How to Quilt a Log Cabin Flower
This block is quilted with a nice combination of free motion filler designs including feathers, Swirling Water, and Chain of Pearls. Quilt along with me in this new quilting tutorial:
Click Here to find the combined pattern for Blocks 11 and 12. If you work fast your be able to finish your Flower Festival quilt before the end of the year!
I decided to add an extra step to the back of my Log Cabin Flower block. I used my embroidery machine to stitch a quilt tag to the backing fabric. Learn how to do this in this extra tip video:
The advantage of adding your quilt tag to the backing of your quilt BEFORE it is quilted is you get this cool effect of the quilting design running over the quilt tag:
Another advantage of having the quilting run over the quilt tag is slightly sad. There are some people that steal quilts. When a tag is created separately and stitched to the back, it’s easy to rip off, leaving no sign of the original maker. A lot of show quilters will add a tag to the backing before it’s quilted so quilting stitches run over the tag, making it impossible to remove without damaging the quilting.
And yes, I know that date is all kinds of wrong! I was being really hopeful I’d have my entire quilt done during the summer, but that just didn’t happen. I might wait until next July to put it together so I only have to change the #7 in 2017 to a #8!
There are a lot of seam allowances in the Log Cabin Flower Block and if you add the extra machine embroidery, it may feel a little trick to quilt in the flower and background sections.
Just take your time quilting the feather designs in this area. Stitch slowly and carefully and bring your hands a little closer to the needle so you have more control over where the quilt block is going. If your needle begins to sound different – like a louder POCK sound – slow down and try to stitch over that spot quickly.
Sometimes thicker spots can cause your thread to break, but the quicker you stitch over them, the less likely this will be to happen.
My favorite part of this block is the Chain of Pearls design filling in the vase. I quilted over the circles the second time so they stand out dramatically on the quilt surface. But keep in mind that that’s an optional extra step I did just for fun. What can I say, I’m a thread junkie!
Are you planning to embroider the back of this quilt block with your quilt tag? Do you like adding machine embroidery to your quilts? I’m planning to experiment with this more next year so be looking forward to more tutorials like this!
Let’s go quilt,
Leah Day
