Spring Wreath Quilt Along: Week 3

Things are starting to come together in this week in the Spring Wreath Quilt Along! We are ready to start piecing the quilt top together. First off, you’ll want to lay out the pieces of the quilt as much as possible. Since it’s a smaller quilt, we were able to fit half of it on our cutting table at a time.

After all of the quilt blocks and other pieces for the rows are laid out, we stack them up in pairs, keeping the seam sides all on the right side. Sew the blocks in each row together.

Press the seams of each row in opposite directions, or press open and pin each intersection. Sew the rows together, and grab the border strips to finish this quilt top. Piece the strips together, then cut to the lengths indicated in the book on page 24.

One of our favorite tips for measuring anything that is longer than a yard is to mark each yard with a pin, then scoot the pin down to the 0″ mark and measure again from there. You will need to subtract 36 from your total size to know where to cut on the mat, but we get great results from this method.

We recommend pinning the border strips to the quilt center before sewing. Here’s how we make sure they are evenly spaced:

We finger press the border strips at half and quarter intervals to match to the corresponding seams of the quilt top. (If a quilt doesn’t have corresponding seams like this one, you would finger press the quilt center at the same intervals and match those up.). Pin at those intervals, then add a pin or two between. Don’t pull the fabrics too tightly while pinning, but make sure it’s as even as possible.

We generally put the borders on the bottom while sewing them on. This make it easier to line up the points of the blocks, and the feed dogs pull the borders through evenly.

Once you have sewn on all four borders, the quilt top is complete!

Lovely!!

You can share your progress in a couple of different ways:

On Instagram: use the #springwreathqal and #theclothparcel hashtags. You can also tag us @theclothparcel. Note that if you have a private Instagram account, we won’t be able to see any of your posts.
In our private Facebook group: you can share photos in a post or in the comments of any of our posts. You can also ask for help or advice there!
On this post: you can leave a comment telling us about how things are going for you.

We would love to see your progress, and every post you make on Instagram, in our Facebook group, or comment on a blog post will earn you an entry into our prize drawing at the end of the quilt along!

Next week, we will finish up this quilt with quilting and binding. Let us know if you have any questions about piecing the quilt top or anything else about the quilt along in the comments.

Don’t forget that our next quilt along for the Paint Box quilt starts on May 30th!