Now we’re about ready to sew some of the blocks together. On
this design, not all the stitches along the outer rounds are not going to add
up exactly, so we’ll have to get a little creative when sewing them together. I
sewed my blocks together by whipstitching through both loops, but if you
prefer, you can go through the back loop only.
Stitch markers or safety pins
are almost a must when sewing this afghan’s mishmash of blocks together,
because you can use them to mark block beginnings and endings.
Because these blocks are 2”, 4”, 6”, 8”, 10” and 12”,
everything is in 2” intervals as you sew them together. So if a block is offset
to its neighbor, it will be by 2”, 4”, and so on.
Say you need to sew the seam indicated in the photo below.
The 4” block lines up with the top of the 6” block, so you’ll measure the 6”
block and place a marker at 4”. Then line the 4” block up between the top of
the 6” block and the marker, and whipstitch together, working in any extra
stitches if one side has more stitches than the other. It works best if you
fudge in the extra stitches in the middle of sewing blocks together, not at the
corners.
All of this probably sounds more complicated than it really
is. I’ve outlined exactly what to do to make the joinings as precise as
possible, but all this really means is fudge a little to make each one fit, and
sew them together. You might want to sew sections of squares together, then sew
the sections together into larger sections. For the very best results, you can steam
block your squares beforehand and block and steam as you sew, steaming little
sections of squares sewn together as you get them done. This is not absolutely
necessary, but it’s what I did with mine so they would look extra nice in the
photos.
