Thursday, December 01, 2011

Old dogs, new tricks

Recently, several of us HMQG-ers met at Safieh's house for an afternoon of sewing and chatting.

Fi brought her blocks to assemble this quilt. She laid out the blocks on Saf's design wall then asked for advice on how to sew them together. I said that I always assemble my quilt tops either row by row or column by column. Saf said that she sews hers together in sections -- fourths, sixths, whatever is easiest and most logical for the project. Then there is only one seam that is the length or width of the whole quilt.

Wait! What!?!

Now I have been quilting for about as long as Saf has been alive and I have ALWAYS assembled tops either row by row or column by column. And ALL those long seams ALWAYS make me cranky! It is one of my least favorite parts of quilt making -- even though the product is the finished top!

Sections?!? That is GENIUS!!! This is one of the things I love about our group: our mix of ages, of skills, of knowledge.

So with Saf's method in mind, I began putting together some of the blocks made with my Mom's shirts. I still need quite a few more blocks. I think this will be fairly big, maybe 6 or 7 by 8 or 9 blocks -- so 48 to 63 blocks. And I have 20. Ouch, I have quite a way to go. But it is satisfying to see a bit of it with "my" new construction method!

 part one of four

7 comments:

safieh said...

Wow, this actually made me laugh at the office -- that is too funny!! Glad I was helpful! I don't like long seams, either...

beth said...

I love this quilt.

Nifty Quilts said...

Sections IS genius! I'll try it. I LOVE your quilt, especially the fact that it's made of your mother's shirts.

Manda said...

Great idea! Quilt is looking good so far!

Bry said...

OMG. I never thought of that either!! I LOVE IT!!

noga quilts said...

Lovely idea, and the quilt is great! I saw also your quilts, also beautiful! I had a very long hiatus, now I'm back...

Rachaeldaisy said...

I've made a couple of quilts like that, in blocks of blocks. I feel as though I get the seams to match up better that way. I'm really loving that wonky chunky zig zaggy quilt!