Sunday, July 12, 2015

The Split 9-patches are close to finished, I just need to find time to sew the last few rows together.  I seem to have made this whole quilt in 15 minute stretches, in between work and family visits.That's not how I like to operate, I love being able to sew for hours at a time, but it just hasn't happened.  Those 15 minute efforts add up to a finished top in time, so I just have to stick with it.
I set up the blocks ahead of time, so that whenever I had a moment I could sew a few more.  I laid out the pieces on the pages of a book next to the machine, 20 at a time. 
Then it was just completely mindless sewing to chain the bits together. 
As soon as all the pieces for one block were joined in strips of three, I cut them apart and set them aside.

When I had the whole lot done I pressed the seams on half the blocks away from the corner square,
 and on the other half towards the corner square.
 That way, no matter which way I rotated them in the quilt, they would still fit together with the seams nesting.
That meant that I could arrange the blocks on the design wall so that the seams were opposed most of the time; unfortunately, I came up with this good idea after I'd already pressed a heap of blocks in another arrangement.  Sometimes when I was sewing the rows  I just had to sew a lump of seams together and press them as flat as possible, but it wasn't too bad.

To make it easier to sew the blocks together I built it in quarters on the design wall, so I was only working with rows of six blocks at a time.  That allowed me to sort out how to press the seams as I went along, and it wasn't hard to keep track of what I was doing.  That was important, because I had to keep leaving it and coming back later.  That's a recipe for disaster usually.

As I sewed all the rows together I tried out various border ideas, and this is what won; Flying Geese.
I have all of them made,  I just need time to sew them to the quilt; I really hope I get that done this weekend.
I'd like to move onto another project as soon as possible.  My record for this year is pretty dismal, and I started off so well.


3 comments:

  1. Flying geese are perfect for the border.

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  2. This is a great block, looks fantastic laid out with the border. Enjoy!

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  3. Great tips, Keryn! I love the notebook idea and will employ that in the future. I too, wish I had figured out that pressing strategy - years ago! There must be tons of options for those split 9-patches, but I really like the zig-zag.

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