Rita, I thought I had replied to your last post, but it must have been only in my head. I apologize for seeming to have ignored you.

As always, you are so helpful, and your technique of doubling the sashing makes sense.

Thank you!


Barb in Alabama
where I am close to assembling Q / T / V and then will have to decide about QAYG
EEEK

Well, my eyes are getting crossed too!
I stitch sashing for front and back on one block. Since I am using such a narrow sashing, I do not have to add batting, I have left the batting all the way to the raw edge.

Then on the front I added the second block to the sashing. Give it a good press and start on the back.

The back sashing strip is 1/4" wider than the front, it doesn't have to be this is just how I do mine. I fold under the raw edge(if you do it Rita's way you will not have to do this step) and make sure that it covers the stitching from the addition of the second block. I know there are many who do not like glue but I put a thin line of glue in place, fold the back sashing in place over those stitches and press with a hot iron.

Then I turn it to the front and stitch in the ditch along the sashing of the second block. This hold the back sashing in place and there is no hand stitching.

The first 2 quilts I made were qayg and I didn't have any sashing in them at all. I pieced the front layers together by machine, laid them flat, back side up, cut the wadding so that it was butted up edge to edge, and then overcast the edges together by hand. The lining was then smoothed over with the top overlapping piece having the raw edge tucked in and then slip stitched. The second one I had worked out how to arrange the lining so that I could machine stitch it down using a fancy (wide) stitch.

NB they are the no 1- cream & brown quilt with acorns on and no 2 - the blue butterflies quilts on my profile

I usually make the front sashing strip twice the size of the back one and fold it in half, and then attach the seam sides top and bottom. Then when you fold the top sashing over you don't have a seam allowance to turn in or worry about. As for the final seam on the back, it can be done by hand, with a zigzag stitch or a straight stitch on the machine and preferably with invisible thread so it won't interfere with the design too much on the front. I hope that helps.

Oh, Rita, your amazing quilts always leave me speechless. So beautiful!

Thank you for sharing your experience and your photos. I glue-baste a lot so am liking that idea.

Ann Petersen in her Craftsy class shows a method for QAYG but it uses narrow sashing that allows you to butt the blocks together and then stitch the sashing over the join so that no additional batting is required. Our 1-inch sashing won't work for that but I can see how glue-basting a strip of batting that is slightly narrower than 1-inch will solve things.

So:
1. quilt the block
2. seam a sashing strip to front and back on one side
3. when the side-adjoining block is ready, seam the front strip to it
4. flip to the back and glue baste the sashing batting.
5. folder under seam allowance on the sashing and attach to back
6. repeat across the row
7. then join rows using the same approach

Does that sound right? Do you hand-stitch the back down?

Wow, I think my eyes are rolling in different directions....

Barb in Alabama

Hi Barb, I have made quite a few quilts with the QAYG method but I am by no means an expert. You could use the 1 1/2" sashing strips for the QAYG method. You will need to make your batting strips about 2" longer than the strip and I have found that it is better to make the batting strip 3/4" rather than 1" for a 1 1/2" sashing strip. I do not zigzag it to one side of the quilt sandwich I just use a little fabric glue stick to hold it in place until I am ready to quilt it. When I have attached the sashing front and back I then cut the batting more precisely. I can then quilt my sashing in whatever desired method I choose for the particular project.
I used 2" finished size sashing on this one and quilted a stenciled pattern onto it.

On this one I used a 1" finished size sashing so it wouldn't break up the pattern too much and used the walking foot to quilt it.

With this one I used crumb strips 2 1/2" wide and did serpentine stitching through the sashing.
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I hope that helps.

Aha, Ritzy, I see what you are saying, now that I have watched the video. She is butting the sashing batting against the sashing seam allowance, and then stitching across the butted edges. Thank you for encouraging me to watch that.

JoJo, thank you for the book recommendation. I'm with you - I love technique books that have lots of photos to demonstrate what is being discussed, and it's great to be told about a book that someone has found useful.

Got some thinking and practicing to do here....


Barb in Alabama

Here's a really good book that has great pictures. I'm a very visual learner and it helped me.


http://www.amazon.com/Quilting-Go-Taking-Further-Carolyn-Forster/dp/1935726501/ref=sr_1_1?s=books[/b]&ie=UTF8&qid=1404788898&sr=1-1&keywords=quilting-on-the-go[/url]

Take a look at this Sharon Pederson video from the classroom:

[url]learn/classrooms/[/url]

It is from the classroom and it shows how you can do the zig-zag and the importance.

Thank you Ritzy - what you are saying is very helpful, because it confirms that the sashing could be resized to make this work - I would have needed to do this at the very beginning, though, so that I could be accounting for the block joinings as well as the section joinings. With all the varying block sizes and joinings, I think resizing the sashing is out of my reach now. But I am stowing in my memory bank for a future project.

It sounds like the best way to do this is to use 1-inch batting pieces for the sashings, but I am still seeing in my mind's eye that the quilting on the sashing would take the place of the zigzag, with careful attention. I am such a hands-on person that I think I am just going to have to practice something to get a grasp on this. Maybe I am not being realistic about the impact of the quilting versus zigzag stitching.

Everyone is so kind and helpful; I really appreciate the feedback!


Barb in Alabama

This is probably not going to help you but I can tell you what I have done. I am doing the half-sized measurements. My sashing strips are cut at 1" and so I have the batting go all the way to the raw edges. When I do my 1/4" seam I have a 1/2" piece of sashing and the batting from the joined pieces butt up against each other.

So, I think you will probably have to go with zig-zagging the batting in the sashing space.

I am interested in this too. So I want to see what advice is given. I've not used the technique before.

I sure there are several good methods....perhaps someone will point you to a good tutorial.......

Nancy, thank you for replying!

As far as Option 2 goes, I was thinking that I would resize "all" of the sashing strips but you're right about the impact. I'm looking at a-f-g and b-c-d-h-i, and they both have one horizontal strip on their joining sides; so reducing each would make the blocks match in height. However, b-c-d-h-i has two strips while e-j has one strip on the joining sides; so in this case the reduction would cause a height difference. I am so grateful that you pointed this out.

Ugh.

Thinking more about Option 1, then.... Quilting in the sashing strips would certainly be enough to keep the 1-inch batting strip from shifting. Bending on either side of the sashing seams might occur, but it seems possible that a 1-inch strip is narrow enough that maybe no bending will occur. ? Maybe.

This be one twicky wabbit.


Barb in Alabama