Quilt As You Go: Sashing Method

Hello Friends and Welcome Back!

After aspiring to prepare quilt labels a few weeks ago, I have not done that. Instead, I've been transfixed by quilting, which is a totally new experience for me!

Throughout the Spring, I've been experimenting with a few different quilt as you go methods; a hand sewn, no sashing method with Meadow Mystery, the process for which I shared a few months ago, and now a sashing inclusive, mostly machine method with Chilhowie!

And now that I'm comfortable with the sashing method of quilt as you go, I'm excited to be able to share my process with you!

The Sashing Method

The quilt as you go method begins once you've finished piecing your quilt blocks.

Select one quilt block, as well as a piece of batting and backing fabric, each ½" to 1" larger than the unfinished size of the block. In the case of Chilhowie, this block is 15" finished, which is 15½" unfinished, so I cut my backing at 16½". I was using batting remnants, so as seen in the picture, they're not quite the same size as the backing fabric in some places.

Layer together the backing, batting, and quilt block, then baste and quilt as desired.

For Chilhowie, I used a walking foot design from Melissa Marginet's book Edge-to-Edge Walking Foot Quilting Designs. The book is currently at my Mom's house, so I'm not able to recall the name of this particular design.

Once quilted, the next step is to trim the block so it's nicely square.

You can trim the block down to it's unfinished size, which would have a ¼" seam allowance, but I found that the thickness of sewing so many layers caused my foot to want to wander off the side, so I preferred having a ½" seam allowance.

To determine the size of your block with a ½" seam allowance, add ½" to the unfinished size of your quilt block. For Chilhowie, that would be 16".

With our blocks trimmed, it's time to cut the sashing strips.

You will need one strip for the quilt front and one for the quilt back. I cut the back side sashing ½" larger than my front sashing so I would have plenty of seam allowance when it comes time to finish the edge.

Chilhowie uses a pieced sashing for the quilt front, but this method works just as well for a solid sashing.

Align the front sashing strip right sides together with the front of the quilt block and the back sashing strip right sides together with the back of the quilt block.

Since Chilhowie uses a pieced sashing, I was careful to align the sashing seams with the block seams, but for a solid sashing, this would not be necessary. Note that since I've used a ½" seam allowance on my block but the sashing only includes a ¼" seam allowance, there is a space between the trimmed edge of the block and the edge of the sashing strip.

If block orientation matters for the pattern you are making, be sure to double and triple check you've placed the sashing along the correct edge before sewing it.

Once your sashing is basted and double checked for correctness, sew the front sashing, block, and back sashing together.

With the sashing now sewn to the first block, it's time to join the second quilted block to the other side of the sashing strip.

Align only the front sashing to the edge of the second block right sides together. Check once again for correctness before sewing the second edge of the front sashing to the second quilt block.

From the quilt front, your sashing should now appear nicely finished with all raw edges tucked away, but from the back, raw edges will still be visible and there will likely be a gap where there is no batting.

If using a particularly narrow sashing, the excess batting in your seam allowance may be enough to fill this space, but if using a wider shashing like I am, you'll want to fill this gap with some additional batting.

Measure the length and width of the empty space from raw edge to raw edge and cut a piece of batting at that size. You can see that I needed one that was about 2" wide.

Nest the strip of batting into the sashing gap so there is no overlap between the filler strip and the seam allowance. If the batting does overlap, it will create an extra thick area in the quilt.

With the filler batting now in place, fold open the back sashing strip to expose it's right side and cover the filler batting.

To finish the raw edge of the back sashing strip, fold under the excess seam allowance so the folded edge aligns roughly with the seam of the front sashing strip. I like to press this fold to help it stay in place.

Sew down the folded edge of the back sashing strip to finish it.

I did this seam by hand using a slip stitch. This can also be done by machine, but it will result in a line of visible top stitching on the quilt front.

Depending on the quilted motif you've used, this line of stitching may be hidden or may cause a jarring interruption. Hand finishing this edge will not be visible from the outside of the quilt, which is why I prefer this method.

The final step to finishing off the quilt as you go sashing method is to quilt over your sashing strip.

I chose to simply continue the same motif that is quilted into the blocks, but there are also lots of interesting and beautiful quilting motifs designed to be used on sashing.

Quilting just this tiny strip of sashing broke my needle and ran out of bobbin thread, so in process, it felt much more laborious than it really needed to be, but the result is quite beautiful!

I love how smooth it looks from the front, while on the back, I'm working on piecing a second unique pattern!

Repeat this process to complete a row, then use the same process with longer sashing strips to join the rows together.

So far, I've only completed one row, so I don't yet know how challenging the long sashing strip will be to work with, but I'm excited to keep quilting and find out!

Friends, I hope you've enjoyed learning about this sashing inclusive method of quilt as you go block assembly! I've had so much fun trying it out!

Using the machine to do all the quilting and most of the assembly has resulted in some very fast progress on Chilhowie. At this rate, there's a good chance I'll finish it before finishing Meadow Mystery! Either way, it is becoming increasingly obvious to me that I'm going to need those labels soon, so I had better get back to them too!

If you've tried this quilt as you go method, I would love to hear about your experiences, please share stories and suggestions in the comments below! Or if I've inspired you to try this method on a future project, I would love to see which pattern you'd like to tackle!

I'm excited to get back to working on Chilhowie and on Meadow Mystery as well!