Fall Sew-Along Part 3 (2021)

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Hello, it is time for part 3 of our Fall Sew-Along! This week you will be sewing together all those lovely pieces of fabric that you cut out last week....no worries if you didn't get that far yet. The instructions are all here on my blog so you can refer to them whenever you are ready for the next step ( just search on Fall 2021 Sew-Along in the sidebar and you should see all those posts pop up!)

Sewing together these blocks is simple and straightforward! There are just 20 to sew and they work up very fast. The only thing you want to pay attention to is the pressing of the seams, because it will be nice to have the neighboring blocks nesting nicely. That being said, I really didn't worry about which direction my seams went too much, because I didn't know yet which blocks were going to be next to each other. So I tried to press half of my blocks one way, and the other half the opposite way and am keeping my fingers crossed that that will work out. If not, I will have to repress some seams...no biggy!

I chose to sew my blocks one by one~ much less chance of messing up that way~ but you can of course choose to chain-sew yours. So I laid out all my block components and sewed them row by row, like this: 

lay out the pieces

sew the right-most pieces to the center pieces

press

sew the left-most pieces  to the center pieces

                                                                          press

                                                  sew the top and bottom to the center

                                                                        press and voila

 

Now you just need to repeat that 19 more times ;).

It may seem like it will take forever, but it really doesn't! 

Before you know it you will have all your blocks sewn together and then you are ready to sew the top together! Do remember to trim all your blocks the same size ( whatever that may be for you!).

You can choose to make this top the traditional way, where you sew your blocks into rows of 4, and then sew your rows together, OR you can choose to do what I'm going to do, which is to "quilt" my individual blocks unto just batting first, and then sewing those pieces into a quilt top, adding backing, and then quilting just  along the seam lines ( A Quilt As You Go method). If this seems really confusing, do let me know and I can dedicate a blog post to that process. It is my favorite way to make BIG quilts, because you are not forcing all that fabric through your machine, instead you are just quilting one manageable- sized block at a time!

To sum up this week's task: Start assembling your blocks and trim them, then sew them into a quilt top, OR quilt them individually onto just batting. That's all! And because this task is probably the most time consuming of the entire  process I will see you back here in a couple of weeks to give everyone ( myself included!) time to complete this part ( But I will probably publish a "regular" blog post in the meanwhile, so don't think you have missed the final set of instructions).

Don't hesitate to ask questions if something is "clear as mud", and I'm happy to share a blog post about my QAYG ( Quilt As You Go) method if there is interest!

Until next time~happy creating!

Monique