Alright ladies...I KNOW you can help me here.
I was at a quilt shop and there were some ladies just quilting away. One lady had some squares (top, batting, backing) and she was quilting them. All seperate squares and she was going to make a quilt out of the squares when she was done. My question is...
HOW is she going to put them all together and what sort of quilting term is that called? I thought it was pretty interesting...........

Thanks!

Hi! It is called "Quilt as you Go", and there are several methods for assembling the quilted blocks. The book "Reversible Quilts" by Sharon Pederson gives one method for assembly that I have used. It is a little tedious, with all the hand stitching required, but works out very nicely. I have also heard about "The Cotton Method", but don't know specifics other than it is a Quilt as you Go, and not very well liked by my favorite quilt shop.

Hope this helps!

Thank you very much! :D
I knew it was something as simple as that, but just couldn't figure it out.
I am going to be doing some traveling in the near future and thought that I could do something like this on long flights. I don't like just sitting in the seat and reading and a person can only sleep so much.

You might have to think of something elso to do on your flight, I have heard from a few friends that the airlines will no longer let you take even your needles on board with you. Does anyone else know anything about this?

I know some airlines are not allowing knitting needles, but why wouldn't they allow sewing needles? For scissors, I would use a set of baby nail clippers.

I have flown on United and on Delta with rounded scissors, lots of needles and pins, and crochet hooks. I don't think you would have any trouble with any of the airlines, taking your quilting supplies. Just make sure your scissors have the rounded ends, and if you take nail clippers, make sure they don't have a file, since those will be taken away.

Hope this helps!

A couple of years ago my husband and I flew to San Antonio. He had his fingernail clippers taken away and I was allowed on with my huge rotary cutter and blade in my carry on. When we got to Texas (after going through Montana, Utah, I think Minneapolis).... I realized it was in my bag and not one person said a thing. Yikes.... and they worry about box cutters?

If you want to do some hand piecing during a flight, my suggestion would be to have all the pieces cut and "bagged" and organized inside another zip-lock bag with the sewing supplies.

As for a cutting tool for thread, tuck in a dental floss container and use the cutter on that to cut your thread. Or, you could get one of the "ring cutters" made by Clover, I believe. It's a finger ring that has a small cutting hook attached.

Another little trick to keeping all those pieces organized by shape / color is to stack them, and leaving a long tail of thread, put a needle and thread into the stack all the way to the bottom of the stack, bring the needle and thread back through the stack, through the top of the stack. Cut the thread, leaving another long tail. Take the threads on top of the stack and tie into a loose knot. Thus, you have all these neat and tidy "fabric stacks" that stay together in the bag.

When you're ready for any or all of the stacked fabric, just pull it out of the bag, untie the threads, and remove the piece you need from the top of the stack and the other pieces stay in place. If you haven't used the entire stack, you can just re-tie it and tuck it back into the bag.

This is a great thing to do if you want to take some piece work (machine or hand) with you on vacation. You would be amazed at how many projects you can tuck into your suitcase amongst all the other stuff.

Actually, I confess that when we go on vacation or just to the mountains for a few days, I have a separate small tote bag I use for stowing and carrying my "projects".

Finally, a major benefit of "sewing the stack" is that even if you're in your "quilting place" at home and you've done this with the pieces, should you bump one of the stacks amd they tumble to the floor, all the pieces will stay together.

Oh...almost forgot. My suggestion about "fabric stacks" works only if you're organized enough and plan ahead so that you've decided on pattern, fabric, and have thus actually cut the pieces BEFORE you're stuffing anything into a suitcase. :lol: I'll let you use your imagination as to what really happens...sub-set of stash, pattern, cutter, rulers...now you know why I need a separate tote bag! Busted! :wink:

Quilt as you go..

She might make a sashing between each block and sew them to the sashing... to keep the sashing together, I usually sew a top stitch on either side of the sashing to make it look like the sashing was quilted too. I do that when I make my Trapunto table runners

yes, thats right, no needles permitted on flights... years ago I used to cross stitch... nadda zip no more! :)