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Pineapple Log Cabin
General Supply Info:
- I use wool pressing mat, cordless iron and fabric starch
- Schmetz universal chrome needles or quilting piecing needles 75/11
- Aurifil 40 wt Mako Cotton thread, is what I sew with, I typically always use white thread.
- Clover Clips
- Sewing Pins
- Design Wall or extra piece of batting
Measurements for the pieces needed to construct this block will not be provided in this tutorial. It is a prerequisite of making this block that you have a copy of the pattern, Long Time Gone. Measurements, where applicable, can be found in this book I will note any mistakes in the booklet however that I ran into when cutting my fabric choices.
This final block (not including the filler blocks) is a foundation paper piecing block, you can however purchase a creative grids pineapple log cabin ruler.
In the shop we are selling the foundation printed papers. I had never foundation paper pieced prior to this block, nor had I had the time to take the ABC's of foundation paper piecing class we have offered in the past. The key to success that I have found is to use fabric glue stick such as the one dritz makes or sewline, and decrease your stitch lengh to 1.5m or 1 if your machine does not do half measurements. You'll have an easier time removing the paper later. I made a mistake on my first block, when trimming, I over cut my last 4 corners and had to seam rip those and redo them. Best advice when you have finished all the piecing for that block, would be to remove the paper and then square it up with a square ruler.
Because there are 16 of these blocks, I'm going to stress that you take your time. You do not need to complete all 16 in a week as foundation piecing is time consuming and you trim after each row.
A lori holt seam roller could also be helpful to cut down ironing time when piecing this block(s).
How to Make the Block
General advice:
- Tolerance Levels: you need to decide what is an acceptable tolerance level for “mistakes”. For example if your blocks are consistently 6¼” instead of 6.5″ are you ok with this. Or if your seams matching are less than an eight of an inch “off” are you ok with this. There’s no hard or fast rule and it’s different for everyone, so remember it’s your quilt so make your decision for you.
- Press your seams at each step.
- You can iron and starch your fabric prior to cutting. I also starch when pressing bulky seams.
- When pinning, pin away from you so that you don’t move your pieces when pinning.
- Where possible I chain piece all the pieces I can in one step.
For this Block as there are 16 total, I have decided to make 12 of them strappy, and the others more coordinating, you may notice I went back and used some of my previously used fabrics (this is so I actually use up my stash.) Something you may want to consider when picking your fabrics is looking at the quilt block layout and seeing which blocks these will fall near, so you can see how much or how little contrast you want. Because this is the last block "block" in this quilt, its now time to start thinking about sashing fabric. binding and backing as we finish constructing this quilt. After you have finished the paper piecing for each of the blocks a a square ruler of the completed size block could be helpful when trimming.