blzzrdqueen

I finished the sashing and trimmed all the blocks down to 14 inches square. The sashing is off by 1/8th of an inch at the most on a couple of them. I do think though that when the blocks get pieced together, they may not line up exactly, but....I don't care. I think something like that wilkl just add character to the quilt top.

I know it's time to connect all my blocks. What is the easiest way to do this?

I also know I can add the border after I put all the blocks together, or I can skip it. I was going to do a black border, but with the sashing, it will already look like there is a black border. I could do the border anyway and have it nice and wide around the quilt. I'm not sure what to do. I'm not going to start piecing the blocks together until tonight, so please lend me some feedback on what you would do. I have to vacuum my living room floor before I lay the pieces out, as the cats and the baby have crumbs and fur all over the place. When I do this, I will take several pics of the quilt blocks with the sashing and post them.

Let me know what you all think. I truely value your opinions!!

Lucky Patsy's

I usually sew my blocks in rows and then sew the rows together. I would wait until then to decide if it needs a border or now.

Missi

Vacuum :?: the cat will find the quilt while you lay it out on the floor and even help you with laying the quilt out by rearranging the blocks you already have down. That's how it goes in my house :-)

MadQuilter

Lay out the pattern in rows until you are happy with the design. (I usually leave it out for a few hours and go back to look at it periodically.)

Sew the blocks together into individual rows. I generally trim the blocks to be the same size or in case of slight differences, I split the difference between the smaller block and the larger block.

Once all the rows are sewn, I press the rows. I generally press the seams to ONE side on all the odd-numbered rows and to the OTHER side on the even-numbered rows.

That way, once you flip two rows to sew them together, the seams will nest. I pin the pieces and sew the rows together. Repeat until done and gently press the top.

Measure across the center of your top in one directions and cut/sew the border fabric to that measurement. Sew on the border on two sides. Now measure across the center of the top with the sides on. That is the measurement for the next border length.

As far as color goes: If you want to use black, I suggest using a narrow border of a contrasting color as the first border. Otherwise, black on black, the border won't show.

littlehud

I lay mine out in rows and then join the rows to become a quilt. I usually like a border but yours may be ok without one.

beachlady

Can't wait to see the quilt. In my new house I am going to have a design wall!!!!

omak

I hope my input will be worthy of your eager trust.
Blocks not being the same size: I quote from Victory Quilts by Elenor Burns - - if the blocks are within a quarter inch of each other, there is no cause for concern... okay, not a direct quote, but she said it in that book, and it worked for me. Of course, put the blocks in the middle as much as possible.
If you lay your blocks out, and sew the sashing JUST between the blocks, row by row, and sashing JUST between the rows, then a sashing around the whole thing, you will have saved yourself little pieces of sashing, there will be no wide sides and tops, they will be easier to keep straight across from each other ... hope that makes sense.
An example would be seven blocks across? Then, you would sew a sashing on the right sides of blocks 1,2,3,4,5,6 and nothing on the side of seven.
nine rows long? sew the long sashing on the bottom of row 1,2,3,4,5,6,7, and 8 ... join those rows, two by two, and then the twos together and then the fours together ... then the outer border/sashing ...
just follow one part of the instructions at a time, and it will make sense to you in the end ... <g> or, you can cut little pieces of paper and pretend/practice to see if that is a process you want to work with.