![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Quilt progress -- Dashing Sashing!
Jan. 6th, 2016 04:08 pmBreak & Coffee after doing two-thirds of my cut & paste homework. I had planned to finish the quarter-scale homework today, and there's just one thing left to do so I'm doing great!
I've also made some wonderful progress on the quilt. Yesterday I calculated all the sashing, cut all the sashing and sewed all the sashing too! ("Sashing" is what you call the strips of fabric between the patchwork blocks. )
I had only part of my original notes, so I had to recalculate everything. I also managed to get my head wrapped around a faster way to sew sashing using what I think is called strip-piecing.
When I was working on my mom's quilt, I cut out each triangle individually. But it's much faster to sew strips of fabric together and cut several squares or even triangles at once, already attached to one another. It can even be done for tumbling blocks! The sashing doesn't have to all be cut individually, it's far simpler to cut five long strips of blue, sew long strips of red between them, and then cut them across so you have long strips of blue-red-blue-red-blue.
This was the first time I did things this way, and although everything worked out fine, please don't measure the red squares because they're not quite square. Things I learned:
- When sewing strips together to cut your sashing from, add a centimeter for wiggle room. Say you need 6 strips of 6 centimeter high, you don't cut your strip to be 36 cm high. When marking the cutting lines, you will run out of fabric because pencil lines are not 0 mm wide.
- Backstitch when your sewing lines cross a cutting line. Otherwise your strips will come loose again. (Use the patchwork programme on the machine if you're lazy.)
Anyway, without further ado, this is the top in its current state:
I still have solid fabric left for the border as well as some of my mom's quilt border. Although 3 of the blocks have some red in them, the red squares are a mite overpowering. I'll see if I can use the red roses fabric in the border to compensate. There's also the question of what to bind the quilt with, I might have the darkest blue with a 45 degree angle where I cut my mom's quilt binding as well. (Both quilts are made from the same fabric, although I bought extra fabric to match it with for the log cabin block in the center.)
Yay progress!
I've also made some wonderful progress on the quilt. Yesterday I calculated all the sashing, cut all the sashing and sewed all the sashing too! ("Sashing" is what you call the strips of fabric between the patchwork blocks. )
I had only part of my original notes, so I had to recalculate everything. I also managed to get my head wrapped around a faster way to sew sashing using what I think is called strip-piecing.
When I was working on my mom's quilt, I cut out each triangle individually. But it's much faster to sew strips of fabric together and cut several squares or even triangles at once, already attached to one another. It can even be done for tumbling blocks! The sashing doesn't have to all be cut individually, it's far simpler to cut five long strips of blue, sew long strips of red between them, and then cut them across so you have long strips of blue-red-blue-red-blue.
This was the first time I did things this way, and although everything worked out fine, please don't measure the red squares because they're not quite square. Things I learned:
- When sewing strips together to cut your sashing from, add a centimeter for wiggle room. Say you need 6 strips of 6 centimeter high, you don't cut your strip to be 36 cm high. When marking the cutting lines, you will run out of fabric because pencil lines are not 0 mm wide.
- Backstitch when your sewing lines cross a cutting line. Otherwise your strips will come loose again. (Use the patchwork programme on the machine if you're lazy.)
Anyway, without further ado, this is the top in its current state:
I still have solid fabric left for the border as well as some of my mom's quilt border. Although 3 of the blocks have some red in them, the red squares are a mite overpowering. I'll see if I can use the red roses fabric in the border to compensate. There's also the question of what to bind the quilt with, I might have the darkest blue with a 45 degree angle where I cut my mom's quilt binding as well. (Both quilts are made from the same fabric, although I bought extra fabric to match it with for the log cabin block in the center.)
Yay progress!
