I'm two classes in to my First (Modern) Quilt class and have completed a few quilt blocks (see my very first quilt blocks here). It is very much a work in process as I figure out how to place the materials, cut, piece, sew, iron, etc. Our first month/class Deborah had us do a Log Cabin block. Here is my very first one, started in class and completed at home. It is an 18" block with 2" logs and in the cool colorway supplied in class.
My first log cabin block - 18" with 2" strips. The center square is the hearth so I picked my most red fabric for there. I had 1/4 yard cuts of nine materials to work with and ended up repeating them in the last logs. This is not my favorite block as I don't care for the pattern/color placement. I tried to put blue/purple on one side, and blue/green on the other.
Courthouse steps variation of the Log Cabin. Here the sides mirror each other. 18" square, 2" strips. I laid out my material in dark to light - yellow/green on one side and blue/ green on the other. Then I laid them out depending on which had the most left. That is how I got this grouping.
Log cabin with picture frame variation. This one is not complete but will be a 12" block when done. It uses 1" (1 1/2"?) strips. I can call this my humility square (though really all of them will be to some extent) as I had to do some extra piecing of the blue material. My placement was based on how much material I had of each kind. I kept with the same material for the hearth in each of these blocks. I'm going to move away from that tradition in my next Log Cabin design.
Month two and Deborah has us doing the Rail Fence pattern that teaches how to make an assembly line of cutting, sewing, cutting. This is a 12" square (or will be when in a quilt) with 1 1/2" strips of light, medium, dark value sewn together. You cut and sew width of fabric so that after the strips are sewn together you are able to cut them ino smaller squares - I got four squares from each of my sewn strips. You then alternate them horizontal and vertical placement. I had to use my seam ripper quite a bit - sewed the last block of each square on wrong, then realized that two of my strips of four blocks were senw incorrectly (I sewed all four the same, when I should have sewn two the same.) While this wasn't my favorite combo of the four fabrics we were supplied (for Cool colorway), I thought it might work better with my already completed blocks.
The back - seams go every which way. Next time I'll try pressing each seam open.
Detail of how some of my seams matched up Perfectly, while others are very much imperfect - humilty - yeah, that's right...