And now for the beginner's question - there are 80 mini blocks here, & it's going to take some while for me to sew them all together (the book says to piece into pairs, then each pair (top) to each pair (bottom) to give twenty 11" blocks, which are then sewn together.) I really would like the floor back of the attic room, & although I will be printing this pic out for reference, the only way that I can think of to keep the positions/orientations of the squares is to stick numbered post-it notes to each square (or pin a number to each mini block - the air eraser pen fades quite quickly).
Is this what everyone else does?
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ReplyDeleteHazel, whatever method works for you is the right one (aren't you sick of hearing that). Everyone has a different way of keeping things straight.
ReplyDeleteIf I had to keep blocks straight for this quilt I would probably make 8 stacks: taking top left block and putting it on top of the one to it's right, and again, and again until I had a pile of 10 blocks. That would go in a ziplock bag numbered "1", or held together with a safety pin.
When putting the rows together, some clever folk sew blocks 1+2, then 3+4, then 5+6 and so on, then put first pair with second pair, etc., that doesn't work for me, you might be more organised.
The OTHER thing you could consider, is NOT sew an entire row together. If you sew HALF a row together, then the other half you have two lots of 5 blocks which is easier to manage. Do the same for rows 2 and 3, and sew "chunks" together. Minimising all those long seams can make for easier handling.
For a first time out I would go with pinning numbers on the blocks (safety pins if you have them, then you won't get stabbed), then stacking them in piles to sew into rows and finally putting the rows together to get a quilt top.
ReplyDeleteHave solved the immediate problem by pinning the 80 blocks to a hanging sheet, but not sure if this will work as well when the pieces are bigger.
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