Andy QAL Weeks 3 & 4: Sew your blocks

It's time to actually start sewing!! And while this post is coming at the end of week 3, beginning of week 4, you're actually doing the same thing both weeks: sew 1/2 your blocks week 3, and sew the second half week 4! 

Once I've sorted my pieces, I take one stack at a time and sew one block at a time...until I hit a rhythm. And then I start chain piecing. Now....I've *written* this pattern, so this makes sense to my brain. But I'm going to try to explain how I do it...

Chain Piecing

Looking at fig. 1 on page 5, I take these two left columns of a block and sew them right sides together (RST). 

Then, without cutting my thread, I chain piece and sew the next block's first two columns in the same manner. I keeeeeppp doing this with all the blocks I'm sewing for that day. 

Next, I take the next column (the center one that's a little bigger), and add those pieces to each corresponding block. 

You'll continue adding these center column pieces to all of the blocks. And then you'll repeat with columns 4 and 5. In doing this, you've sewn all of your rows together and you're ready to sew them together! If you feel like this jumbled things more than helped, you can definitely just sew one block at a time! You might find after you've done that a bit, this method makes more sense to you!!

Pressing

I had a few questions about pressing on these blocks. The pattern calls for pressing seams open, because that's going to be the simplest method. Usually when I'm writing a pattern that is ideal for beginners, I like to keep things as clean as possible without a lot of disclaimers that can make things murky. But! If you're one of those who loves nesting your seams and pressing to the side, I got you...but only if your fabrics aren't really directional. I can't get my brain to give a directional-fabric-friendly pressing method. If you have one, email me!

But here's what I've come up with...

Once you've sewn your rows together, press your seams towards your sashing fabric as shown below. Then you can nest those seams together and keep those points nice and tight. 

To press the seams on the block, press the rows seams *away* from the rows that begin and end with sashing pieces, like below. 

This makes the top and bottom seams pressed in the opposite direction as the side seams...and now, when it's time to sew your blocks together, you can rotate them to make them nest. But more on that for next week when we sew our tops together! 

For now, I hope this helps get you going. My favorite thing is to find something fun to listen to while I plug away on the stack. For this one, I binged the Mistletoe Murders on Audible. Kinda fun, kinda dramatic. Made the sewing fun. :) 

Have fun sewing, friends!! See you next week with the final step!