I love to lay out a quilt on my design wall, spending hours and sometimes days determining the EXACT placement of each block.
But that excitement wanes when I realize that I have to now take the blocks OFF of my design wall to sew them together AND keep them in the right order!
Over the years, I have used numbered pins…..
….with some success, but invariably, at least one block gets pieced incorrectly!
As I got ready to piece this quilt……
…..I knew that it was SUPREMELY important that I NOT make any mistakes.
BUT WHAT TO DO!!!
Then I had an epiphany…..
WHAT IF I WRITE THE NUMBERS ON THE BLOCKS WITH A WASH-OUT MARKER???
This quilt will be washed after I finish it so I don’t have to worry about that…..so why not?
I started in the top left corner, marking it 1-1. The next block on that row was 1-2, the next was 1-3. The leftmost block in the second row was 2-1, then 2-2, 2-3, and so forth.
I wrote the number in either the first or second patch on the left-hand side of each block.
Once they were all marked, I was able to stack each row…..
….and head to the machine.
It was SO easy to piece the rows together because I could see at a glance if the blocks were in the right order…..
….or in the WRONG order…..
I did spritz out the numbers as I attached the rows to other rows…..
In no time flat, the top was pieced…..
….AND in the correct order!!
WHY didn’t I think about this before????
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So smart. Love this idea.
It did make my life easier Christie!!
I’ve gotten blocks out of order SO MANY TIMES and poked myself trying to use pins more times than I can count, so you can bet I will be using this idea!
I am so glad Mary. I don’t know why I hadn’t thought about it before!!! It was life changing!!
I try to sew all the blocks together in one day. I spread out all the blocks on the floor, and then I place all the column two blocks face down on their column one mates. Then, I carefully stack them one on top of the other in order. I take that bunch to my machine, chain-sew the seams, carefully clip them, open them, and restack them in order, and lay them back down on the floor in their proper places. Then I do the same thing with the remaining pairs of columns.
Then I do the same thing with the joined pairs. I place column three and four blocks face down on the column one and two blocks, etc.
I repeat the process until all the rows are together. At this point I label the rows with numbered scraps of paper pinned to the reverse side of the row. Then I take the rows to the ironing board. I press the seam allowances of the odd numbered rows to the right, and the even numbered rows to the left. I return the rows to the floor in their proper order, and sew pairs of rows together, then pairs of pairs together, etc. until the whole top is together.
This process works for me. As long as nobody makes me stop until I’m done. Actually, if my rows are numbered, I’m good.
Thanks for that description Andrea. It is pretty much what I have done in the past but I ALWAYS ended up messing the order up some how!!
Even when I take the blocks off the design wall just two at a time, I always end up sewing some of them together on the wrong side! Your marker method would help me remember where the seam needs to go.
And that is a fabulous quilt!
That is exactly what I have done previously, but this takes all of that away. I was so pleased with how well it worked!!
Would you share what market you used?
Certainly Judy. I use the “Leonis” water-soluble markers from Amazon. They are cheap and work really well!!….. https://amzn.to/479IGQu