Sashing

I have quilt tops brought to me where the sashing is added wrong. The person will sew the sashing on one side of the blocks..... sew into rows.... then take one very long strip of fabric for the sashing in between the rows. This is wrong. It's nearly impossible to get the blocks matched correctly at the corners. With a long strip of fabric.... where is the corner?

This is how I put sashing between the blocks for accuracy.

First.... a little bit of information about my blocks for this project. Many of my customers save tiny bits of fabric for me. I love all the pretty fabrics I get. I also save my used dryer sheets to use as the foundation for string blocks. I prefer dryer sheets over paper because the dryer sheet can remain inside the quilt. I don't have a mess pulling paper off. Dryer sheets are also much thinner than muslin so they don't add a lot of weight to the quilt.

Here are a group of my string blocks I want to put sashing around before sewing into a quilt top.



I counted the blocks out and found I have enough blocks to do 8 rows across and 10 rows down.


I'm not trying to win a contest with this quilt. I pull out a piece of donated fabric with enough yardage to make the sashing.


I cut strips of sashing.... pin to one side of all the blocks.... and sew. Press the seams toward the sashing strips on all the blocks.


I repeat the pinning and sewing for another side. This would be the top of the blocks in the quilt. Pressing the seams is a little different this time.....


I divide the blocks in half... press one stack with seam going toward the sashing.... one stack with the seam pressed toward the block. This will allow the sashing seams to lock together when the blocks get sewn together into rows.


Now I have to think about sashing on the outside edge of the right side row and bottom row of the quilt. I'll start with the bottom row. My top is 8 blocks across so I pull out 8 blocks. Half with seams pressed toward the sashing.... half with seams pressed toward the block.


I sew a third sashing to these blocks along the bottom. This puts a sashing strip along the bottom row of the quilt.


I press the sashing the same as the previous added sashing. If it's pressed toward the block on the top end of the block... it should be the same on the bottom end.


Now I have to add sashing along the right side row. The quilt is 10 rows down so I pull out 9 blocks with two sides sewn.... and 1 block from the stack with three sides that I just finished. Again... half with seams pressed toward the sashing, half pressed toward the block.



Sew a third sashing along the right side of these blocks. Not the bottom. Press all the seams toward the sashing.... but.... keep the blocks separated into two stacks. Half are the seams pressed to the sashing, half pressed to the block. So they look like this....


Only one block will have sashing on all four sides. This is the block that goes in the bottom right corner of the top.


Now I can sew the rows together. I want to be sure I don't get my block rows mixed up. I usually start with the bottom row. Pull one block from one stack and another from the other stack. Lock the seams together at the corner and sew together.


I still have several bocks with only two sashing strips. These are my block rows.


When I am sewing the rows together I have to remember to add one... at the end of each row.... with the outside sashing added.



Ok, I have the piece turned wrong for this picture but it shows the one block along the bottom row that had the sashing on 4 sides. If you look closely you can spot it. Above it are the blocks being sewn together for the other rows. You can see how the outside (or right side) blocks have sashing added.


I'm still keeping them in stacks so I don't confuse myself. I still want the seams to lock together.


This is as far as I got in one afternoon of working on this. The rest is just a matter of sewing all the blocks together into rows.... then the rows together.

I do hope the information helps anyone struggling to add sashing to their quilts.