Tip! Have you ever started sewing two pieces of a block together, and your machine suddenly chugs it's way through the very first stitches? You end up with a little tangle of threads at the edge and it looks bad, kind of pulled and rough looking. To prevent this, I like to use a little piece of scrap fabric, like a starter piece. I'll refer to it as the leader. I fold 2 or 3 layers together and use the same piece over and over. Begin stitching on the leader, right up to the edge of it (edge closest to you)

Continue in this manner, stopping to check your original block to be sure you are placing the next log in the correct position.

Begin with pieces A and B. Pull them away from the other strips and stitch one A and one B together, RST, using 1/4" seam allowance. I recommend using a 1/4" foot if you have one.

Press this unit, with the seam allowance towards piece B (yellow). And please ignore my photos, where I mistakenly pressed it to the red side because I didn't read the directions. Oops!

Then just butt up your real pieces to the leader, under the foot, and continue stitching. It will look like this:

When all of your A's and B's are sewn together, clip them apart and press.

I don't want this:

Starting with your leader, sew through each unit right up to the edge closest to you. Nudge the next unit right under the foot and with just a bit of space between the two, begin sewing the next unit.

Begin by cutting out all of the "logs" for your block. Using our Cutting Suggestions in the pattern, you will be cutting all of the logs from the Cross Grain (from selvage to selvage). Whenever possible, try to cut all of your logs in the same direction so they all have the same amount of ease. As you saw in the video, there is no stretch at all if you cut them on the Straight of Grain, but you'll have some ease, or stretch, if you cut on the Cross Grain.

If you're a beginner, here are two of our archived videos that are very valuable to watch. The first is titled How to Bind a Quilt, which might seem like an odd choice to insert here. But there are great lessons in the first 2 1/2 minutes that you should know before you start, such as how to determine the grain of your fabric and how to avoid V's in your strips when cutting from a large folded piece of fabric. Plus,once you finish this quilt, you'll need to bind it!

Here's what your block will look like on the back (except for my first ironing mistake - no biggie in this particular case)

Keep adding logs until you have a finished block. Since this is now your standard and guide for the other 19 blocks, take a close look at it to be sure you placed each log in the correct position. Pretty, isn't it?!