Strip Sashing My QAYG: The Something NEW Sampler: Completed

and here it is

 

my finished Something NEW Sampler Quilt

hosted by Amy @the cute life

The first thing I did was try a few colours for the sashing deciding on Kona Robin Egg; here are my ideas and thoughts:

 I haven't done QAYG before, so I read some posts and watched some videos online and then I thought about it all for a day or so. I couldn't get to grips with how the blocks would actually be joined. It seemed that the batting would remain in separate pieces - it would be butted up to itself, but it wouldn't be physically joined. This worried me; in fact, it bothered me a lot, so I decided to ignore everything I'd read and seen and join the blocks together in my own way.

And here's how I did it:

I cut the 10 blocks to size and then zigzagged each row of blocks together - so 5 sets of 2. I didn't worry whether or not the zigzag caught the top and backing fabric. I knew this would all be enclosed in the sashing strips anyway - the objective here was purely to join all the batting and create a solid quilt from the 10 blocks.

a zigzagged top join

Two zigzagged rows - you can see on the top left that the quilt top hasn't been caught into the zigzag stitch.

Now I need to cover each of these short joining seams. I decided that there was so much stitching already visible on these blocks that an additional row of straight stitching wasn't going to 'spoil' the look of the finished quilt - also, I really wasn't up for hand stitching all these joining strips into place.

For the quilt back, I cut each strip 1.5" wide, folded it in half, pressed it, then opened it out and folded each outside edge in to touch the central pressed line and pressed again. The photo below shows a folded and pressed finished strip, and a narrow strip is sewn into place. The width of this strip, when pressed and finished, is 3/4". I then straight line machine-sewed both edges of this strip onto the back of the quilt using a 1/8" border along the joined zigzag seam to cover the join. The two stitching lines showed through on the quilt top, but these would be covered on the top side by the broader strip that I added next.


For the quilt top, I cut 2" wide strips, which I again folded in half, pressed, opened, folded the edges into the central line and repressed. This gave me a finished 1" strip which I sewed along the zigzag seam on the top of the quilt to cover the join. As this strip was 1/4" wider than the backing strip, it covered the stitch lines easily. Again, I stitched 1/8" from both edges.

And that's how the finished top strip looks.

 Here's a look at the quilt back so you can see how the stitch lines show through from the front joining strip (one of the stitch lines is the straight line on the circle fabric just below the blue strip, and the other is totally lost in the stitching on the duck fabric):

 

I don't know about you, but I can live with those extra lines of straight stitching rather than doing lots of hand stitching on this quilt, and after all, this quilt is all about machine stitching.

Next, I zigzagged each row of 2 blocks to the next row.

Here are all the blocks zigzagged together - Quilt Top

and Quilt Back

At this stage, I realised that I hadn't needed to add the joining strips a row at a time using my method. I could much more easily have added one long joining strip to the back and then the top, and this would have ensured that the stripline ran much straighter down the length of the top and the back.

Since joining the blocks, I've been told by my friend Annette, who does a lot of QAYG quilting, that there is a QAYG method where you can add the joining strips from the back of each strip using a zigzag stitch that joins the blocks together securely and the machine stitching isn't visible from the front. This method sounds great, but I didn't come across it on the internet (if anyone knows where I can find a tutorial, please let me know) - all the methods I saw used straight stitch only.

By now, I'd also had enough of pressing the strips and remembered a tool that my quilt tutor, Christine Janove, had shown me a year or so ago, Clover Bias Tape Makers. These great little tools make bias strips, which basically is what we are making to cover the joins on a QAYG quilt, and they are so straightforward and quick. I was straight down to my LQS and purchased a red 3/4" and yellow 1" (NB: the measurement for each tool is the width of the finished bias tape it makes, not the original fabric strip width).

Here's how they work for anyone who hasn't seen these before. The remainder of the job was done in a couple of minutes.

Feed-in the fabric strip

The fabric comes out at the other end perfectly folded in half with a central seam.

Pull the handle on the tape maker to move it along the fabric and follow with a hot iron over the folded fabric pressing the folds into place.

It takes seconds!!!

So all that was left to do was add the horizontal seams, square up the quilt, and machine bind it, and here it is:

and here's some behind the scenes shots of my faithful quilting assistant

Tatty straightening the quilt ready for the photoshoot

Tatty says, "That's A Wrap."

