Welcome to the final week of the Modern Flight Quilt Along!
Now that you have a nice stack of crisp blocks, it’s time to piece them together into your quilt top. If paper piecing was new to you, you’ll be happy to find yourself solidly back in the traditional part of the quilt process.
For this week you’ll need:
- Your Modern Flight pattern.
- Your completed A and B blocks.
- The sashing fabric you cut earlier in the quilt along.
Let’s Get Started!
In a prior week you cut all of your fabric, including the sashing and border pieces you’ll need this week.
We’ll start with the sashing pieces. You can see mine laid out below, in order of which column they’ll be added to.
1: Sew blocks (with paper still on) into columns as per cutting chart.
You can sew the column pieces together in any order you like, but I suggest starting by joining your A/B sets together as outlined in your layout. Then add sashing pieces to create full columns.
Technically it doesn’t matter which direction your A and B blocks are flipped when joining together. However, during testing some quilters found that their points lined up better when they had their blocks facing the same direction (like in the picture below).
2: Remove paper from the back of your blocks.
This can be a tedious process so I recommend putting on your favorite show before you settle in. If you’re new to paper piecing, try a few different strategies when removing your paper. Personally, I start by folding back each piece I’m going to rip off. This helps the paper perforate cleanly on the seam lines so I’m not chasing down random little bits of paper that refused to come off easily. A pair of tweezers can be helpful if you do have little corners or bits where the paper is harder to get off.
3: Sew your columns together.
I like to make a mark in the very center of each column and use that point to line up my columns for joining. You can see an example mark in the picture below. I actually start sewing from that middle point to the end of the column and then flip the quilt over and start again from that middle point to sew the other half of that seam. This helps even out any slight differences in column height you might have from variations in seam allowance and/or stretching.
4: Add your left and right border strips.
Join your border pieces with a diagonal seam and add to the left and right sides of the quilt. You might notice that I skipped these in my versi
4: Add your left and right border strips.
Join your border pieces with a diagonal seam and add to the left and right sides of the quilt. You might notice that I skipped these in my version below. I’m debating leaving them off entirely. I like the skinny look for some reason on this one. Isn’t taking liberties with a pattern fun? I love trying different variations on the same quilt so go wherever your quilting instinct take you!
That’s It! Grab your favorite quilt holder and take some photos so we can all see your work!
Now that you’ve done all the hard work, it’s time for the final prize of the quilt along.
Week 5 Prize Sponsor: Katie @moderntextiles!
Katie is my go-to longarm quilter. If you’ve seen a quilt of mine, Katie probably quilted it. She’s a fellow Minnesotan so you know she’s super nice, right?! Also, she’s professional, quick, precise…you know, all the things you want in a longarm quilter. You can check out her site HERE.
The Prize: Free longarm quilting on one winner’s Modern Flight quilt!
So How Do I Win? To qualify this week, post a photo of your finished quilt top! Be sure to use the #modernflightqal hashtag and post no later than midnight CST on Tuesday, June 1st. You must have a public Instagram account for your post to count!
Longarm Quilting Sponsor
Katie is also our longarm quilting sponsor for the quilt along. She’s offering ALL participants 15% off of the longarm quilting on their finished Modern Flight quilts. Discount is on longarm services only. Any charges for shipping or add on items (batting, etc, etc.) will be at normal prices. You need to have your quilt top to her by August 2, 2021 for the discount to apply so finish those tops!
That’s it. Happy Quilting! I can’t wait to see your completed tops start popping up on Instagram.
– Kate