Aboriginal Blocks Assembly

I did my final messing around with these Australian Aboriginal fabrics on the design wall and confirmed with my sister in law that she wants a throw size quilt, so today I started assembling the rows of blocks.

These blocks go together really quickly, but there are a few tricks to make it all work right and easily.

As I wrote in my blog post about this quilt a couple of weeks ago, I add the sashing to each individual block, rather than sewing on long strings of sashing and cornerstones. Here’s what each block looks like when done.

I like assembling the quilt better this way. I just don’t like managing all those long strings of sashing.

To get the assembly going, I start with the lowest row on the quilt, and the first block on the left. Because of the way I’ve made each block, the bottom row of the blocks needs sashing and cornerstones on the bottom of the blocks, and the first block on the left needs sashing and a cornerstone all the way around the block.

Here’s the block for the lower left hand corner of the quilt:

And then each remaining block in the bottom row needs to have the sashing and cornerstone added to the bottom of the block. Then those blocks are added one by one to the block above, moving from left to right.

Here’s what the bottom row looks like:

After this bottom row, the rest of the rows go together more simply and quickly.

For each following row, all you have to do is add a piece of sashing with cornerstone to the left side of the first block so it looks like this:

And then you just add each block to the right hand side of the previous block, one by one, until the row is done.

It’s not a bad idea to give a little thought to what direction you press your seam allowances so that they will nest when you sew the blocks and rows together. It’s not unusual for me to re-press seam allowances so that my seams will nest.

Once this row is done and pressed, sew it to the top of the bottom row and then press.

I have two rows completed. This should all go together really quickly.

I was going to try to get more of it done this weekend, but I ended up going on a hike with two friends yesterday. It was our last hurrah as we’re anticipating that our governor will order us all to stay home in the next day or two. I don’t know what she’s waiting for.

This photo was taken by my friend Carol. It’s the eight dogs who were on the hike with us. The dogs all get along really well and they absolutely love it! My Bender and Rico are on the far left.

We’ve been having such incredible weather… really not typical for Portland in March. But the rains are coming back tomorrow… rain as far as you can see in the forecast. So I’m glad I got some outside time this weekend.

Here’s my favorite photo that I took during the hike. We came around the corner and this is what I saw. It was so magical. I’m so glad we had the chance to get out one more time.