QUILTS & FABRIC: PAST & PRESENT


Friday, September 9, 2011

Sash and Block Designs

I've been thinking about good ways to show off the large prints in the Lately Arrived from London yardage. I found a file I've been keeping of antique quilts with unpieced blocks. The blocks are plain, the sashing is pieced. In my Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns I called the format Sash & Block patterns.


Here a spiky triangle is pieced between unpieced Turkey red blocks.
Looks to be about 1900-1925 by the gray prints in it.

Here's another one that shows off Turkey red blocks with a sash of squares, probably turn of the 20th century.



The most common pieced sash between the plain blocks is a double sawtooth or flying geese. Again the sashing here looks to be about 1900-1925. The plain gray fabric may have been more colorful once.

This one framing double pink squares looks a little older-maybe 1860-1890.

Here's one from about 1880-1900 with flying geese triangles.

Below are EQ7 designs using a 12" finished square and the colors and prints in the Lately Arrived from London collection. For all of these cut the focus prints into squares 12-1/2"



The spiky triangle looks good if you alternate the colors in the unpieced blocks and rotate the strips to match. The red cornerstone squares are cut 2-1/2".
To cut the triangles cut 2-3/4" strips and then cut triangles as shown in this EQ diagram.


The side triangles in each strip can be cut like the above diagram.
The strip with the squares makes a star in the intersections if you color the triangles around the red cornerstone squares red to match.

For the squares cut 1-7/8" squares
For the larger triangles cut squares 2-1/4" and slice each into quarters with 2 diagonal cuts.
For the smaller triangles cut square 1-7/8" and slice each into 2 triangles with one diagonal cut.





A single sawtooth row between squares. 
Cut squares 2-7/8" and slice in half diagonally to piece into 2" sawtooth squares.
Cut cornerstone squares 2-1/2".


Use two rows of sawtooth to get this look. Rotate the strips of geese to get a balanced shading in the sashing.


Or make 12" finished strips of flying geese. Your cornerstones need to finish to 4" square if you use a wider sash, so cut plain cornerstone squares 4-1/2".

These geese form a 12" x 4" finished sashing.
Cut small triangles by cutting squares 2-7/8" and slicing in half diagonally to make 2 triangles.
Cut large triangles by cutting squares 5-1/4" and slicing each into quarters with 2 diagonal cuts.


One way to vary the look
is to set the squares and sashing on the diagonal.

These designs that highlight a large print would also be great with William Morris fabric as well as chintzes.

This print will be in my next William Morris reproduction line coming out in the fall. Click here to see more about Morris & Company.

See a post from last year for more about Sash and Block designs.

UPDATE. Robin at SolsticeStudio sent a link to her blog
Check out August 17 and 19th for her version of one of these quilts.
I don't know why the links to the specific posts won't work but scroll down to see a terrific quilt.

7 comments:

  1. I love your new fabric line coming out. It is very peaceful.

    I would definitely do the triangles, sawtooth. flying geese, squares in sashing using the Inklingo method.

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  2. I have always been intimidated by quilts with lots of little triangles. To say my piecing is whonky would be an understatement, lol. I watch the quilts shows and saw Jo Morton sewing and cutting to make more at once, so thought I might try that in some small pieces, to get better at my piecing.

    Debbie

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  3. Just wanted to tell you that I realy like the prints and colors in Lately Arrived From London. Beautiful. I wish more stores were carrying this line.

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  4. I recently finished a quilt like this, you can see it at.

    http://solsticestudio.blogspot.com/2011/08/i-usually-like-quits-with-mostly.htmlhis

    I didn't want to cut up the lovely large print into little pieces and this really is a way to showcase it. Thanks for the suggestions of other ways to sash a large print.

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  5. I tried the previous link and it doesn't work. Just go to solsticestudio.blogspot.com and look for August 19th if you're interested.

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  6. What a great way to showcase a special print. Hmmm, it might be a good way to use one of my toile pieces. Thanks for the inspiration!

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  7. Lovely quilt, lovely fabric. I think it is a good thing to have in our bag of quilting tricks! I frequently fall in love with large scale patterns, but then struggle to show them to their best advantage.

    note to woolen sails- if you are a free piecer, wonky type, like myself, these sashings can be easily managed by piecing them on a narrow foundation and trimming to foundation size after a good pressing. Freddy Moran goes into this in detail in the second book with Gwen Marston. Must have lint in my brain, can't remember book's exact name.

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