Log Cabin (quilt block)

Log cabin quilt square made by Janet Reed in Monroe County, Indiana in 1880

The log cabin quilting block is a North American pieced quilt patterns where narrow strips of fabric surround a central square. Usually, the block is bisected diagonally, with one half using lighter colors than the other half.

Background

When English paper piecing started to become popular in America the 19th century, certain block patterns began to be called by different names. Names were not standard, but 20th-century quilt pattern books chose names for blocks while acknowledging they could be known by other names. One popular pattern was the Log Cabin.

Variations

One popular pattern was the Log Cabin. It had several variations. Two frequent variations were the Courthouse Steps and the Pineapple variation.

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  "Pineapple" variation made between 1870 and 1880. From the LA County Museum of Art.
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  Quilt using the pineapple variation of the traditional log cabin square.

Kate Jackson, a Wasco woman, adapted the log cabin design into an arrowhead one to better fit Native American quilt aesthetic.

Settings

The positioning of light and dark fabrics within the pattern created various "settings" within the quilt itself (as termed by Crews and Ducey in their article on Log Cabin blocks). Log cabin settings include:

• Straight Furrow setting: straight lines of dark alternate with lines of light fabric.

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  Straight Furrow setting, c. 1875. From the collection at the Met.

• Streak of Lightening: a zig-zag of alternating light and dark.

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  Streak of Lightning setting, c. 1880. From the LA County Museum of Art.

• Light and Dark: alternating light and dark diamonds.

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  Light and Dark setting, c. 1875. From the collection at the Met.

• Chimney and Cornerstone: a light diamond with a dark diamond within it alternates with a dark diamond that has a light diamond within it.
• Sunshine and Shadow: repetition of blocks diagonally bisected, with the top triangle dark and the bottom triangle light.
• Barn Raising: a small central diamond is outlined in increasingly large diamonds alternating between light and dark.

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  Barn Raising setting by Mrs. Herrick, Massachusetts, 1879. From the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

• Chevron: an inversion of the Barn Raising setting, where V-shapes of alternating light and dark point towards the center from four directions.

Log cabin pattern in literature

In Quilts As Text(iles): The Semiotics of Quilting, Elsley compares the format of her book with the form of a log cabin. Instead of alternating light and dark strips, she alternates readings of textiles in literature with discussions of contemporary quilt groups, which combine to form a larger vision of quilts as texts.

Works cited

• Crews, Patricia Cox; Ducey, Carolyn (2009). "Building on a Foundation: Log Cabin Quilts". In Hanson, Marin F.; Crews, Patricia Cox (eds.). American Quilts in the Modern Age 1870-1940. University of Nebraska Press. p. 90. ISBN 9780803220546.
• Elsley, Judy (1996). Quilts as text(iles): the semiotics of quilting. New York: P. Lang. ISBN 0820428086.
• Kiracofe, Roderick; Huff, Mary Elizabeth Johnson (1993). The American quilt: a history of cloth and comfort, 1750-1950. New York: Clarkson Potter. ISBN 0517575353.
• MacDowell, Marsha L.; Dewhurst, C. Kurt, eds. (1997). To honor and comfort: native quilting traditions. Santa Fe, N.M: Museum of New Mexico Press in association with Michigan State University Museum. ISBN 0890133174.