Not sure what I'm going to do with the quilt now - it's not a snuggly, cuddly quilt; two of the blocks are pretty thick, making them less flexible - Cathedral Window and the Folded blocks. It lends itself more to being a play mat or wall hanging; Flicky says it looked like a bath mat, and today when I had it rolled up to take out for the shoot, it looked rather like a beach mat. Maybe I should give it to Tatty; she seems pretty happy lying on it; what do you think?

I've had a complete blast taking part in The Something NEW Sampler blog hop, I've learnt loads, made new friends, and it's been lots of fun. I'd like to say a huge thank you to Amy, Heidi, Chelsea, Jess, Lindsay, M-R, Heidi, Alyssa and Becky for their excellent tutorials and an extra-special thank you to Amy @the cute life for organising the Hop and Flickr group.

Thanks, everyone :)
You can follow The Something NEW Sampler on Flickr.

Featured On:

Clicking on an image will take you to a new page of crafty goodness :)

Disclosure: 

This post contains Amazon and Craftsy affiliate links for which I am paid compensation on click-through purchases (at no additional cost to you). Otherwise, the post is for informational purposes only, and all opinions are my own.

Copyright: 

No portion of this site may be reproduced in any format without written permission from the site owner, Chris Dodsley @made by ChrissieD.
Uncredited reproduction of all content, text and images on this site is prohibited. 
Once written permission is granted, all content, text and images must be credited to Chris Dodsley @made by ChrissieD and include a link back to the relevant page on this site.

Follow

Related Posts:

A Modern Bargello - The Something NEW Sampler: Week 1
Scraptastic & Folded Blocks - The Something New Sampler: Week 2
Reverse Applique & Sashiko Blocks -The Something New Sampler: Week 3
Trapunto & Pinless Curve Blocks - The Something NEW Sampler: Week 4
Machine Applique and Cathedral Windows Blocks - The Something NEW Sampler: Week 5
Selvedge Block and QAYG Quilting - The Something NEW Sampler: Week 6
Strip Sashing My QAYG: The Something NEW Sampler: Completed
Voting Is Now Open - The Something NEW Sampler
A Quick Reminder - Something NEW Sampler Quilt Voting Now Open
Voting Has Closed - The Something NEW Sampler: Winners

Machine Applique and Cathedral Windows Blocks - The Something NEW Sampler: Week 5

Blocks 7 and 9 on

hosted by Amy @the cute life

  
So much progress made this week :)


Block 7 - Cathedral Windows by Heidi @Fabric Mutt

 I put off making this block to the last as the instructions looked complex and there was quite a bit of prep work.  Once I started I realised it's not difficult, it's just time consuming - fabric origami.

The finished top

The QAYG finished back

It did take a long time to put this block together - there's lots of cutting and pressing but even though it's not perfect by any means I'm so thrilled with the final block it makes all the effort well worth it.

Here's how I did it/what I learnt:

• I only used a cardboard template for the first 'window' but after that I scored a 1/2" line along each edge of the background fabric squares using my Clover Hera Marker instead as this creates a crisp line in the fabric that folds willingly for ironing.
• I glued along the full length of each fabric seam (not just the corners) using my Aleene's Fast Drying Tacky Glue pen.
• I used basting spray to attach all 18 fabric squares to the 'windows', I didn't sew any of these squares in place.
• I followed Heidi's instructions directly alongside these Moda Bakeshop instructions and I did all sewing on the machine instead of by hand as directed in the Moda post.
• During the folding and pressing stage I wanted to give up as my 'windows' weren't even and most folded sections overlapped or didn't meet up at all and I thought this would ruin the finish.  In the end I decided 'what the heck' and carried on anyway.  Once the pieces were all sewn together none of it mattered that much so if you're feeling the same way hang on in there!!!  Be sure to follow Moda's tip that on the first fold in you need to get the outer corners lined up perfectly regardless of what state the centre's in and on the second fold in you need to get the centre corner edges to line up perfectly regardless of what state the outside corners are in (don't panic - it makes sense when you actually doing it).
• The cut edge corners of each square of fabric that you place in the windows are very likely to be visible and in the final finish you can see that these edges aren't hemmed.  I don't know how long these corners will last without fraying, time will tell.  
• Adding the finished borders takes away 1/4" of the window edges so don't worry at all if the 'petals' don't point correctly at the outside edge - this won't be visible once the borders are added.
• The best bit of all is when you start to fold and sew back the petal edges.  You immediately understand why people make these windows.  This part is actually very easy and so exciting just be sure to follow Moda's instructions to "show the fabric who's in charge" and sew an anchoring cross in the centre of each window to help here.

