Hey Jan, I couldn't help but notice your "there you go" comment. I've said this so many times in our church nursery that one of our 2 yr old little girls has started saying it. haha I've started listening to myself and my husband and we do way this a lot! I guess it's our way of being "encouraging". haha

As for the chain piecing, I do this too. Sure saves time.

Debbie

LOL! The first time I tried it and did it successfully, I called my quilting friend to tell her, I was so excited that I had figured it out and did it! You just did that with all of us!! From now on, you'll wonder how you ever pieced without doing it!

I understand! I was researching a quilt as you go method where you pull the back through to the top, and I was like "Man, that's exactly what I need except I don't want my backing to show on the front!" About 2 hours later it occured to me that I could use the same method to pull the front to the back and get the same results! I felt like an idiot genius.

Teeler, good for you! Don't you feel so accomplished when you learn a new trick! I, too, love chain sewing. I've learned to lay everything out and take a picture. Then I chain sew everything. Something else it has taken me a while to learn is to sew together the quilt in 4 sections; upper left, upper right, lower left, then lower right. I used to sew in rows. If you do that, then you are sewing the length of the quilt many, many times. If you sew it in sections, then you sew top sections together, bottoms together.....(at this point you have yet to sew the length of the quilt), then sew top to the bottom. The longest seam you've had to sew is only the width!!!! Get it? If you're not getting it take a piece of paper and cut into 4 pieces and pretend each piece is a quadrant of your next quilt. It took me a year to even attempt to change my row sewing style. When I did though, it paid off in spades!!! Good luck. Please let me know if you ever try the 4 section method of sewing a quilt top together.

Please know that when I said chain piecing has been around since the 1970s, I did not mean there was no way it could have been done before that. Barbara Johanna actually wrote a book published in 1938 or 39 about "quick quilting." But as a well known and widely-used piecing technique it didn't come into "vogue" until the current resurgence that began in the mid-1970s. Aren't we all grateful?!!

Personally I have had a family quilt that was appraised as ca. 1780 or earlier, which has sections in it that would have been perfect for "speed/chain piecing." I've wondered many times if that young Colonial Virginian woman knew how to do that, and like to imagine that she figured it out for herself.:)

Jan in VA

I sew all my bargellos and trip around the world type quilt in sections, never thought about doing that on other types of quilt. I will try that next time as I hate to have to piece the length or width several times. Thanks for bring this up.