I have been working on my Paris Toile quilt, which involves hexagon log cabins. Rather than cut out all the pieces required for the pattern (83 hexagons x 6 strips to go around each one = 498), I decided to strip piece them. I added a strip to the side of a hexagon, then pressed the seam toward the hexagon, and trimmed the end of the strip. The angle of the remaining strip was just right for one end of the next log. I continued in that fashion until I got all the way around. I discovered that this was a very economical way to use my fabric, since there were very few scraps.

It turned out to be important when I added the second round of logs. I had purchased French fabric for the quilt at Road to California in 2008, and found a stripe (see photo below) that I wanted for light logs. I thought I had purchased plenty of fabric, but after I had cut the stripes apart and started piecing, I discovered that there wasn’t enough. Challenge #1 was solved by using another one of the stripes, but that led to Challenge #2: The second stripe was not an allover pattern like the first one, but had trim along the edge. I didn’t have enough to use the same edge to stitch to the hexagon each time (since the method for the first round of logs alternated edges), so I just went ahead and stitched whichever side was up next. Fortunately, the finished strips are narrow enough that it’s not going to be very noticeable.

In the photo of the fabric below, I am using the first two stripes for the outer log cabin row, and the center stripe with the yellow border will become the border of the quilt (I think). Below that is a photo of one of the completed blocks.

French fabric for Paris quilt

One of the completed blocks