I finished my Red-White-Blue Brilliant Swirls quilt! I put an outside border on and it is ready for quilting. It is below!

Next it is another student’s quilt from the class. Swirl, not a swirl. Carol V. had her son choose the layout and he decided to not have it swirl. This quilt has awesome batik fabrics and really shows off those lights and darks! I love it!

I’m on to my next quilt and I’m sewing the rows together. I can’t give many details because it is for a guild Challenge. I can tell you it is all half-squares, 144 of them. I made mine from 5″ charms so when sewn with a white 5″ square, I got 2 identical half-squares. Making them 4″ finished blocks. I am “rowing” them now. (I like that term!…rowing…I haven’t used it before but I think I’ll start. It is a fun term for sewing the rows together.)

When I sew a row. I take the blocks off my design wall in order from left to right. Far left is always is on top, then the next and so on. At my machine I pull them off the stack…top block goes left, next block gets sewn to the right side. I always place a pin in the top left corner of the left most block. I continue through the stack sewing blocks in pairs. Once I’m to the end, I take the last pair sewn and it goes on the bottom and I stack the pairs in reverse order. Top of the pile will be the first pair sewn!

#1 – Use a pin in the top left corner as you sew blocks into pairs across your row.

I continue back through the stack in the same manner. This time sewing two pairs together. Removing them after sewing as I did before. Last sewn goes to the bottom of the stack and working to the top again. I continue until the row is sewn!

I find this fast and efficient! I don’t have to get up and down pulling each block off the design wall. With placing a pin in the top left of the far left block (or set of blocks). I can keep it in the correct order!

#2 – Try sewing a row of your quilt together in pairs…then pairs into fours…then fours into the row! (That is if you have twelve blocks in your row. More or less blocks, same idea to get the row sewn.)

We all have our own methods of sewing a quilt together, I find this works for me! Then, the seams in the first row are pressed in one direction, the next row is the opposite direction. This helps the seams nestle together. Great for matching blocks for each succeeding row. Give it a go!

in quilting,

Debbie