, you can certainly still make a sturdy tote bag with them, but it will be on a smaller scale (about 14″ instead of 16″ across) and you’ll need to trim your lining, sides and bottom down to match. Please comment or email me if you need more details and I’d be happy to respond or update here. Thank you to Mary for contacting me about it and sharing her photos of her lovely finished smaller Market Tote in grays and blacks (on the right, above) in the book flickr pool.

Building a Block (page 30)

In the written instructions to piece your first Picture Frames block (pages 28-30), the final illustration of the front of the finished two-tier block was cropped a bit on two sides instead of shown in full, so I wanted to share the complete image here for reference. Daniela Caine and I also made a short video on this basic block piecing technique right over here, if you’re interested.