Long. Sewing blocks to each other

I have no idea why I was putting them together in rows or columns. It is just so easy to get off by 1/8 of an inch here and there which totals a disaster at the end. With pairing, I get to prevent a battle coming up. Polly

Ok, this goes in my quilting techniques notebook. What a great idea. It actually makes a lot of sense.

Regarding those spinning rascals...Lately I have been using your pin trick but I still find occasionally one of them outfoxes me!

Mardi Real e-mail address spelled out to prevent spam. mardi at mardiweb dot com. ____________________

My Quilting page:

Hot dog! I don't think I've ever been a hero. Well, maybe the time I did CPR on an iguana, but that was a long time ago. I hope "pairing" makes your quilting easier. Polly

I did my quilt top that way just this afternoon! It makes the handling of the bulk much easier!

Laurie G.

Polly Esther wrote:

This is the Mary Ellen Hopkins' technique I've been using for years. Piecing blocks by 2's and then 4's is so much easier than making rows. If I'm sashing between the blocks, I add the sashing to the blocks before I sew them together.

Sandy > Let us say that you have finally finished all the blocks and arranged them

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Hi Polly,

Thanks for a great tip. I had never thought of that and have been merrily sewing rows and columns together trying to match all the pieces. This sounds like a much better way.

Shawn

-- mslibra

I do it this way too. But might try Polly's method just to see how I like it! Roberta in D

If I understand what you are saying, I think this is what Libby Lehman does too. Here's an excerpt from "Threadplay" (with some omissions for brevity).

1. Stack [the squares from] each column from top to bottom. (Sheila's note: using the original poster's nominclature, this would be A1, B1, C1, etc in stack one, and then A2, B2, C2, etc. in stack two).
2. Place the first piece from column 2 on the first piece from column one, right sides together. Stitch. Without lifting the presser foot, stich the next pair. There will be a small area of stitching between each pair. Continue until you have stiched the pieces together from column 1 and 2.
3. Do not cut the squares apart.
4. Open the first stitched pair. Place the first piece from column 3 on top of the first piece from column 2, right sides together (Sheila's note: A3 on top of A2, in other words). Stitch column 3 to column 2, as you joined the columns in step 2. Continue addind pieces until you've added column 3 to the chain.
5. Continue until you've stitched all the columns together. There will be small areas of stitches between the columns.
6. Press the seams. Stitch the rows together.

I'm new, so I need every step! ;-)

Sheila

And I was about to say this, about Mary Ellen's method. Forget the letters, just take two blocks sew them together, then the next two, then sew the two times twos together to make four, then sew the fours together, etc. Easy, you can take them off the design wall, sew them, press the seams which ever way (keep this organized so larger squares fit together properly), and then put them back up, take down the next four, and so on.

In the long run it is probably no faster than the columns method, but you never get the blocks mixed up, and you never have long, long seams to sew...until the very last one.

Cheers,

lynne >