Of course, I'm now doing this as a QAYG quilt so I spray basted the batting and backing and quilted around each petal.

Close up detail of front and back

Next up Block 9 - Machine Applique by M-R @Quilt Matters
 This block is based on the Clam shell quilt design and Amy @thecutelife designed this free clam shell template for us to use.

 I cut out the clam shells and background fabric and then attached them simply using basting spray.  Again as I'm making a QAYG quilt I spray basted the batting and backing and then machine appliqued around the clam shells which at the same time quilted the block.

Block 9 - machine applique and QAYG quilting detail


So now I've created all 9 blocks and planned my QAYG backing for each.  I'm still not happy with Block 4 - Reverse Applique but I'll finish making everything else first before deciding what to do about that block.  I've also decided that I'd like to include a Selvedge Block as this is another technique that I'd like to try and I've got lots of selvedges from these fabrics so it seems like it's too good an opportunity to miss.

I can't wait to do more and I'm looking forward to making up my first QAYG but I'm being dragged away from it all this weekend to visit DC.  We'll be doing all the obvious touristy things and while we're there Simon wants to go to the Air & Space Museum :( and Flicky has found a lecture at the Library of Congress that she's desperate for us to attend "Failure and Memory: How the Rescue of Jews During the Holocaust is Depicted in Post War German Film." , is this what happens when you become a modern history undergraduate? (As I'm typing this she's watching a programme on Hulu called 'Hitler's Women!)


So I have a plea to you all for help to save my long weekend - does any one know of any fabric/quilting stores/museums in Washington DC that I won't need a car to get to?!!!

The White House

You can follow The Something NEW Sampler on flickr

Related Posts:

A Modern Bargello
Scraptastic & Folded Blocks - The Something New Sampler: Week 2
Reverse Applique & Sashiko Blocks -The Something New Sampler: Week 3
Trapunto & Pinless Curve Blocks - The Something NEW Sampler: Week 4  

Trapunto & Pinless Curve Blocks - The Something NEW Sampler: Week 4

Another two blocks and one remake on

hosted by Amy @the cute life

  
Maybe you noticed, maybe you didn't, but I'm running a week behind now on this sampler quilt so this week I have the final four blocks to make and I also want to remake Block 2 - The Scraptastic Block.  There's some work involved in the remaining blocks so I've decided to put off making Block 7 - Cathedral Windows, to the very end because it looks quite time consuming and I need to do what I can to catch up quickly


Block 6 - Trapunto by M-R @Quilt Matters 

Here's the front of the block

and here's the back

This has to be the block I've enjoyed making the most ever!!!  I spray basted the layers together - my first time using spray baste and this made it incredibly easy to manage.  I hardly used any of the spray - really hardly any, you couldn't even smell the spray in the room, that's how little I used - but the fabrics held fast without pin basting and yet I could easily pull the layers apart when I needed to cut away the excess batting.  Having decided to go with the Quilt As You Go (QAYG) option for this block I guess I'll be going that route for the rest of my blocks now too!

Close up detail of front and back

Next up Block 8 - Pinless Curves by Alyssa @Pile O'Fabric
 Turns out this block is a continuous Drunkard's Path curve at which I'm well practiced having made a Drunkard's Path quilt previously.  I made life more difficult for myself this time by making such a scrappy fabric for the central section, this meant I was cutting then sewing in a curve over LOTS of seams which makes easing the fabric seams together trickier.    

 And Block 8 lead me straight in to my remake of Block 2 - Scraptastic.  I used the cut off sections from the central section of Block 8 and kept adding to them to create a new version of Block 2 (if you're wondering why I'm remaking Block 2 you can read about it here)

 
And here's the 7 blocks I've created so far

Seeing the blocks together I've now decided that I'm not happy with my Block 4 - Reverse Applique



- potential remake here but might QAYG and see how it looks then before making a final decision.

You can follow The Something NEW Sampler on flickr

Next Time:

Machine Applique and Cathedral Windows

Related Posts:

A Modern Bargello
Scraptastic & Folded Blocks - The Something New Sampler: Week 2
Reverse Applique & Sashiko Blocks -The Something New Sampler: Week 3 

Linking To: