I love the look of crosshatching behind applique and I really love the look when it flows well throughout the quilt. I was able to accomplish this on the perfect specimen last week. Bethany pieced and appliqued a gorgeous Texas themed quilt where crosshatching went perfectly behind the appliques. The crosshatching needed to flow across the quilt as if there were no sashing at all. I loaded the quilt onto my big girl "Betty" and a bit of a "stand and stare" later, I figured out how to make that crosshatching flow. Since I was pretty darn proud of myself for coming up with the math to make this happen, I thought I'd show you all how I did it. I'm sure there was a simpler way to do this, but just ask my husband and sons.....math is not my strong suit (and I'm a quilter, right?).
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The crosshatching flows across the quilt with disregard of the sashings |
My first thought was that I needed the crosshatching to go from corner to corner on all of the blocks. so I marked an X making that flow. This guaranteed that the flow would follow all the way across all blocks. I used the purple disappearing ink marker to mark on this quilt.
After making the X on two squares next to each other, I measured the size of the on point box I had just created between the two. This box measured to be 9.25".
I halved the 9.25" measurement I just got which ended up being 4.625 which in my mind is pretty darn close to 4.5 so that is the measurement I kept. Then I halved 4.5 in order to get the distance between every line, 2.25"
In the end, I would mark the X from corner to corner in each block and then measure and mark 2.25" flowing throughout the block. I made sure that I was lining up with the previous block as well to get that flow I wanted. No crooked lines allowed in crosshatching.
The results were great. I changed my thread color to match each background and this gave me an invisible thread look. I love how this turned out.
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The crosshatching flows across all blocks as if the sashing is not there. |
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Sashing and border quilting done in black. |
My method to the quilting was as follows:
- Mark one block at a time with the purple disappearing marker. In Houston, the humidity really helps take those marks away pretty quick. I always mark what I can finish within the next 15 minutes (or they will have disappeared and I have to remark....no fun).
- I stitched around the applique first, starting at a crosshatched line that would end up at a corner of the block. Once I ended going around the applique, I stitched up to a corner (using a straight ruler template).
- I then stitched around the block using my straight ruler template for the stitch in the ditch.
- After returning back to the corner I started at for the SID, I would then stitch all the crosshatching lines using the straight ruler template. Yes, I would stitch back over the SID and around the applique stitches to get to my next crosshatch line. I do this so I will not have so many start/stops in the block. Thread buildup was not a problem as the spaces were not that big and I found ways to only go over the stitching once. If this were a competition quilt, I would have made a start/stop at each end of line and then bury all my thread tails. (Not one of my favorite things to do).
Viola.....crosshatched blocks flowing across the quilt top.