Joy Higdon

I know this is a dumb question. When I pieced my blocks for my Victorian quilt they measured 10 1/2 and should have been 10 3/4. I am starting to put it together and would like to know if I cut 1/4 in. off each piece of sashing will it come out all right? Thanks for any replies.

Gramie bj

No. 10 1/2 is smaler than 10 3/4 you need to add 1/4. The next question is will the wider sashing look right with your blocks, or just leave the shashing the same if your finished quilt is say 5 blocks wide your are only loosing 1 1/2 inches in width at this time, will this affect your overall quilt? Personally if it was me I'd leave it alone unless this is a compation quilt.

onthelake

If you can square all blocks to 10 1/2", without cutting off any part of the block design, then you should be fine just cutting your sashing down to 10 1/2" strips. Your quilt will just be a little smaller. I'm a newbie in quilting so listen to the wise statements of others over mine :) Good luck and be sure to post pictures.

MTS

:thumbup: And, yet, you gave perfect advise!

As there is no way to neatly add 1/4" to the block, trimming the sashing strips would be the easiest option (and will work in most instances).
And 1/4" off the block isn't going to make any difference in the proportions of the block to the sashing.

I'm not familiar with the pattern, so I can't discern if it's a log cabin block or not.
Generally, those are very forgiving blocks to trim down.
No points to chop off, and the logs are usually big enough not to distort when losing an 1/8".

Of course, if they're 1/4" logs, that's another story. ;-)

But those aren't generally made with sashing so I'm thinking it's maybe a cabin quilt - as in a house pattern.
Again, I don't think you'd have any points at the edges either, so it would also trim down easily.

But a couple of questions
Did you cut all the sashing strips already?
Does the sashing layout include cornerstones? or are the horizontal sashings one long piece?

The reason I ask is because if there are cornerstones, then by trimming all the sort sashing strips to 10.5", you'd be fine.
The cornerstones don't need to be trimmed.

However, if you're using long horizontal sashings, they would also need to be trimmed as well.

I would wait until you've sewn the blocks into rows, and then measure to come up with the length for the longer strips.
Even if the rows vary a 1/4" here and there, come up with an average.

When you sew the row to the sashing, do it the same way you would sew on borders - find the middle of both and pin, the same for the quarterway and ends.
More pinning wouldn't hurt. That way the strip will be evenly distributed across the width of the quilt.

Please post pictures when you're done.

Joy Higdon

Thanks to all the replies. I will post a pic when I finish.

Tartan

Are the blocks all the same pattern? If they are don't worry about them being smaller. Being a consistant size is more important. If getting them all the same size requires a little trimming, without seeing the blocks, I think it would be alright. I only worry about different size blocks if I'm doing an exchange or a sampler where all the blocks are different. Since all your blocks are a little smaller than you wanted, the sashing should work fine just trim a little if needed.