OK. I've had a bit of a play with this today. It's been quite interesting.
I used this method:
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Instead of the strip piecing, I used squares. I cut the batting 2" smaller (so back and front = 6"; batt = 4")
Sandwiched everything together and quilted it (good way to practice MQ, at which I am perfectly useless)
Squared everything up and sewed the seams. Pressed them open and turned them in. Then I used a blind hem stitch to sew the blocks together; trimmed the seam allowance between the blocks and then put the rows together in the same way. Then I quilted the 'sashings' and turned the sides in as bindings. mitring the corners as I got to them.
Results: It works rather nicely. As the batt is snugged up against the seam, there is little or no loss of pudge at that point. It doesn't crease or fold along it. It certainly doesn't after quilting the sash. Of course the backing is the same as the sashing on the front, so this has to be taken into consideration in the design.
What I would do differently: = On a proper project I would take a lot more time squaring and drawing out seam lines and making sure everything lined up. = I would certainly trim off the edges and do a proper binding. Yukky- dah! = I would hand-sew the sashing to the front unless I wanted a stitch in the ditch effect. This would also eliminate the tell-tale double line of stitching on the back. There would still be plenty of seamlines, but with a little careful quilting they should melt into the surrounds like they do on the-old-way. = I would make sure I drew lines on the fronts so that the quilting didn't get into the seam area.
It does waste a fair amount of fabric, but I think a little more practice could cut that down considerably. I don't think it would be necessary to make the top 2" bigger than trimmed size, as it doesn't usually lose that much in the quilting. I might cut the batt a little larger to make the squaring a little easier.
Conclusion: I could certainly see myself using this technique on a hand-quilted project. It could have some advantages in other ways. If a block goes awry when machine quilting, it could be replaced without ruining the whole quilt or having to frogstitch comprehensively. Yes, this method has promise.
Nel (Gadget Queen)