The Log Cabin quilt block is a North American pieced quilt pattern 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. Sometimes the shading is not diagonal, but in alternating rectangles.[1] Traditionally, the rectangles represent logs in a log cabin, while the central square (often red) represents the hearth.[2] [3] Log Cabin blocks have at least three rows of "logs", but can have more.[1]
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. Log Cabin quilts were mentioned in print as early as 1863, with archival examples dating back to 1874. Log Cabin quilts in the 19th century were popular enough to have their own county fair prize category. To support the Union Army, Log Cabin quilts were sold in fundraisers. The Log Cabin pattern expressed nostalgia for settler times when log cabins were more common. Additionally, log cabins were associated with Abraham Lincoln.[3]
In the 1870s and 1880s, shades of brown were popular in quilts, while in the 1890s and 1910s, greys, blacks, and blues were common. By the 1930s, Log Cabin quilt designs went out of fashion until a revival of interest in older quilting patterns in the 1970s.
One popular pattern was the Log Cabin. It had several variations. Two frequent variations were the Courthouse Steps and the Pineapple variation. In the Courthouse Steps variant, a vertical hourglass of rectangles contrasts with a horizontal hourglass of rectangles.
Kate Jackson, a Wasco woman, adapted the Log Cabin design into an arrowhead one to better fit Native American quilt aesthetic. In the American South, a variation on the log cabin design is called a Pig Pen or Medallion. In the Pig Pen design, the entire quilt is a series of larger and larger rectangles that nest inside each other.[4]
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:
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.