Sewing Blocks Together

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.