I made these quilt blocks in 1986 during my “learning to quilt” phase. Actually, I’m still in that phase. I don’t think we ever stop learning – or, at least, I hope not. The blocks in this wall hanging are each 12″ square and are Grandmother’s Fan, Maple Leaf, Shoo Fly and Basket. I found the
patterns for these blocks in Georgia Bonesteel’s book, “Lap Quilting With Georgia Bonesteel” and hungry to learn everything I could, I followed directions to make these blocks and to quilt them individually prior to putting together the quilt top. This is the book I used, and you can see I tried to wear it out.
In 1996 I got tired of finding a place for these blocks every time I straightened my sewing room (which wasn’t too often) and decided to put them together using Georgia Bonesteel’s method . The blocks were quilted individually, and I must say they were a lot easier to quilt that way. The sashing then had to be layered and quilted separately. I combined the blocks sewing the top fabric of the sashing just to the top fabric of the quilt block to join the top two blocks, then the bottom two blocks, and finally another strip of sashing to join the top blocks to the bottom. To do this, you had to make sure and leave enough fabric on all your pieces for the 1/4″ seam and room to maneuver. Next, the battings had to be evenly butted to each other and were loosely slip stitched together. Then the backing had to be connected by turning under 1/4″ on one side, placed over the opposite fabric slip stitched closed.
Even though the quilting was initially a lot easier on a smaller area, the finishing was much more complicated. In all fairness, this method was meant for a larger quilt. I don’t think a quilt the size of this wall hanging needed to have been done this way. That said, for myself, I would rather piece the entire quilt top, baste it, and then quilt it to save the trouble of putting the individual parts together at the end.
Tidal Creek Quilts 