Remember I mentioned Bonnie's antique Log Cabin quilts, and said I would like to sew one next?  
Well I've started already, and it's so much fun.  I'm going to base my quilt on this one, (photo by Bonnie), and I hope it's going to use up a lot of black and cadet blue and indigo scraps left over from other quilts.

I couldn't start this as soon as I finished Mitchell St, because of work committments, but I did a bit of research on different Log Cabin constructions while I waited.  This book is an oldie, but a good one, and it has a lovely Streak Of Lightning Log Cabin, made with two different blocks

 Beautiful stone wall in that there picture.

 The blocks are made the same way, but with different colouring; in one the dark logs are added first, and the light ones are added last. In the other block the light logs are added first, and the dark ones are added last.  If you study the layout you can see that this means there is a single dark log at the point of the zigzag; if all the blocks were coloured the same way there would be two logs of the same colour there.

Like this;

There's nothing wrong with that, it's just not as crisp a point as the one in the book.  I want to make the same Sunshine and Shadows arrangement as the antique quilt, but I'm not keen on the double logs where the blocks meet;

 Don't like the dark logs joining up like that, and the one below looks like there's too much light and not enough dark.

If I do two different colourings like the Streak of Lightning I'll end up with this arrangement;

but that looks skew-wiff to me.  I know most of you are wondering what I'm going on about, I'm sort of amazed that I can make such hard work of a simple Log Cabin. The quilt on Bonnie's site is so haphazard, she made blocks every way possible, and though I love it, I can't do it myself.   It would take too much effort to be that random.

 But there is a simple solution that suits me; sashing.

I can make all the blocks with the same colour placement, and when they are finished I'll sash them with random dark and light strips.  I think I'll put a tiny spot of colour as the cornerstone in the light area, either red or a cheddar.  Well that's my plan anyway, it may change later on, but it's where I'm starting from.

I found this picture in the archives, of a really intruiging Log Cabin. 

It must have been pieced with partial seams, and it would have been slower than an ordinary Log Cabin.  It looks amazing though, I'm just not sure it would be worth the extra effort.  But I almost want to have a go, just to work out the method;  I think anything is possible with hand piecing and patience.